The Voices In Your Head

Voices in My Head
Throughout recorded history people have claimed that they heard voices in their head. Are the voices a sign of madness or did the prophets of ancient times really hear God speak – and is there a scientific explanation? This Channel 4 documentary explores the issues.

In the modern world, the experience of 'hearing voices' is usually diagnosed as madness – a meaningless manifestation of a disordered mind. Historically, though, it was understood as spiritual or inspirational.

No one sought to suppress the voices that inspired William Blake's artistic genius or the words that Moses believed came from God, giving the world the Ten Commandments. But today, that is precisely what much psychiatry attempts to do.

I think this is a fascinating topic, are voices simply a sign of madness, mental illness such as schizophrenia, something from high above (heaven or equivalent) or maybe even far below (hell or equivalent), or something the world of science can explain.

To start with hearing voices isn't as uncommon as you think, according to the research of the Dutch psychologists Marius Romme and Sandra Escher, between 2% and 4% of the population hear voices, when only one third of them become actual mental patients, this leaves a whole two thirds of that 2% to 4% to exist within everyday society, the person sitting right next to you now could hear voices and not be sharing the fact.

Voices can effect people of any standing, the mathematician Francoise Chatelin and Pianist John Lill both claim to hear voices in their head which they both say help them in their field of ability.

The scientific model for hearing voices is designed around “mental models”, the brain creates mental models to simulate things in the world around us, the ability to put yourself in someone elses shoes.

These mental models however can come to life so to speak, often through high levels of stress or mental anguish, the mental model speaking out as if it were a living personality of its own.

The channel 4 source helpfully gives a good example of this:

Voices in My Head
Some scientists draw a parallel with forecasting the weather by creating a virtual weather system. The system is designed to have autonomy, so running the model produces results that the meteorologist wouldn't and couldn't have predicted on their own.

Discuss


Associated Links from Source
Hearing Voices Network
Mental Health Foundation
Mind
Samaritans

I hear voices in my head...

they tell me to kill and burn things, I like them, they're my friends...

j/k

yeah most people who hear voices are either schizophrenic or are just under the influence of drugs

If you take drugs THEN hear voices it means that you just weren't aware of them before you took the drug.

There's sure a lot of examples of brilliant people that heard voices, but I don't think it's ever really a good thing. At all! People can be moved to do things and it's just part of some psychotics mind-control plan. Think for yourself!

I'm diagnosed schizo-affective bi-polar - and I hear voices without medications.

Ever since I was a child, I had an "inner voice" that would help me work through issues and provide counsel.

When I turned 24, however - my "inner dialouge" seemed to disappear and was replaced by all sorts of negative commentary and ruthless insults. It through me off balance so severely that I was unable to function in daily life, and retreated to a more monastic lifestyle in hopes of keeping them at bay.

While it is true the "voices" are more relaxed when I am at home and not in public, they still sometimes surface - regardless of whether or not my meds are current.

No one has ever been able to give me a solid answer as to why this is.

The doctors say it's a chemical imbalance, yet I have a hard time understanding why something as simple as that would yield a host of argumentative and belittling comments that sometimes go on for days without cessation.

Also - I know it's the "trend" to laugh and make fun of "schizos" - but if you've ever walked in our shoes, you would realize it's not a lighthearted subject.

I wish more reasearch was designed to actually show the connection between the "voices" within the brain and the auditory senses. For now, the majority of us who undergo this disability face nothing more than a convienent label, medications and the continuing ridicule and condemnation of an overly insensitive public.

It's a serious and life affecting issue for millions of people, but we are made to feel as if our lives don't matter in the slightest by countless ill-informed others.

yeah most people who hear voices are either schizophrenic or are just under the influence of drugs

Personally - I hope you never have to experience this condition, Moose.

And for the record, I am entirely drug free and my voices never tell me to harm anyone - or myself - they just gibber away and throw out insults like a third grade child with an inferiority complex.

It's maddening trying to deal with routine life and hear these things every moment. It interferes with concentration and can sometimes make normal conversation completely impossible.

I too hear voices of the thoughts that come thru. I don't think they are demon's or the like, but I do know that when my self-conciuos awareness speaks to me, it is usually the time to evaluate the situation at hand and come to proper decission for the best possible outcome of the situation. I believe it falls into the category of "Corrective Thinking" and the over all rule of "Choices and Consequences" of the particular incident thats about ready to take place with my power of a "Choice", So, I guess you could say I do hear voice's in my head, but for the most part, they are for my own perception of the outcome's of the choice I make , in the longrun of thing's too come.IMO.

Interesting topic for a thread, it could very well enlighten somebody out there that is having trouble with interpruting these thing's that sometimes happen to individuals for proper lesson's of knowing one's self and being able to evaluate the different outcomes of the set incident.

