Some People Like Haring Voices, And It May Be More Common Tha Previously Thought.

For some people, hearing voices in their heads is a positive experience,
not a sign of mental illness or cause for distress.
Researchers at the University of Manchester are aiming to find out why.
Traditionally these auditory hallucinations, as psychologists call them,
are associated with mental illness.
They can be a symptom of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and sometimes depression.

But studies by Dutch researchers that began in the 1990s found that
some healthy people also regularly hear voices.
The scientists ran a program on Dutch television asking for volunteers
who heard voices, and they got a surprising response. Many of the people
who contacted them did not find the voices disruptive and had never felt
the need to consult mental health services. Some even said they found
the experience to be positive or inspirational.

The resulting studies found that more people might hear voices than
psychologists had thought, perhaps around 4 percent of the population.

Campbell hopes that learning what triggers different reactions could help
develop new psychological therapies to help people—at least those who
don't like the phenomenon—to cope with the voices.


SOURCE:
LiveScience.com

I'm never sure where to put these kind of articles, so yeah, if a staff member feels it belongs
in Health & Wellness, feel free to move it.

I honestly never expected that there would be people who
liked hearing voices.
Though I did figure the percent who do was higher than
currently thought.


Comments, Opinions?

[edit on 9/15/2006 by iori_komei]