
People Who Hear Voices Could Be on to Something - pmcpinto
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/psychics-hearing-voices/531582/?single_page=true
======
sharkweek
Watching Anderson Cooper try a schizophrenia simulator is one of the most
stress-inducing things I've ever seen. I'll occasionally hear a voice here and
there (I guess this is somewhat common?), but am able to normally brush it
off. I couldn't imagine living daily with this much noise.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL9UJVtgPZY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL9UJVtgPZY)

One thing of note, found in the YouTube comments, that this example is pretty
generic voices, and instead for someone suffering with schizophrenia, imagine
having the voice be very specific about the individual, attacking known issues
("Your parents don't love you!" "You're so stupid and everyone thinks you're a
failure!"). I can't imagine that level of suffering...

~~~
vpribish
That was remarkably well done. Actually a great use of a celebrity reporter!
thanks for sharing it.

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skc
But there is always a voice talking in our heads. It's just that we generally
ascribe it to our own consciousness but when you really sit down and think
about it, it's a bit creepy when you realise that you don't actually know
where it's coming from and what is prompting it to say what it is saying.

~~~
hacker_9
You should try meditation. Effectively you 'stop' listening to the voice and
then things all go a bit crazy. The voice talks to itself, memories become
really vivid, hallucinations can happen too. And all while you just observe
what is going on. Can be quite fun.

~~~
simon83
I can confirm this. I wasn't able to get into meditation on my own, and so I
took the more extreme route and visited a dedicated 10 day Vipassana mediation
course.

The effects were incredible and lasted for quite some time even after the
course. It's hard to explain, but they teach you to be more empathetic and to
listen to the "vibrations" in your body. Once the course was over and I was
back in the real world my body was vibrating (not visibly of course) like
crazy when I was interacting with other people, simply due to my happiness and
love for everything, everyone and the whole universe. I know this sounds like
some crazy new age foo, but it's really not.

All in all this was one of the hardest, but also best experiences in my life.
Unfortunately once I got back home, daily life and stress took over and I
stopped meditating. But I plan to visit another course again as soon as I can,
and then I will try to stick with regular mediation. I can highly recommend
this.

~~~
daveguy
When I was younger I used to be able to separate the sensation of what my
hands were feeling from the location of my hands or the material they were
actually feeling. Mainly on fabric.

I guess the best way to describe it -- it's as if the surface of my palm was
like a hundred fingertips rather than a single palm. When the sensation first
happened it freaked me out. I didn't know what was going on and couldn't stop
it because it was just scary. Then for a while I could flip it on and off like
a switch.

Every once in a while that state of interpreting sensation from my hand will
switch on randomly as I am falling asleep. I wonder if this is related to this
type of meditation or a tactile rather than auditory sensory hallucination.

~~~
simon83
I can't really answer your question, I'm no expert in this field, but I can
tell you that I did experiment with lucid dreaming/out of body experience
techniques in the past and this usually involved the strangest body
sensations. So what you describe may be similar.

I never really succeeded, but I had a few, very short OOBEs. They only lasted
a few seconds because I always got too excited the moment I realized it
finally happened, and so I immediately woke up.

When you say this happens randomly when you are falling asleep, then this
sounds to me a bit like the start of an OOBE.

Here is what I did and felt when I tried to experience an OOBE: lay down
comfortably and try to let your body fall asleep. Take deep breaths, observe
your body and look out for certain sensations, try to focus on the here and
now so that the mind stays awake. Most of the time I just fell asleep and woke
up in the morning, without remembering anything.

But if you stay focused enough, you may start to feel and hear some kind of
vibrations in your body, which may intensify if you stay focused. This phase
is usually referred to as the "separation of the mind from the body". Once the
vibrations are over, and you stay focused, you may start to get the feeling of
"floating" and other strange body sensations. Sometimes it felt like my feet
started to float, then my legs, and finally my whole body. If you are really
good at this then you can try to "open" your eyes and look around. It may be
really dark at first, but with enough focus you can literally say "let there
be light".

I was only once at this stage, my body started to float, and I "opened" my
eyes after a while when I suddenly "saw" the ceiling right in front of my
face. I got so excited that I immediately got "sucked" back into my body, and
then I woke up.

Nothing really happens in the physical world, an observer will see you falling
asleep, but the whole experience always feels so damn real, the beginning is
almost always the same and many people can confirm this. It's incredible and
fascinating. Unfortunately I never got really good at this and I lost
motivation. I was around 17-18 back then and seeking for the meaning of life.

Another fascinating part is that there is no real scientific explanation for
this phenomenon. Of course it's usually labeled as some kind of dream state,
or just a chemical reaction in our brains.

It depends on who you ask, but for some people this is esoteric nonsense and
just simple dreams, for others this is the gateway to a another
reality/dimension/quantum world. Personally I have no idea and never figured
it out, and I don't care anymore. I got older and I have other problems now,
like paying my bills. But it's still fascinating stuff and I like to think
back about it every now and then. The internet is full of information and
reports about this topic, some serious, some less serious.

Anyway, thanks for making me remember about all of this, after a very long
time. It was a fun experience.

