does anyone hear voices in their head?

[Lozen]

like someone's talking, except that they weren't?

[Taiji Bum]

I've only heard something like that a couple times when I was really stressed. Usually its something mysterious and profound like I got once "Seek the hidden things of God in silence." But also one time I heard "Coke is it." Seriously I heard "Coke is it" so I think inner voices can both be our higher self talking and our mind playing tricks. Plus many, many times I have heard somebody saying my name like they are standing right next to me.... I hate that.

 

Why do you ask?

 

Edit: I cant see your avatar.

Edited August 11, 2008 by DarinHamel

[Aetherous]

Coke really IS "it".

[SeriesOfTubes]

yes. for me it seems to happen with particular meditation techniques and deep relaxation of the spinal centers. some of it is good and some of it garbage, I think.

 

I've spent 14 years practicing a few different forms of meditation so I can usually tell when its my own stray thought or an 'outside' presence, just from being familiar with how my thinking works.

 

I figure some of it could be astral entities, or sometimes stray energy from one's own subconscious. I wouldn't necessarily trust everything I hear but sometimes certain phrases lead me into some interesting research. so I tend to jot stuff down that piques my interest.

 

one recent thing I got is "baking soda will help you live long" .. wierd but then I did some research and it turns out people actually do this (1/2 teaspoon in water 2X a day) to adjust the body's ph balance, given that disease cannot exist in an alkaline environment.

 

earlier this year I think in january I recieved a few personal things but what was wierd was it also attached "wednesday october 15th" so I looked it up and it turns out this coming october 15th is in fact a wednesday. I highly doubt my subconscious would be acurately keeping track of gregorian calendar dates but who knows. so for me its the little surprises like that make me take notice now and then.

 

look up what sri aurobindo wrote about the 'intermediate zone'. basicly a vast wasteland of wierd phenomena that exists on ones journey between normal consciousness and 'enlightenment'. basicly just more scenery on the path imho

Edited August 11, 2008 by SeriesOfTubes

[Lozen]

It has only happened to me twice. Once was after I got out of a holding cell and I was exhausted out of my mind, and I was staying at this guy's house (I lived an hour away and the trains weren't running any longer... I hadn't planned on risking arrest) and I literally heard him talking in my head AS he was talking out loud. It was pretty bizarre. This was ten years ago. Then this morning I heard my boyfriend in my head, but when I responded aloud he was like, "huh?" because he hadn't said what I'd heard. The weird part about it was that it was like I knew what he'd said was in my head but couldn't stop myself from responding. It was so weird. Also sometimes I hear the phone ring even when it isn't ringing. I'm just hoping I'm not schizophrenic or anything, and in reading The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind it seems like everyone USED to hear voices all the time way back in Homer's day and the Old Testament etc. and thought they were gods, so of course some brains have evolved more than others but it's in our blueprint I think to hear voices.

 

So I looked up schizophrenia and affective disorder and do not seem to match the symptom picture. In the book it sounds like people hear voices and such when they are under inordinate stress. I feel pretty balanced but I was kind of a basketcase last night and do get unbent and cry hysterically for no reason (which my super logical Midwestern boyfriend really digs...NOT...) and do have school starting tomorrow so I guess I'm under SOME stress but it doesn't feel bad enough to hear voices... And then why didn't I hear them more LAST year?

 

And Karen has some interesting theories and I'm also waiting for my Heilkunstler to reply. My last remedy happened to be around the same event where I heard voices and the next one is for weed so...

 

OMG I am getting so paranoid about posting this here ever since that drunken pirate chick lost her teaching cert but whatever.

 

Anyway so my boyfriend didn't think my hearing him talk when he wasn't thing was weird; he thought I was just tired. Which would be a great justification if I hadn't just woken up from eight or nine hours of restful sleep.

[shontonga]

Which would be a great justification if I hadn't just woken up from eight or nine hours of restful sleep.

 

hi.

 

just because ones slept doesn't mean they can't still be tired!

 

Some hear voices when they are sleeping,

some when they are waking,

or falling into sleep and "between the worlds",

others when they are awake.

