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Mental Health (Expert Forum)
Pseudohallucinations caused by sound
Answered by
Roger Gould, M.D. - Mental Health, Wellness
Questions posted in the Mental Health forum are being answered by Dr. Roger L. Gould, author of the Mastering Stress and Depression program and affiliated with the UCLA. Department of Psychiatry. Topics covered include anger, attention deficit disorder (ADD), bipolar disorder, dementia, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), learning disabilities, memory, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic, personality disorders, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia, stress, transitions, and work problems.
Pseudohallucinations caused by sound
by Patient117, Oct 28, 2003 12:00AM
Dear all doctors that can help me,
I seem to be a very unique patient in psychiatry. My psychiatrist does not know what to make of it because everything I experience is so atypical.
It all started 4 yrs ago when I was 15. I am 19 now.
I was in my room at night listening to an astral projection tape on my stereo. The bass on stereo was set to full. When the tape went to the part where you were supposed to be astral projecting (which sounded like a ticking or drumming noise that was slowing down for 10-15 mins) I got an extreme tickling sensation in my ear. It felt good at first, but after a few nights of the same events, the tickling that came with this noise (rolled with bass from my stereo) became so intense that it started to be a little uncomfortable. It felt deep inside my left ear. It would then move back and forth from deep inside my ear to somewhere in the left part of my brain next to my ear.
After about 10 nights of the same events, I experienced my first hallucination. It sounded as if my closet doors shuck. I wasn't so sure. It didn't sound real. I didn't know at the time that this was my 1st hallucination until later.
The next few days I got random words that "floated" inside my head. As though I was automatically being reminded of them. The first I ever got was the word "turmoil". For the next few months I began to "hear" voices that "sounded" only like the volume and speech of my thoughts. As though they sounded like they were coming from inside my head and not outside or sounding real.
It only happened at night. Months passed and the voices went from jarbled to somewhat clear. They first said random words. Then later started to construct sentences. I then began turning on my fan, and then my radio at night to stop "hearing" them. A year later I could then hear them in the day, but only at home. A year after that it began to be more frequent all the time, but still only at home. Three years later it began to happen in the car, and then at school. It has now been four years later and it happens all the time.
What's weird is that these hallucinations seemed systematic. 1st it was auditory (voices inside head), then visual (random images of faces being flashed in my mind), then smells (didn't smell bad, but neutral or good smells like cologne), then much later was taste (only when I got hungry), and finally tactile (happened only twice when I got out of an elevator moving up that I still felt going up). I noticed that my focus on something would stop them in daytime but as they got worse focus doesn't work anymore.
My psychiatrist is stumped. I've taken zyprexa, geodon, and abilify antipsychotics. It still gets worse because I am treatment resistant. Now I am scheduled to get an EEG to test my temporal lobes and maybe take anti-seizure meds instead. I had an MRI and it was clean.
A website says I have pseudohallucinations. I think I woke a part of my brain up and now I need your help to put it back to sleep. Any suggestions?
I seem to be a very unique patient in psychiatry. My psychiatrist does not know what to make of it because everything I experience is so atypical.
It all started 4 yrs ago when I was 15. I am 19 now.
I was in my room at night listening to an astral projection tape on my stereo. The bass on stereo was set to full. When the tape went to the part where you were supposed to be astral projecting (which sounded like a ticking or drumming noise that was slowing down for 10-15 mins) I got an extreme tickling sensation in my ear. It felt good at first, but after a few nights of the same events, the tickling that came with this noise (rolled with bass from my stereo) became so intense that it started to be a little uncomfortable. It felt deep inside my left ear. It would then move back and forth from deep inside my ear to somewhere in the left part of my brain next to my ear.
After about 10 nights of the same events, I experienced my first hallucination. It sounded as if my closet doors shuck. I wasn't so sure. It didn't sound real. I didn't know at the time that this was my 1st hallucination until later.
The next few days I got random words that "floated" inside my head. As though I was automatically being reminded of them. The first I ever got was the word "turmoil". For the next few months I began to "hear" voices that "sounded" only like the volume and speech of my thoughts. As though they sounded like they were coming from inside my head and not outside or sounding real.
It only happened at night. Months passed and the voices went from jarbled to somewhat clear. They first said random words. Then later started to construct sentences. I then began turning on my fan, and then my radio at night to stop "hearing" them. A year later I could then hear them in the day, but only at home. A year after that it began to be more frequent all the time, but still only at home. Three years later it began to happen in the car, and then at school. It has now been four years later and it happens all the time.
What's weird is that these hallucinations seemed systematic. 1st it was auditory (voices inside head), then visual (random images of faces being flashed in my mind), then smells (didn't smell bad, but neutral or good smells like cologne), then much later was taste (only when I got hungry), and finally tactile (happened only twice when I got out of an elevator moving up that I still felt going up). I noticed that my focus on something would stop them in daytime but as they got worse focus doesn't work anymore.
My psychiatrist is stumped. I've taken zyprexa, geodon, and abilify antipsychotics. It still gets worse because I am treatment resistant. Now I am scheduled to get an EEG to test my temporal lobes and maybe take anti-seizure meds instead. I had an MRI and it was clean.
A website says I have pseudohallucinations. I think I woke a part of my brain up and now I need your help to put it back to sleep. Any suggestions?
Doctor's Answer
by Roger Gould, M.D., Oct 29, 2003 12:00AM
, Oct 29, 2003 12:00AM
My suggestion is that you talk to your psychiatrist about more than the symptoms or the medications, and use the pseudohallucinations as a way of getting insight into what is going on in deeper parts of your mind. All psychiatrists are not trained equally to deal with such matters, so ask your psychiatrist if he is, and if he is not, whether he can refer you to someone who can work with you and him,while he does medication and the other person tries to help you with a deeper understanding of your fears and anxieties.