~~~
fao_
> there is no real scientific explanation for this phenomenon. Of course it's
> usually labeled as some kind of dream state, or just a chemical reaction in
> our brains.

Which... is actually most likely. A couple of times I've fallen asleep and
still had knowledge of my surroundings -- I could tell what was a dream and
what wasn't, and feel when my limbs were getting numb (Normally in sleep you'd
move them, but _I_ had to move them in this state. I also wasn't very happy to
because that just wrests you out of the experience), but also feel when I
stopped breathing (And spend a couple of minutes wresting myself awake in
terror...).

What would make that explanation a 'real' explanation, exactly? If it _is_ an
_actual_ out of body experience, what evidence would you expect from that? The
most science will be able to tell us -- at best -- is that they noticed a
change in so and so part of the brain or that our brainwaves go a little
fuzzy, and oh, when we stimulate such and such part of the brain with a small
electrical current we can duplicate the exact process.

To which people would just say that, while that is interesting and all, the
ability to provoke it with electricity doesn't prove that it isn't an actual
out of body experience (Of course, if we can do that, we can check for parity
between what the subject experienced and what was actually happening -- but
this will probably be met with limited success because they will probably
ignore the fact that the brain can _hear_ the surroundings...)

~~~
simon83
Like I said, I really don't expect to find the "true" answer to all this. My
point was basically that our current scientific knowledge may not be able to
explain everything. We can observe the brain and see what's happening, but the
brain and the mind is still a big mystery in science (as far as I know, it's
been so many years when I read about this stuff).

And I believe you immediately, without checking first, when you say that
electricity can provoke such experience. In my youth I was also interested in
brain wave states and how to "manipulate" them with binaural beats, for
example. So it seems plausible to me that electricity can provoke a change in
the current brain wave state, and thus induce OOBE like experiences. I think
there was even a Kickstarter campaign or something for a device which was
supposed to aid in experiencing lucid dreams. It also worked by inducing some
electricity, as far as I remember.

------
occultist_throw
I've trained myself how to do this. Sure, call them psychics. I usually
attribute them as having an innate ability to do this.

As for me, there are schools of magic that teach how to develop this. I didn't
believe at first, but with enough "coincidences", I accepted it tentatively.

I still seek for a way to harmonize this with science proper. But most people
are too caustic and closed-off to even give this a consideration.

There are really 2 options:

1\. Everything is purely physical. When you die, you are worm food, the end.
Many people 'believe' this, given no proof of either way.

2\. The other option is that there is some unknown type of "energy" (boy, do I
hate that word, BTW). And our bodies are some sort of receiver. Some times, we
can receive other stuff. It would also explain out of body experiences, dreams
that feel like more, feeling people watching you, near-death experiences,
parents being able to sense when their child's hurt at a distance, and other
things. How does this work? No bloody clue.

If everything's simply physical, then who cares? You're worm food anyways. The
second offers much more - some people can communicate with it. So, how does it
work? How can I receive it, say, from a computer receiver? How do I transmit?
How do I view it?

But hostiles will be hostiles, well, until we start seeing more "Science of
Consciousness" work. Then finally, we can bring the Occult and Psychism to
science proper.

\------------------------------

(EDIT: Wow, again, another mod-storm. It seems the staunch atheists and
antitheists are going at this thread with a vengeance.

I'm only highlighting 'interesting' phenomenon, for a possibility others might
find something interesting and share their findings. You know, it's kind of
how science works. Well, unless it's an echo-chamber filled with sycophants
repeating their own religious dictates that 'the occult and psychism doesnt
exist'. I know the path I understand it, but it is unprovable to others.
Tl;Dr: study of N=1.

I'll wait for you deniers to explain consciousness. I'll be waiting.)