 

not many will admit to it.

some don't realize it.

others don't care.

 

could be a persons higher self?

some say guides or angles.

others say voices of temptation

or inspiration.

 

psyche students are intrigued,

inventors informed,

at times the tired or confused

might be mislead?

 

You know yourself well.

remember that.

Listen to your "heart".

 

Lol, I was given advice once from my dad

and I guess it could be used with voices also?

LOL.

 

I was young, had a hard decision to make concerning loved ones hearts.

No matter what there would be sadness.

He told me to "listen to everyone.

See what they all have to say.

Then do what is right for you."

 

A person usually knows that already, u know?

 

If voices are telling you things you know to be wrong don't listen.

If they are becoming trouble seek help.

If it's not trouble?

Enjoy it!

 

How nice to have a voice be a loved one.

 

In lots of traditions voices are rather normal.

Sometimes even sought out in certain ways.

Becoming more sensitive to the world around you can make them clearer.

Meditation or journeying or playing with energy or awareness

can help folks to be more sensitive.

 

Hope U find comfort and calmness in these words.

Seems most folks I know hear voices in some form or another!

... They also cary rocks in their pockets though!

Doesn't sound like a cause for worry?

 

Hope you have fun!

 

(Sometimes even going through "hell" can prove interesting!

One can learn a lot. Be intimate with it! Enjoy it!)

 

Peace, kids!

 

Shon

 

 

PS. LOL!

My dad doesn't really talk!

He probably only said three words, but hey,

that's what I got from them!

He's so cute in his quiet way.

Hard to have a conversation with at times

but funny as heck and pretty wise.

 

Stay well!

 

 

Also brains do play tricks when tired.

[Lozen]

i suppose it could be a higher voice, except that it made little sense and i can't remember what it said!

[Pranaman]

get your aura cleaned and get entity detachment at some point from someone, it will help immensely with your the efficiency of your practice and speed of the arrival of your results.

[rain]

hi.

 

just because ones slept doesn't mean they can't still be tired!

 

Some hear voices when they are sleeping,

some when they are waking,

or falling into sleep and "between the worlds",

others when they are awake.

 

------------------------------ nice shontonga. thanks.

 

hi Lozen

I hear the voices!!!!

always did.

 

it can be draining

or entertaining

aiding or misleading.

 

it is like dreaming when awake

or the awake state calling the dreamer.

 

Dreamstate is necessary for sanity.

And I call it for answers.

These contributions from the subconscious are a great

supplement when filtering through a heart still flawed by

sentiment.

 

But like I said in my personal thread

most of the time I just let it pass, and it minds

its own business. Sand storm in a glass of water.

It is like in sitting and forgetting,

letting go.

 

please if u like visit my comment in persoal thread allso. hugz

Edited August 11, 2008 by rain

[Gerard]

I think that could be just simply your higher self. It happens to me sometimes especially when I have deviated from the Noble Eightfold Path at some point.

 

How about charismatic odours?

 

Has anyone smelled them sometimes?

[de_paradise]

Voices and sounds when Im meditating and have reached that pre-dream edge, often I start hearing different voices, my concious mind fades. Its alot of jibberish for the most part, like some baker's voice saying "two bits for a pound" and that follows with some somehow related voice of something else "back the truck up." Eventually a visual image builds, and takes you into a dream, or, come back to a conscious state of meditation. Its a groovy place to be.

[The Cloudwalking Owl]

like someone's talking, except that they weren't?

 

 

Years ago, while I was still a student, I had an experience where something "spoke" through me. I was sitting at a desk in my office and I spontaneously got up, put on my coat and walked over to the door. When I thought "what am I doing", my lips spontaneously moved and I said "We're going to meet our friend Wayne." This was odd, as I knew he was working at a factory in another town. I then walked over to the student union building. When my hand was on the door, my lips spoke again and I said "No, Wayne isn't there." I then turned left and walked over to a street. As I got to the curb, Wayne drove up, stopped, and I got in the car.

