Hearing Voices: A Common Human Experience

Perceptions about the subject of 'voice hearing' from an Australian 'mental health counsellor, researcher, and educator for over thirty years' are provided with Hearing Voices: A Common Human Experience (1998; revised edition 2008) by John Watkins.  A preface by the author includes the statements: "Since the first edition a growing body of research has demonstrated that childhood trauma of various kinds (including emotional neglect, abuse, loss of loved ones) figures prominently in the histories of many people who hear disturbing voices — the kind usually associated with psychosis, schizophrenia in particular . . . mainstream mental health systems have been extremely resistant to the idea of incorporating spiritual values and experiences into their conceptual and therapeutic frameworks."

 

The author's Introduction begins with some overview sentences:

 

Inner voices, invisible companions, the voice of conscience, locutions, inner guides, spirits, angels, demons, ghosts, muses, thoughts-out-loud, radio waves of divinity, the voice of God, language magic, the Other Order, cold castigation language, persecutors, court-pf-law punishment language, elf-talk, inner helpers, splinter psyches, sub-personalities, auditory hallucinations.  These and many other terms have been used to refer to voices which have no ordinary physical cause.  The very diversity of these names reflects the enormous variety of experiences that human beings can have, which can range from the sublime and spiritually uplifting 'locutions' described by many saints and mystics, through to seemingly malevolent invisible 'presences' which verbally harass, threaten and attack.

 

If the various kinds of voice hearing experiences have anything in common it is that they are poorly understood and often harshly judged.

 

The contents of book chapters include descriptions mentioning that 'voice hearing' ranges from "the relatively common experience in which a person hears their name called out loud while falling asleep" to "encounters related by those who have had profound spiritual experiences . . . even the most disturbing voices, such as those which occur in association with the enigmatic condition called schizophrenia, invariably have significant psychological (and possibly spiritual) dimensions, although these are very often overlooked."

 

There are "complex questions" to consider "regarding personal identity, the nature of consciousness, the relationship between mind and brain, and the place of spirituality in human life."  The reader is reminded, "Throughout ancient Egypt, Rome, Babylon, Tibet and Greece the advice and guidance of oracular voices was sought and highly valued."  Another overview statement in the book is: "The lives of many people throughout the world have been influenced in a positive and beneficial way because of the experience of hearing voices."

The chapter "Voices and Mental Illness" involves the orientation of people associating 'voice hearing' with 'mental illness.'    

 

A psychotic disorder involves a state of extreme mental and emotional disturbance in which the affected person experiences a number of the following: fixed false beliefs ('delusions'); unshared sensory perceptions ('hallucinations'); markedly illogical or disorganized thinking ('thought disorder'); and labile or inappropriate emotions.  As a result of these experiences the person may be said to be 'out of touch with reality' (i.e. consensual reality) to a greater or lesser degree.

 

The following passages are from the chapter "The Voices of Schizophrenia."

 

Since Professor Eugen Bleuler introduced the concept of schizophrenia to psychiatry in 1911 the experience of hearing voices has always been seen as one of the most characteristic symptoms of this disorder.

 

 

It appears that even deaf people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia may 'hear' voices!  Thus, in a study of twelve prelingually profoundly deaf persons, ten were found to have had experiences analogous to auditory hallucinations.

 

 

It is clear to some people that the voices they hear are a private perceptual experience which has a subjective origin.  Thus . . . some people recognise that the voices are somehow connected with their own thought processes: the 'thoughts-out-loud' or 'voices of conscience' and so on are felt to be internally generated experiences.  Some people identify their voices as 'auditory hallucinations' which they accept as being symptoms of schizophrenia (such people are sometimes described as having 'insight' into their 'illness').  On the other hand, some people are so convinced of the objective reality of these experiences that they adamantly refuse to apply such terms to them, as one clinical psychologist discovered whilst working with groups of hospitalised patients who had been hearing voices for many years:

In no case did patients accept the term hallucinations for these experiences.  The term was offensive.  It implied they were not real.  Almost all patients had private terms of their own for these experiences: The Other Order, The Eavesdroppers, etc . . . There may be one or several figures.  Some familiar ones come around day after day, such as one old codger called 'The Old-Timer.'  (The Natural Depth in Man [1972] by Wilson Van Dusen) 

Voices sometimes seem to have such an intimate knowledge of the hearer's every thought and all the private details of their past history a supernatural or occult origin is attributed to them.  The apparent omniscience and omnipotence of the voices leads some people to conclude that they must be spirits, angels, even God . . . or that they have something to do with various psychic or occult influences such as ESP, telepathy or magic. 

 

People who hear voices for the first time during the emotional upheaval of an acute psychotic episode sometimes simply accept them at face value since they assume that others also hear them.

 

 

If the voice content is positive the hearer may feel comforted, uplifted or even inspired by it.  