~~~
muninn_
And that's what we call Religion.

~~~
occultist_throw
Really? Looking for science given enough anecdotes is now "religion"? I spoke
of no deities, no dictates, no 'holy orders'. But you know, I'm sure that
everything has been invented and there is nothing new...

How fitting, given someone naming themselves after Norse deity Odin's raven
Muninn, meaning 'Mind'.

------
moomin
It's fairly easy to trick yourself into hearing voices: as you're going to
sleep, picture yourself watching a newsreader. Keep watching them talk.
Eventually your brain starts to switch to sleep mode and you actually start
hearing something. (Well, you might fall asleep first.) If you're conscious
enough it'll surprise the heck out of you and then the voice will go away.

Given how easy it is to pull this trick on yourself, I'm not entirely shocked
that some people find it possible without conscious effort. But I think the
content is rather like dreams: sometimes it's just nonsense, sometimes it's
like that idea that comes to you in the shower, but always part of your brain
processing your waking experiences.

~~~
ltwdm
How do you imagine the content the newsreader is supposed to read? Isn't it
hard to produce random coherent content in your mind?

~~~
wayn3
no. the mind, when at ease - when you truly do not try to think a particular
thing - will do its own thing. just like when you're dreaming.

deep neural networks have no trouble producing random but coherent content,
either.

------
microwavecamera
I'm sorry, as a schizophrenic I'm calling bullshit on this one. Psychics?
Seriously people? How about adequate treatment programs and access to
affordable medication.

~~~
ltwdm
I agree,but isn't the article a good step towards educating the public about
the nuances of these diseases? I think the spectrum is so broad, and maybe it
will help the people with milder symptoms at it's tail end by making the
society more receptive. I have a relative who is scheizophrenic and I can't
stress how important it is to make people aware, and enable them to see from a
compassionate angle. To me this article goes in the same direction as the
remarkable article done years ago by Rachel Aviv [1] To me we need more like
this. And also the article does mention how the researchers stress on proper
diagnosis and treatment.

[1] http ://www.columbia.edu/cu/neuwrite/pubs/avivHarpers.pdf

~~~
microwavecamera
Got busy, just got a chance to respond. I'm all about raising awareness and
have experienced first hand the stigma of having a mental disorder like
schizophrenia. It's not fun. The stigmatization or the condition. In fact,
being schizophrenic is nothing short of extensional horror. Associating a
metal disorder, like schizophrenia, with "psychics", I feel would only further
stigmatize people with mental disorders and lessen the seriousness of the
condition to the public. I would find it disheartening that someone would get
the idea that talking to a psychic would somehow improve the condition of a
person with a mental disorder. We need to raise awareness about these things
but people need to be aware of the woeful lack the available treatment
programs and the high cost of medication the prevents us from getting better,
not that a "psychic" could somehow help in any way.

------
bitwize
C-f Jaynes

Nothing.

Modern psychology needs to come to grips with _The Origin of Consciousness in
the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_. A trove of riches for anyone interested
in practical psychology.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
That's like saying that archaeology needs to come to grips with Erich von
Däniken. It's not as if modern scholars are oblivious to Jaynes’ ideas. They
_have_ been examined, but they have been found wanting.

~~~
anigbrowl
His (tentative and ancillary) neurological conjectures haven't worked out. The
main ideas have not been engaged with or found wanting;there is no prevailing
theory of consciousness, and psychology as taught and practiced in the US is
laughably reductionistic and has never shaken off the influence of
behaviorism. Western science treats the brain as an organ amounting to little
more than a set of synaptic reflexes to be either drugged or trained. A
'healthy' mind is is equated with an untroubled economically productive one,
and there's no real theory of experience or identity.

Thinkers like Sacks, Dennett, and Hofstatder are well-respected but have
little visible influence on the practice of psychology, and the field as a
whole is treated as a sideshow in the intellectual carnival. Admittedly the Us
does not have a strong public intellectual discourse so I may be looking
innovative thinkers who are confined to the academy and have difficulty
reaching a wider audience.

------
ltwdm
Interesting research on how hallucinations relate to "an increase in tiny
movements in the muscles associated with vocalization".

Maybe the movements and the brain activity causing that happen first, and the
"consciousness" just try to interpret that in the best way it can.(I think
there are some patterns here that is much like the "interpretations" described
in the split brain studies [1]). When the signals get too weird and does not
fit in to any interpretation that is defined as "normal", we go into the
Schizophrenia territory.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/split-
bra...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/split-brain-
research-sperry-gazzaniga)

------
0898
When I was a child (5 or 6) I remember often hearing voices – sometimes
muttering, sometimes shouting angrily. It was often when I was sick, or
suffering from a fever. It stopped happening I guess, but I still wonder if
that's normal?

~~~
notvplez
This happened to me during my childhood fevers as well. Multiple voices more
or less simultaneously saying the same thing, like a group of people
whispering in a room, at times growing louder, more insistent, angrier, in the
end shouting. Almost forgot about it until I experienced something similar
during my brief experimentation with salvia divinorum in my early twenties,
though this time the voices sounded somewhat unified and much less like an
angry mob, more like some kind of incredulous medieval choir reciting lines
about what I was doing while not having any of it.

Fast forward twenty years and the angry insistent mob decided to once more pay
me a visit during a sleepless and feverish night, this was about a month ago.
Not sure if normal, I'm definitely not, but I've never heard or seen anyone
mention this phenomenon in a way I could relate to until you just did.