 

The interesting thing was that uncanny as this experience might have been, it was totally irrelevant. Wayne is and was no spiritual master, but more of a "good-time Charlie". We drove off, had a few drinks and may have even ended-up in a strip joint.

 

I tend to believe that these sorts of experiences are best ignored. If we fixate on them I think we can end up causing problems. Your stress seems to suggest that these are transcient phenomenon. I think your concerns about schizophrenia should be thought through, but it doesn't sound like you have had them for any length of time or very often. If you did, I would strongly suggest getting some psychiatric help. I have had friends with schizophrenia who refused treatment and it was extremely painful to watch.

 

I don't know if you have a meditative practice, but if you do, I would suggest that you try to lead as "grounded" and "normal" a life as possible. The ordinary practices and routines of life are pretty good counter-balances to the "mysterious realm" that pops up for many people who meditate. (I don't know if this applies, as you have said so little about yourself. Take this suggestion for what its worth on that basis.)

[doc benway]

It's not unusual to hear a voice when the mind quiets during deep meditation.

My teacher has always told me it is important to ignore it and continue the meditation with no concern whatsoever for what a voice may say.

On very rare occasions, I think I hear my named called or a very brief garble of words and cannot find the source, outside of meditation. I ignore it.

Frequent or consistent auditory hallucinations, particularly if they are detailed and clear messages or discussions or multiple voices, can be a symptom of mental illness and should be shared with a psychologist or psychiatrist, IMO.

Lozen - your experience seems very rare and related to exhaustion and I wouldn't be too concerned unless it becomes more frequent and focused. I think that, during fatigue, sometimes we can mistake a thought for an auditory or visual experience. This may be what happened with your boyfriend.

[freesun]

Frequent or consistent auditory hallucinations, particularly if they are detailed and clear messages or discussions or multiple voices, can be a symptom of mental illness and should be shared with a psychologist or psychiatrist, IMO.

 

I have always wondered, how can you tell if those voices are pure hallucinations or if they are picked up energies from entities?

[.broken.]

I have always wondered, how can you tell if those voices are pure hallucinations or if they are picked up energies from entities?

 

The voices I have come across in my lifetime thus far range from all parts of the self. However, after some purging the voice that has stayed is one of sheer compassion and understanding. I am rarely in the state to tune into it but when it does happen it is usually on long solitary walks.

 

Everything it says is stuff I already know, it just gives me a little more everytime depending on my understanding and my energy levels. Two experiences stick out:

 

- A voice so loud in my head that I thought the whole world heard it. The earth shook with its might. "Who am I?" It boomed.

 

- Give, forgive, peace, joy and LOVE. 5 words I was given to go with the pentegram. Love was said so loudly and in unison by a whole host of beings that it vibrated my very essence.

 

Whether one deems it to be 'unhealthy' or 'healthy' would most likely depend on the characteristics of the voices and whether it affects the affected beyond being able to operate in society. Mental health institutions are a relatively new invention in the human story and professional psychiatry even more so. They no longer strap people in straight jackets, but pump them full of chemicals to sedate them... different means, same effect, same lack of humanity.

 

I am no believer in a higher self as a seperate entity but more as something that comes to the foreground when the thoughts are not attached to. The voice I hear more recently is a blessing in my eyes, but I do not seek it... shit happens.

 

Yours humbly,

James

[voidisyinyang]

auditory hallucinations are due to neuron damage in the left side of the cortex. Whereas qigong is based on harmonization of energy which would heal any hallucinations. Here's my latest blog entry which is on the subject of auditory perception as the basis for reality:

 

http://mothershiplanding.blogspot.com/2008...homunculus.html

Edited August 11, 2008 by drew hempel

[rain]

"1) A chaotic state is not random and the same frequency, even though at a different phase or period time, ALWAYS synchronizes (as per math professor Steve Strogatz' research)." quote drew

 

well THANK YOU for answering the question I didnt write: I hope you are always honest.

 

btw drew I cannot seem to be able to make a review of G.Morris Martial arts like I promised I would..later.

Edited August 11, 2008 by rain

[findley]

Hey Lozen... ... ...