. . . people develop various explanations for their voice experiences which make sense to them at the time.  Thus, some people may ascribe them to electronic equipment such as TV or radio or else to others in their surroundings who they insist are talking to or about them.

 

Some people only hear them for a relatively short time—lasting anywhere from a few days or weeks to several months—before they eventually stop.  Sometimes the voices will disappear spontaneously.  Occasionally they might cease quite abruptly, possibly even announcing their imminent departure beforehand . . .

 

Because hearing voices is commonly seen as a sign of 'madness' many people deny or conceal the fact that they had such experiences.  Even if a person has already received a diagnosis of schizophrenia they may feel disinclined to admit that they are still hearing voices since such a disclosure may result in negative judgements being made about them ('You're still sick'), or lead to unwanted increases in medication dosages or even a return to hospital . . . The realisation that others rarely share their convictions about the voices leads many people to conclude that it may be best to simply keep quiet about the whole thing.

A chapter about 'Multiple Personality Disorder' offers the statement "Among the various mental disorders in which voices can occur as a significant feature, Multiple Personality Disorder is undoubtedly both the most extraordinary and the most challenging."  A reader may consider about case chronologies categorized in this way that in addition to authentic cases that have been chronicled, individual comments about 'voice hearing' or 'multiple personality' experiences may be a means for someone to offer some manner of potentially socially familiar excuse after being known for having committed a crime. 

John Watkins observed about 'paranormal phenomena': "During the past one hundred years many cases have been reported of voice experiences which appear to involve premonitions, extrasensory perception (ESP), telepathy and various other kinds of so-called 'psychic phenomena' . . . many people seem to have had at least one mysterious and apparently paranormal experience at some time during their life . . ."  Several articles of this blog have included commentary about 'solar plexus voice mediumship' involving paranormal voices emanating from a person's solar plexus region of the body.  (1, 2, 3)

 

The author's paranormal research acquainted him with commentary of Sigmund Freud.  Watkins reported:

 

Freud wrote a number of important papers on the subjects of telepathy and the occult and in 1911 joined the Society of Psychical Research.  Toward the end of his life he had clearly developed a keen interest in parapsychological phenomena.  Thus, in 1921 he said: "I am not one of those who dismiss a priori the body of so-called occult psychic phenomena as unscientific, discreditable or even as dangerous.  If I were at the beginning rather than at the end of a scientific career, as I am today, I might possibly choose just this field of research in spite of all the difficulties."  (Freud: The Man and the Cause [1980] by Ronald W. Clark)

Comparing different cultural influences in different countries of the world, Watkins wrote: ". . . fear and stigma are often much lower (or even completely absent) in many non-Western societies where voices and other unusual kinds of experience are accepted and given supernatural or other non-stigmatising and culturally valued explanations."

 

The author commented in the concluding paragraph of the book: 

 

What is needed now, above all, is a new approach which places the psyche—the human soul or spirit—at the centre of our considerations rather than dismissing it as an illusion or a mere epiphenomenon of brain functioning.

 

 

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This blogger once discussed experiences of anomalous voice-hearing with a friend and co-worker, Sharon (a nurse).  She told me that one day in August 2006 her friend Tom was driving her home from his brother-in-law's house where she'd adopted a puppy.  She was sitting in the front passenger seat of his truck when she heard a firm masculine voice in her right ear near the closed window.  The voice spoke after Tom asked her what she was going to name the puppy.  The voice told her "Julie — Julie."  Sharon said to me that hearing the voice induced her to laugh at the time because she was reminded of an earlier occasion in her life before her husband's death.  Her husband had been born in Egypt and spoke with a French accent because his mother was French.  He'd bestowed the name (spelled phonetically) 'Cat-ee' on a pet feline and when she'd asked him how to spell it he'd replied, "C — A — T — H — Y, of course."  In the truck, Sharon responded to the uncanny voice by saying, "Okay, how are you going to spell it?"  The voice answered: "J — U — L — E — E, of course."

There had been a single previous occasion when she experienced a similar situation in May 2004 while preparing to place her mother in a nursing home for Alzheimer's patients.  One Sunday after visiting a nursing home and finding this to be a suitable facility for her mother, Sharon remembered feeling anxiety about her mother's unstable mental condition and then heard a voice say, "Go call the home."  She left a message not expecting to receive a response until the following day but she soon heard the voice again: "She's calling you back now."  The telephone rang and the owner of the nursing home asked Sharon, "Can you bring her now?"  I asked Sharon if she'd noticed during the two occasions if the unattributable voice had spoken with an accent.  She told me that she hadn’t noticed any accent.

 

 

10/14/21 Update: A news article today has the headline "A 3-year-old boy who disappeared while his mom unloaded groceries was found alive 3 days later in the Texas woods"; it is reported in the article A man who said God told him "to go look for [Ramirez] and he would find him" found him.