Origin of Voices

RE: Those who Hear Voices
This is a rather complicated question.  
People hear voices inside their heads and also with their ears.
There are many reasons as to why people may hear voices.
When they are considered to be auditory hallucinations how is
it that a voice or voices of males and females "unrecognizable" to the
person hearing them are generated or born in a persons head???
Can this be explained???
I believe it would be of great importance to learn this information
for those who do hear voices as well as comforting also.
Thank You

[ILADVOCATE]

Auditory hallucinations do not emanate from the ears or auditory nerve but like all hallucinations in schizophrenia from the frontal cortex which has shown known deficits in its functioning in people with schizophrenia. If you look at my profile page I uploaded a photo (in the public domain) of a PET scan of the brain of a person with schizophrenia. The frontal cortex (thinking part of the brain) shows massive deficits in functioning. Also being in a clinical study for an antipsychotic agent in Phase II FDA study (google "Dr. Javitt, glycine") and having recovered and no longer having auditory hallucinations I can look back and know that they were no way real and were linked up with delusions I had at the time. The symptoms I have of schizoaffective are basically in remission and they are learning more about new treatment modalities in study from me and research continues to find more specific answers to questions such as you asked...

[bluetray1]

Thank you for your answer.
People who hear voices describe them as being male, female or both and this is where I was going with this question.
They also describe very detailed information in forms of sentences being communicated to them by the voices.
The voices are indeed very real to the person who hears them and may or may not be delsuions I believe.
I have communicated with many who hear voices and I know that there is not a deficiency in their thinking or ability to function in any way.
I guess this is all very debatable, but never the less there must be origin for the voices to become real to the person hearing them.
I'm looking for a more scientific explanation to my question and I appreciate your response.
There are many types of voice hearers as you know; examples; trauma, psychosis, sprititual, religious, psychic, etc. and some desribe the voices as being heard inside their heads or with their ears.
Perhpas auditory hallucination is deflecting from the answer I'm looking for?
Any further comments are appreciated and I will take a look at the information you've given.
thank you,
rabin

[paranoid_cataclysm]

Actually chances are those people who hear voices and have a mental illness probably do have a deficit in thinking and functioning and you just don't realize it.  I'm a good example of that with how I was tested a lot of times and they came to the conclusion I was very intelligent and I've shown I have the ability for it but I failed at school and all the jobs I've worked due to my mental illness and my behavior and thoughts have always been erratic and no one even considered maybe I have a problem except for the current job which I do good at but all of us who work there have all said that the job is like on the border of working and being on disability since we usually get done after 2-4 hours and get to sit around and mess around the rest of the time and still get paid for a full 8 hours and even then we work slow and screw around and sometimes stop and talk to the security guard or people still there from the day shift for 30 minutes or more.  So in reality I work 8-16 hours a week.  What ILADVOCATE said is how voices originate, scientifically speaking.  Even people without mental illness can hallucinate due to health issues or just sleep deprivation.

[doctora]

Of course I agree with Corlenbelspar and ILADVOCATE.

I too hear voices, both in my head and outside. Especially when I am in the shower, I can hear a male voice, and it freaks me out so much, I have to get out of the shower, and had gotten to the point where I didnt want to shower.

I just kept telling myself it was all in my head and it wasnt happening.

The voices in my head, are like my subconcious talking to me. I talk to relatives that have passed and I get an answer, whether it is from them or just me, I will prob. never know, but I would never get to the point where I would hurt anyone from the "voices", although sometimes I have had close calls.

I dont think it can be explained why I hear a male voice, it could be from past bad experiences with men. It would be interesting to know how many men hear female voices and how many women hear male voices?

[doctora]

There I just posted a poll, we will see now.

Hope this helps, I find this subject interesting.

[bluetray1]

hi all,
i'm thinking we may need to start with sound or how hearing works for starters.
from there go to how the brain interprets sound, etc.
here is a short video on sound waves.
hope it's okay to post links.
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/6056-exploring-sound-parts-of-the-ear-video.htm

[bluetray1]

hi all,
i'm thinking we may need to start with sound or how hearing works for starters.
from there go to how the brain interprets sound, etc.
here is a short video on sound waves.
hope it's okay to post links.
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/6056-exploring-sound-parts-of-the-ear-video.htm

[drifter0213]

my voices have conversations with each other :)

[doctora]

Are you serious?  If so, you are the only person I know, that has thier voices talk to each other, or are you joking?