~~~
0898
Yes, exactly that – the voices started out whispering, but would culminate in
rage. Interesting, I wonder if there's a name for this.

------
justinpombrio
EDIT: Wrong article!

> Overall the machine works well but I’m still not happy with the hopper and
> the first stage belt. It is running much slower than the speed at which the
> parts recognizer works (30 parts / second) and I really would like to come
> up with something better.

It sounds like your existing hopper is reliable but slow? If that's the case,
could you just make two (perhaps somewhat smaller) hoppers and merge their
outputs?

~~~
orf
Am I.. seeing... voices or is this comment about the Lego sorting machine?

~~~
dgacmu
> A lot of time on that blog was spent mocking purely aesthetic features of
> the homes and I feel like if you like the aesthetic then there is not much
> else to consider.

In fairness, the blogger spends a lot of time going into the philosophy
underlying architectural aesthetics. For example:
[http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/post/161514422581/mmh-
does-a...](http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/post/161514422581/mmh-does-
architectural-theory-part-5-empiricism)

------
sreeramvenkat
This seems related to Karna Yakshini in Hindu mysticism - a being that
whispers in ears.

------
crispytx
Rule #1 of Mental Illness: If God starts talking to you, it's not God.

------
muninn_
Carl Sagan talks a little bit about Schizophrenia in his book Dragons of Eden.
I've held for a long time now that what we experience as "consciousness" is
just an evolutionary adaptation and what we call Schizophrenia is this same
adaptation just gone a little haywire. I believe animals, mammals in
particular, are fundamentally no different in this regard, it's just that the
sophistication of their inner voice is likely to just be far inferior to ours
due to our brain/body ratio and the development of the neocortex in humans.
For me, personally, I feel that when I speak to myself in my head, the inner-
chatter I think of as consciousness, I also feel as though I'm speaking words
through my mouth, I'm just not using it. Maybe language also has something to
do with it? Maybe we developed language and "consciousness" together?

Just a pet personal theory, could be likely very wrong and I'm sure since this
is the Internet somebody will be happy to oblige.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
" Maybe we developed language and "consciousness" together?"

I read/watched something some time back. It used to be believed that folks
that couldn't hear - and therefore, couldn't talk - also had low IQ's. It
turned out this can be correct _if_ folks aren't taught sign language early in
life. It went on to refer to language as the program that lets us run
consciousness.

So yeah, you are probably onto something. Language and consciousness, if not
developed together, definitely seem to go hand in hand.

------
sillysaurus3
Talking through a problem in my head is the most natural way to solve it for
me. I've always wondered if that counts as hearing voices. Especially because
sometimes it's hard to shut off at night when I need to go to sleep.

~~~
yoodenvranx
> Especially because sometimes it's hard to shut off at night when I need to
> go to sleep.

I recently realized that listening to a "boring" podcast or youtube videos
while trying to fall asleep will shut down all those voices and thoughts.

~~~
probablybroken
Yes - I've used ASMR videos for the same purpose; Gently varying sounds seem
to be enough to suppress the internal dialogue for me.

------
xyzzy4
If you want to hear voices, just take 400-500mg of Benadryl. Enough to
hallucinate, not enough to hospitalize you.

------
FrozenVoid
Voices can be blocked by changing brain frequency with binaural
beats(brainwave entrainment). Brain is at etheric level a radio receiver.

~~~
jamiek88
What does 'etheric level' mean?

~~~
FrozenVoid
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etheric_body](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etheric_body)

------
pcunite
You can hear God speaking to you in your mind if you'll make the effort to
pray to Him. However, what He responds back with will _never_ contradict his
written word (Bible).

People claim God told them to go kill a famous person. What they actually
heard was from the devil. They already had some internal reason to want to do
the crime anyway.

~~~
jackmott
This is nonsense tautological reasoning. The written word isn't even
consistent with itself. Grow up.

~~~
pcunite
I've been studying the Bible as if it was a programming book. Kinda like code
for how to live~think. I've found it perfectly consistent when taken all in
together. You have to understand the different dispensations being referenced
therein.

It's really been amazing to actually put it into practice. Take being humble
for example. Why would I do that?! Well, it is a concept the Bible mandates.
So, I've taken to doing that. I now fully realize how truly stupid I am where
previously I felt so smart. I can learn from others much better now.