Voices IMO stem from a mental war against ones-self, ... It preys on the weakness of the victim attacking them through the holes in their defence... like enforcing or rather re-enforcing negative or sometimes even positive thoughts , "You're a lazy stupid idiot", "Why Did you say that, God your dumb", "If you weren't so fat you'd be able to do that", "Don't Bother you're too ugly"... or even "You're hott go ahead, he/she'll do it.." etc...

One of my friends has tourette syndrome... and depending on his person critique some of his compulsions are eliminated... u could go over his triggers over and over and still he wouldn't respond... until he felt some sort of a inferiority or vise versa it was re-enforcing his character.

I wonder if people could be liberated somehow ..

Brain Chemistry is a product of our thoughts as well as conditioning our thoughts.. So could a new drastic thought "believed" cure a person?

dnero6911,
you had stated:
One of my friends has tourette syndrome... and depending on his person critique some of his compulsions are eliminated... u could go over his triggers over and over and still he wouldn't respond... until he felt some sort of a inferiority or vise versa it was re-enforcing his character.

Now, that tourettes syndrome is a very sad disability to have, you have to make an aquired balance of the statement that you are making. For instance, the topic of discussion is more of the realms of Meta-physical and not so much on the physical. As I had said in my previous post, "I believe it to be the ability to correctly think a situation out before the cause and effect are to take place, it is the power of "GOOD" choices that have the most preferred outcome for the individual at hand." We all have some part of emotion to deal with in our live's ,but there are those as well that continue thru thier lives continually screwing up over and over again. If they were to be on the right "Train of Thought", they would realize that either not learning from thier mistakes or choose to ignore the other outcomes from the simple power of choice's and that there other outcomes than just "Bad Ones." The voices I hear in my head are the reflection's of what I am truly capable of doing, both to myself and other's, I have prooven it time and time again that a "Properly thoughtout scenario is more apted to create a very acceptable outcome from your couragous thought processess". I am no shrink and I am definately not a nuerologist, but I am a human being with an individual thought process, from there, it is up to me to either weigh the cards correctly, or be spontaneous and take the chance of getting something that I wasn't bargaining for. Hence, "Self-concience-awareness (i.e. The little voice in my head) and out comes"

People interested in this phenomena might enjoy Julian Jaynes's book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. I haven't read it since grad school, but in it he argues that in ancient times people heard voices, often thought to be gods, because the two sides of the brain had not yet cognitively "fused," so that one side of the brain talked to the other, and thus people heard voices.

He even claims that the breakdown of this bicameral mind can be seen in the historical transition between the writing of the Iliad and the Odyssey, with the Iliad showing the unfused mind, and the Odyssey showing how the mind fuses. The characters of the Iliad are supposedly more integrated with the action of the gods, while those of the Odyssey are seen as more separate and at conflict with them.

When it came out (in the mid 70s I think) it was goofed on for being rather eccentric, but is now being seen as a forerunner of what would develop as cognitive science.

I watched this the other week and found it really interesting. Is it a series do you know or was it a one off program?

Socrates believed (knew) that he had a eudimonia (bad spelling).. a voice that said something to him right before he did something wrong.. It never spoke otherwise, only when he was about to make a big mistake. (He stayed in prison in Athens even while knowing that he was going to die.. he logically understood why, and his voice never spoke up otherwise.) Back then, it was accepted. Of course, his voice never caused him to hurt anyone or himself..

I had the same problem of hearing a voice that constantly nagged, insulted, and darn near broke me / my 'self'.. I've never been diagnosed with anything, and drugs (ill/legal) make no difference.. sometimes emotions play a part, but not always. I could be having a wonderful day, hear someone snickering, think 'that must have been a funny joke'.. then I hear 'yeah, about you...' and my happiness is shattered. (I've since learned to make myself a visual spectacle, and to be completely neutral about things in general.. If I look like I should be the butt of a joke, and don't let myself give a hoot.. then the voice can't say anything because I'm already expecting it and don't care.) ((... seems bass-ackwards.. I know. So far, it's working..))

However, General Eyes.. is the voice that you hear different from the voice that you speak with? Mine never was.. It's my own voice, just mean.. so I'm still not sure if that's me messing with me.. or my brain just using a pre-recorded (well known) voice to deliver it's degrading message..

the voices call me names, and make me feel blue. I gave them names. they talk to me depending of my mood. I also have more moodswings than a teenage girl. that's never a good thing. If There's something good going on, then They will say you know it will end soon. and it's depressing sometimes. And if there's something bad happening they will try to cheer me up. or they try to bring me down even further. I do not know my diagnosis but my my mom is Bi-Polar, schizophrenic and other things that even im not sure about. I just wish that they would shut the # up sometimes. it's driving me up the #ing wall. when i walk down the halls at school i feel as if every eye is on my, laughing, judging, tormenting, and even still I just clench my books harder and walk on.
dnero this may seem off topic but are you overweight?


[edit on 5-7-2006 by Ford Farmer]