[ILADVOCATE]

"Two or more voices commenting on each other" is actually one of the DSM-4 criteria for schizophrenia. That is common although only a psychiatrist would understand it in full. In speaking to my psychopharmocologist he said that hallucinations or delusions from schizophrenia were rarely pleasent and usually frightening. If I did have delusions or thoughts that seemed to be pleasent its because I have schizoaffective disorder with the bipolar aspect and they were grandiose and manic. But when I think back as those thoughts took over my mind after a while it became frightening.

[drifter0213]

I am serious

[paranoid_cataclysm]

Yeah two or more voices talking to each other happens sometimes with schizophrenia and like ILADVOCATE said I can attest to hallucinations and delusions being usually unpleasant although fear doesn't affect me like a normal person so the scary things I never really attacked or sometimes never broke out into a panicked run from or anything of that nature although some I lost my composure and freaked out about.  I did have some grandiose delusions before but they were unpleasant ones and only grandiose by being fantasy based and they caused me to do some extremely stupid things.

[doctora]

The grandious issue I can relate too.

My husband spots it immediately. One minute I am going to be a great artist, the next Im going to be a famous fashion designer, and I act the part totally, not by choice, it just kicks in.

My Dr has pointed out 3 different people in me that she has seen.

What I hate, is after this period comes reality, the fact that I am broke and just getting by, and cant even buy supplies to do what would make me achieve or get close to one of my grandious ideas.

Its like I am an actor, not by choice, I just change...maybe comparable to a comeilian (spelt wrong), would be a better description.

[bluetray1]

I'm not looking for conditions such as psychosis, trauma, schizophrenia or psychic phenomena, etc.
Even if thought to be a "hallucination" the brain is recognizing it as a voice.
So, one could even argue then about it being a hallucination if being recognized by the brain.
How???
I put this question in neurology and not one answer.
Thanks to all for your comments and it is interesting; isn't it?

[drifter0213]

yes

[paranoid_cataclysm]

I'm not sure if researchers know the how as to why people hear voices or even have the content they do in hallucinations in general.  Researchers know WHY the brain works for the most part but not HOW the electronic impulses that it communicates to itself with have information and data that the brain can translate.

[choo_choo]

I participated in a research study about voices a while back (in 2001) and they give me a really good article about the proposed origin for them.  I don't remember exactly what the article said, but I will try to find it.  If I find it I will post a summary of it on this thread.

[bluetray1]

i find it very important for people to understand as much as possible about anything affecting their lives which means the mind.
please keep us informed if you find that article choo; would like to know.
thank you....
this is really important to voice hearers of all types.
thank you...

[bluetray1]

hi ilad (for short if you don't mind).
in reading your first response again, you said you no longer have auditory hallucinations so would you mind explaining how they were rid of and also were the voices inside your head or heard with your ears?
thank you and getting off of the origin of voices here, but.....

[ILADVOCATE]

I'm on glycine which is an NMDA receptor modulate, a new class of antipsychotic in Phase II FDA study. It works as all antipsychotics do by adjusting neurotransmitters in the brain. However, all known antipsychotics work by depleting dopamine which is considered to be in excess amounts in people with schizophrenia. Glycine restores glutamate transmission which was shown to be lacking in gene studies in the brains of people with schizophrenia. Of course scientifically its a lot more complex than that. Researchers are still starting to understand it. The "voices" I heard were auditory hallucinations. I did hear them but they weren't real. The psychosis I had from schizophrenia was the same as everyone else posting here has or had and the fact that it eminated from the frontal cortex of the brain and not a problem with the auditory nerves is the same as has been known clinically about schizophrenia for generations and is definitely considered clinically correct. As I stated PET scans of people with schizophrenia do show provable imbalances there.

[bluetray1]

Hi ILAD.,
thanks for your answer.
it's funny how so many do not respond well to anti-psychotic medications.
they either have no affect on diminishing the voices and have really bad side effects also.
it's good to know that this has worked for you.
thank you for your answer.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

I had them in my head almost as loud as if I were actually hearing it but after I started taking Geodon they went away and haven't ever came back yet.

[bluetray1]

hi all and corlen,
i'm happy for you also. it's good to know.

i'm trying to research this origin myself and it can be quite confusing.
note this:
The primary auditory cortex is about the same as Brodmann areas 41 and 42. ... cerebral cortex that are involved in processing sound, in the frontal and parietal lobes. .....



The auditory cortex is involved in tasks such as identifying and segregating auditory "objects" and identifying the location of a sound in space.

Human brain scans have indicated that a peripheral bit of this brain region is active when trying to identify pitch. Individual cells consistently get excited by sounds at specific frequencies, or multiples of that frequency.

Well, frequencies play a role here and the auditory cortex does seem to be involved which is located in the frontal lobe.
I continue on, but is confusing to say the least.