... I actually posted a thread about my experience with hearing voices a few days ago:

http://www.thetaobums.com/So-whoand39s-Psy...-how-t6347.html

 

For me, it is like I am hearing the internal dialogue of others. It is as if, they are 'thinking out loud' in their heads, if that makes sense. and I seem to pick up on it.

 

I worry often, sometimes more often than not, that it may be a form of schizophrenia. ...EXCEPT... I was sent to a shrink when I was being kicked out of the Army, and when I described the experience to her, she blew it off. When I read her notes, later, , it was implied that for my experience to classify as some sort of schizophrenia, the voices would feel as though they're coming from OUTSIDE my head. (an actual auditory hallucination.)

 

I think that I might have 'turned something on' with emptiness meditation (secret of the golden flower) back in highschool a few years ago. ...It goes on and off, but does not seem dependent on practice.

 

Does this seem to correlate with your experience? Maybe more than the 'it's your higher self' theory..?

-have you been experiencing new forms of 'emptiness' meditation lately? (at least for my curiousity..?)

 

Just to be clear--

 

--do you here their words, (thoughts?) 'inside' your head, or as if they're coming from 'outside' your head? Like an actual sound?

 

also... I find it almost impossible to respond to what I hear. ..So, maybe it's not so similiar, after all.. I have responded at times, but it has never been an immediate reaction. I have to be super-conscious when I do it.

 

Also, it is alot stronger with close friends and girl's that I have been with. ...It is really, really strong with one of my old roommates at the co-op I used to live at...

 

does this sound familiar..? ..maybe it has only just begun for you, so you can't say?

[i_am_sam]

I've heard voices 3 times that I remember, all in the past couple of years I don't think it's coincidence that it's since I started practicing energy work and meditation.

 

It took the second time(which was an urging to do something whilst I was dithering) to make me really believe the 1st time (an answer to a question I asked the clouds) wasn't my imagination/auditory hallucination. Kind of inside the top front of my head but outside and in/from the sky at the same time It felt/sounded like more than one entity. I like to think it was a heavenly counsel.

 

3rd time last Xmas day very different much louder channeling through crown chakra within a kind of cold rushing wind, just one sentence and what was said makes me think it was an earthbound spirit guide.

 

Or maybe I should see a doctor

Edited August 11, 2008 by i_am_sam

[Lozen]

not outside my head, but inside it... like once it happened when the guy was literally talking and i both heard him talking outside my head and saying something different inside my head, which made me all jumbled and confused because i didn't know which to respond to. again though this was right after getting out of JAIL though so... which is right what is going on in my heilkunst timeline thingy so it may be related.

 

actually now that i think about ti, when i first got to the holding cell i distinctly remember like three women asking me questions all at once and how disorienting it was to try to answer them... which i was trying really hard to do.

 

and before that during the actual "scene of the crime" having memories that didn't happen... like i sware i saw my friend get put in the ambulance but then when we heard what happened afterwards realized my brain made it up.

 

hmmm.

[hagar]

not outside my head, but inside it... like once it happened when the guy was literally talking and i both heard him talking outside my head and saying something different inside my head, which made me all jumbled and confused because i didn't know which to respond to. again though this was right after getting out of JAIL though so... which is right what is going on in my heilkunst timeline thingy so it may be related.

 

actually now that i think about ti, when i first got to the holding cell i distinctly remember like three women asking me questions all at once and how disorienting it was to try to answer them... which i was trying really hard to do.

 

and before that during the actual "scene of the crime" having memories that didn't happen... like i sware i saw my friend get put in the ambulance but then when we heard what happened afterwards realized my brain made it up.

 

hmmm.

 

Lozen

 

A friend of my family is holding lectures all over Norway on what is called the "Hearing Voices movement".

Search it out on Wikipedia, and other sites to get more info.

Basically it's philosophy is that hearing voices is much more common than previously thought and immersed in cultural dogma. Also, the way one works with voices in or out of the head is not to subdue them but to listen to them. In essence, voices are not just arbitrary junk from the subconconscious mind or signs of psychosis, but important messages from within.

