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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 13 of 13. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by ttt on November 11, 2001, at 11:44:38
Has anyone heard voices or sound and proven the it is not schizophrenia?
Most psychiatrist would label this paranoia on top of schizophenia and therefore reenforcing their schizophrenia diagnosis. But rationally and logically, it is a legitimate concern.
Posted by pathetic_n_useless on November 11, 2001, at 15:01:50
In reply to hearing voices is not schizophreniac?, posted by ttt on November 11, 2001, at 11:44:38
Not personally although a friend who heard them wasdiagnosed as having psychotic depression. Hearing voices is not purely a symptom of schizophrenia.
> Has anyone heard voices or sound and proven the it is not schizophrenia?
>
> Most psychiatrist would label this paranoia on top of schizophenia and therefore reenforcing their schizophrenia diagnosis. But rationally and logically, it is a legitimate concern.
Posted by ttt on November 11, 2001, at 20:04:48
In reply to Re: hearing voices is not schizophreniac?, posted by pathetic_n_useless on November 11, 2001, at 15:01:50
> Not personally although a friend who heard them wasdiagnosed as having psychotic depression. Hearing voices is not purely a symptom of schizophrenia.
>
>
>
> > Has anyone heard voices or sound and proven the it is not schizophrenia?
> >
> > Most psychiatrist would label this paranoia on top of schizophenia and therefore reenforcing their schizophrenia diagnosis. But rationally and logically, it is a legitimate concern.Could it be psychological problem or something else? Could it be ear's problem? Could it be problem from exposing monotonic noise for too long and it tends to make voice? Could it be creative imagination especially when people fear of something or worry too much about something? Could it simply be when people simply get too tired mentally? Or could simply be some sort of noise or sound? You might think I am crazy or hysterical but I ran accross some web pages that describe about creating voice in thin air. Now this sounds paranoia but it is deffinitely not psychotic paranoia. I know if people do not have much religous belief, they might be paranoid but this is reasonable. I just don't know.
Posted by ttt on November 11, 2001, at 20:37:04
In reply to Re: hearing voices is not schizophreniac?, posted by pathetic_n_useless on November 11, 2001, at 15:01:50
Hi pathetic_n_useless,
sorry if this upset you.
Posted by pathetic_n_useless on November 11, 2001, at 20:51:11
In reply to Re: hearing voices is not schizophreniac?, posted by ttt on November 11, 2001, at 20:37:04
no doesnt upset me at all!
not in the slightest!
I hear 'noise' when i get stressed out and I think you can hear voices for the same reason. It's something to do with chemicals produced. I did know all about it but right now I'm too low to think, sorry, let alone explain> Hi pathetic_n_useless,
> sorry if this upset you.
Posted by Anna Laura on November 11, 2001, at 21:12:25
In reply to hearing voices is not schizophreniac?, posted by ttt on November 11, 2001, at 11:44:38
> Has anyone heard voices or sound and proven the it is not schizophrenia?
>
> Most psychiatrist would label this paranoia on top of schizophenia and therefore reenforcing their schizophrenia diagnosis. But rationally and logically, it is a legitimate concern.I know for sure that hearing voices can be a feature of a major depression episode.
It happened to me and to other people to hear voices while under stress.
Posted by Mitchell on November 12, 2001, at 17:10:19
In reply to hearing voices is not schizophreniac?, posted by ttt on November 11, 2001, at 11:44:38
> Has anyone heard voices or sound and proven the it is not schizophrenia?
The idea that "schizophrenics hear voices" arises from a subjective approach to the diagnosis of mental problems, developed during years before science enjoyed a more accurate understanding of neurology. The symptom of "hearing voices" typically associated with schizophrenia involves interpretation of auditory sensation. Schizophrenia, as a pattern of symptoms, is now believed to relate to difficulty in regulating the flood of signals available to the cerebrum at the thalamus.
We are all exposed to a flood of auditory, visual and other sensual information, from both internal and external sources. For most of us, experience has trained cerebral networks to selectively attenuate and interpret these signals in a way that society has agreed to call rational. But we still see and hear far more than we attenuate - we hear neighbors voices through the walls and though we might not know if they are fighting or playing a game, we might reach a conclusion based on previous experiences. We think we can at once see all of the words on a page, but we only attend to the word or phrase we are reading at a given moment. In our field of vision, only a very small conical area in front of our pupil is the product of immediate attention. The rest is a hybrid of vague, imprecise visual input and our recollection - or our confabulation - based on our experience.
There are numerous conditions that can contribute to fallacious interpretation of sensory data in an otherwise sound mind. In Chemistry of Conscious States, Dr. J. Allan Hobson recounts how a strange environment or fatigue can temporarily rend the fabric of reality in even the most sophisticated minds.
As a practical matter, the frequency and depth of these breaches of rational interpretation can be a guide for measuring the degree of a psychopathology. But in the social circumstances of the modern mental health care system, there is ample opportunity for clinical personnel to elicit reports of "hearing voices" from clients who might occasionally suffer illusions or confabulation as a result of fatigue, malnutrition, social disorientation or a common low-grade chronic infection such as gingivitis. As we have seen with "regression" hypnosis procedures that elicited implausible reports of satanic ritual abuse, past life experiences or alien abductions, a clinical analyst can sometimes get a patient to report what the analyst expects to discover.
Any decision about medication for symptoms of schizophrenia should include consideration not only of whether a person "hears voices" but of the frequency, circumstance and reaction to those voices.