[choo_choo]

When I heard voices I heard them with my ears.  They had a location.  The voices were never "in my head."  When I first started hearing them I would actually turn my head towards them.  It freaked me out and made me really anxious.  
The first voice I heard was a command voice that told me to do things and told me I was evil and was going to go to hell.  During my first relapse I heard a conversation between two people talking about me.  During my second relapse I heard whipsering voices constantly.  As I relapsed further the voices got louder and more derogratory.  
Now I sometimes I hear a fuzzy radio sound, like a radio that isn't quite tuned.  It sounds like someone is talking on the radio, but I can't quite hear what they are saying because the radio isn't tuned right.  It has a location just like voices, but it isn't quite as distinct as a voice.  I think that's my version of voices when I'm not relapsing.

[whisperwolf]

Hi bluetray1!

Great questions!  

First of all, let me tell you that the auditory hallucinations are two-fold for me. Internal and External.  This is going to be a little bit spiritual, but bear with me.  
Internally, auditory hallucinations, or voices, are, according to my doctor, part of the thought disorder symptoms of schizophrenia.  The mind cannot process thoughts correctly so it fractures thoughts and memories into different voices.  Also, trauma, dreams, fantasy or unrealized emotion plays part into voices.  I think the mind of the schizophrenic simply takes these and breaks them into fragments and cannot comprehend them, so they become different voices.  Since the mind of the person with schizophrenia has a chemical imbalance, it simply cannot process thoughts the way a healthy mind can, so thoughts are fragmented.  

Now comes the External voices.  I am a Christian, so I believe in Satan.  Satan hates human beings and he knows when a person has a troubled mind.  When he sees a person having torment with internal voices, he will whisper in that person's ear and they will hear external voices, which add to their torment.  

At my lowest point, I had thousands of voices in my head, talking to each other; talking, laughing, shrieking, crying.  I had to train myself  to ignore them.  Sometimes when I am sick or really stressed I can hear them.  I am really grateful for medications, Jesus and my husband.  I just finished my book on living with Schizophrenia!  

Anyway, hope this gives you some insight on what I have learned about voices.  

[bluetray1]

very interesting posts choo and whisperwolf and thank you for sharing so much personal information.
the voice i have heard now for 2 yrs is of an external nature and i have always known the source of the voice.  i had to prove it to myself though and I did get proof on a digital recorder. yes, i'm very serious about this; it is recorded.  i had at one time 5 male voices.
it is now down to one whispering (always whispered) voice. i believe it to be a spirit or negative energy although it has never said anything bad. it is though still living with a voice that is not wanted.  medication was tried before i recorded the voice and had no affect whatsoever on hearing the voice because the voice was not coming from me.
i became involved in a hearing voice group where people heard voices for many different reasons ranging from trauma, psychosis, spriitual and other.  i have written about my experience somewhat and i tell you this; it has helped me to write about it.  a family member has also heard this voice call my name which the voice mainly does. it was the frrequency in which the voice was so disturbing let alone that it was not of this world so to speak. one thing i learned is to stop trying to convince others the voice is real and not an auditory hallucination.  i trust myself and my ears as well as the recorder. i don't believe that those who hear voices have unhealthy minds. i think this can do a great deal of harm to those who hear voices as singling them out and being different.  we are all human beings with different experiences in our lives. the voice did follow me also and is also recorded at this location which proves it can indeed follow one.  i still though am interested in the origin of voice hearing.  perhaps we can all come together and accept each other just as people who hear voices for whatever reasons.
thank you all....

[whisperwolf]

bluetray1

I believe you :)

One thing my Jesus has taught me is that I have authority over those voices.  

I have picked up a couple of hobbies too that help me not to focus on them.  

For me it is painting and art and writing.  Also, I have a horse now (about a year) and she has been great therapy for me.  

It took a lot of work to train myself not to focus on the voices.  Some days it took everything I had.  There were days when I just wanted to give in and go back into myself and let them take over, but I just couldn't let them have control over my life.  

Have you ever seen "A Beautiful Mind"?  In the movie, he deals more with visual hallucinations and had to learn to ignore them.  They were always there, but he learned to push them aside so he could have his life back.  It is the same concept.  Not at all easy.  

But possible.  

[bluetray1]

Hi,
Thank you for believing.
No, it's not at all easy and very much like anyone else who hears voices no matter where they may come from.
I love horses myself and i'm happy for you.  
A beautiful mind is a movie i should see.
I know having hobbies, support and knowledge all are important.
Writing about it is very therapeutic also as we learn how to deal with it all.
thank you....