 

Check it out if you want. I think it's quite unique, and liberating when we are so plagued with the whole "illness" or imbalance modality, also here in "new agy" circles.

 

h

[SFJane]

Lozen

 

For about 20 years I heard voices in my head and suffered from delusions, hallucinations.

 

When I was a teen I was sure that it meant I was psychic. So I studied the occult and learned certain meditations that were supposed to make me more psychic.

 

The result was even more voices and delusions in my mind all the time.

 

There are psychiatric terms for the collection of problems I had

 

schizophrenia (hearing voices)

 

mania (racing thoughts, grandiosity, sense of special powers)

 

thought broad casting delusion

 

 

It only got worse as I got older.

 

Eventually I got command voices telling me to hurt people and had visions of doing disturbing things to people for the slightest provocation.

 

I took up Bruce Frantzis' water method meditation and learned dissolving and after a few years the voices went away and never returned.

 

I have also heard of the Hearing Voice Movement.

 

I am not sure I like it. People saying it's ok and normal and not a disease to hear demons and angels.

 

Frankly I think hearing voices is the result of the undisciplined mind and lots and lots of stress combined with a healthy imagination for some folks. Delusions, ego and the sub conscious mind all play into the kind of voices you hear.

 

I chose not live with my voices.

 

To me it is now natural and normal to not have and hear voices anymore.

 

I owe my sanity and peace of mind entirely to meditation as a result.

[doc benway]

I have always wondered, how can you tell if those voices are pure hallucinations or if they are picked up energies from entities?

What's the difference?

[hagar]

Lozen

 

For about 20 years I heard voices in my head and suffered from delusions, hallucinations.

 

When I was a teen I was sure that it meant I was psychic. So I studied the occult and learned certain meditations that were supposed to make me more psychic.

 

The result was even more voices and delusions in my mind all the time.

 

There are psychiatric terms for the collection of problems I had

 

schizophrenia (hearing voices)

 

mania (racing thoughts, grandiosity, sense of special powers)

 

thought broad casting delusion

It only got worse as I got older.

 

Eventually I got command voices telling me to hurt people and had visions of doing disturbing things to people for the slightest provocation.

 

I took up Bruce Frantzis' water method meditation and learned dissolving and after a few years the voices went away and never returned.

 

I have also heard of the Hearing Voice Movement.

 

I am not sure I like it. People saying it's ok and normal and not a disease to hear demons and angels.

 

Frankly I think hearing voices is the result of the undisciplined mind and lots and lots of stress combined with a healthy imagination for some folks. Delusions, ego and the sub conscious mind all play into the kind of voices you hear.

 

I chose not live with my voices.

 

To me it is now natural and normal to not have and hear voices anymore.

 

I owe my sanity and peace of mind entirely to meditation as a result.

 

SFJane

 

I kinda agree witho you on the meditation bit, yet meditation can also be a trap or escape, or even source of psychosis if done with wrong intent or misguided intent.

Yet, I know from experience that stilling the mind and opening and letting be is by far the supreme method for dealing with my own stuff.

 

YET, sometimes you need help. And getting to aknowledge voices instead of being unsure what their about (internal dialogue, clairvoyance etc) just makes it worse. Many have meditated themselves into bliss and back, but their life still was a neurotic mess. Read Jack Kornfields reports in his books, and you'll see. What sometimes is primarily important is being seen, heard, aknowledged, and not labelled, and diagonsed because of it. In essence just the fact that someone else aknowledges your experience unbiased is half the solution.

 

But I've read what you yourself have gone through, and have deep respect for your choice of approach.

 

best

 

h

[findley]

Hmm

 

I have been dealing with these experiences for some time, now. I do not think they are really anything that need to be overcome.

 

...and, yes, despite the implied cynicism, I do think that my experiences stem from something genuine. (I guess it will be nothing new to me, to be called crazy ) I have mentioned that I struggle to differentiate between genuine and 'forced' (clairvoyance?), but it is something I think I will eventually win.

 

I'm sorry, lozen, that your experience seems so much linked to your recent jail experience. it seems you're startign to figure out that it is somehow trauma related?

 

...oh well...