Posted by Mitchell on November 12, 2001, at 17:29:30
In reply to hearing voices is not schizophreniac?, posted by ttt on November 11, 2001, at 11:44:38
In that last post I discussed primarily external stimulus and suggested that clinical relationships can effect a person's report that they are "hearing voices." It is also important to consider the matter of internal dialogue. Some of our internal dialogue seems to involve sub-vocalizations. In some cases, an individual's reports of voices can relate to internal dialogue. As we think about a situation, we tend to recruit the service of the same neural networks used in language, speech and hearing.
Experts occupy widely divergent positions regarding this matter, but it is safe to say that in some cases, an individual might refuse to claim parts of an internal dialogue. A person might say "voices" told them to act maliciously, when in reality, the voice was the person's own sub-vocalized dialogue. We expect people to listen to their own conscience, but we seldom call people schizophrenic when they say the voice of their own conscience guided their actions. In popular symbolism, these internal voices are occasionally depicted as the devil or an angel sitting on a shoulder or hovering about a person's head. Whether a symptom of hearing voices is a matter of misinterpreting external signals, confabulation based on internal signals, or a refusal, failure or inability to claim internal dialogue could potentially inform choices of appopriate medication, or selection of other therapuetic approaches.
Posted by judy1 on November 12, 2001, at 17:50:33
In reply to hearing voices is not schizophreniac?, posted by ttt on November 11, 2001, at 11:44:38
I've had auditory hallucinations and been told it was a psychotic symtom, in my case part of bipolar disorder. Take care- judy
Posted by ttt on November 14, 2001, at 19:21:02
In reply to Re: hearing voices is not schizophreniac? » ttt, posted by judy1 on November 12, 2001, at 17:50:33
I'm still confused. If you misterpret external noises and think that it might means something based on your knowledge or memory or experience, would this be a schizophrenia? Would Dr. prescribe medication for this?
I know one time I listen to a CD and picked up some voices that seemed to have sublininal effect. I replayed that seconds many time over and there it was every time. At first, I tend to interpret it as some words but listened so carefully, it was some sound mixed in the music. It could be a glitch in bad recording since it was MP3 from the web. Is my sensitivity a form of schizophrenia?
Posted by Tony P on November 16, 2001, at 0:56:17
In reply to Re: hearing voices is not schizophreniac?, posted by ttt on November 14, 2001, at 19:21:02
Whilst as several have pointed out, hearing voices or other sounds (music is common) _can_ be a result of depression, stress, some kinds of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, some of these are just extreme cases of a perfectly normal phemomenon - although I've been told by some schizophrenics that the quality of realness of their voices was quite different from the effect I'm going to describe.
Years ago when I was working late at night, stressed out, by myself in a noisy lab (lots of white sound), I kept hearing a radio playing music in another part of the lab. I would go searching for it, and never be able to find it. One day, I tried mentally changing the song the radio was playing - and it worked!
Was I schizophrenic? No, just a bit stressed and strung out. My overactive brain was trying to extract some sense from all the noise around it.
Here's an experiment anyone can try: Plug headphones into an FM radio (an older one is better) and tune it to the hiss between stations (if you can find a place between stations these days!). Relax, close your eyes, and try to listen for the words that are hidden in the noise. After a few minutes, if you try hard enough, you will begin to distinguish words and even sentences, or maybe voices speaking some foreign language. Is it space aliens speaking to you? No, your mind is applying that most useful faculty that allows you to fill in the blanks in a half-heard conversation at a party - except in this case it's filling in all the blanks!
None of which is to say that there are not people with schizophrenia who hear voices. But hearing words or voices or music in anything which has a loud more-or-less random or confused sound is quite a normal thing. Mind you, if it happened a lot, and wasn't connected with listening to a particular kind of noise, I'd go and see my doctor - a number of medical conditions, quite apart from mental ones, can cause noises in the ears, and it's often (as I said) a sign of stress.
Tony P
-------------> I'm still confused. If you misterpret external noises and think that it might means something based on your knowledge or memory or experience, would this be a schizophrenia? Would Dr. prescribe medication for this?
>
> I know one time I listen to a CD and picked up some voices that seemed to have sublininal effect. I replayed that seconds many time over and there it was every time. At first, I tend to interpret it as some words but listened so carefully, it was some sound mixed in the music. It could be a glitch in bad recording since it was MP3 from the web. Is my sensitivity a form of schizophrenia?
Posted by ttt on November 23, 2001, at 9:42:56
In reply to Re: hearing voices is not schizophreniac? » ttt, posted by judy1 on November 12, 2001, at 17:50:33
I heard the voice saying some words that carried some political clensing in nature last night. It woke me up. Then I heard the buzzing sound that brought on my alertness within 3-5seconds. I stayed awake amost all night last night.
I am so very desperate and getting sick now in dealing with hearing voices. It creates an impression that some one has some sound technology to endure and inflict physical and psychological discomfort on me. I would like to believe that it is hysterical and paranoia. I am not a criminal and have done nothing bad. Why is this happening to me. I am not a policticain and do not like to get involve in politics. All my life, I have always studied and focused in developing my career. What good the college degree be with schizophrenia.Hearing voices affects my works but I have always tried so hard to ignore it and concentrating in doing a good job.
Because of these voices, I have develope depression eventhough very subble.
I am still very confused in trying to identify the sources of the voices so I know a bit better about what's wrong with my brain.
Posted by jazzdog on November 23, 2001, at 10:31:37
In reply to Re: hearing voices is not schizophreniac?, posted by ttt on November 23, 2001, at 9:42:56
I think it might be wise to go to a hospital and see what they say. You shouldn't have to be alone with this.
Good luck - Jane
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