Study: 10% of kids/teens hear voices? Did/do you?

I never did until I got a neurological disease that has a similar course as syphilis. Meaning I was going a little bonkers until they finally figured it out.

I just heard people saying my name a lot.

I've had that very subtley when I've stayed up too many days, too.

Just interesting, I think.

That's interesting, this survey. I don't remember ever experiencing anything like this though. But I remember that a grandaunt of mine was diagnosed with something called Paracusia (which I found out just now is also called auditory hallucination)a few years ago after she lost her hearing at 86. She used to imagine being talked to when no one had and sometimes used to respond. She used to hear the voice in her head, but since 'hearing' is always associated with the 'ear', she was sure she wasn't deaf. Later just before she died, she used to say that she could hear her dead husband whisper to her.

If you're researching voices, then Accepting Voices is a very interesting read.

I've not heard voices other than my own conscience, but i still find the jokes funny. Perhaps the 'impulse' to make that kind of joke wasn't there if hearing voices wasn't something in your life; either way, humour is a brilliant way of coping with different issues and voices aren't immune to that.

For what it's worth - though figures vary - around 10% of teens have self-harmed at some point. However, that doesn't mean those same teens were the ones supposedly hearing voices.

An interesting excerpt from the autobiography "Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman!" :

The new psychiatrist looks at my papers, puts a big smile on his face,
and says, "Hello, Dick. I see you worked at Los Alamos during the war."
"Yeah."
"There used to be a boys' school there, didn't there?"
"That's right."
"Were there a lot of buildings in the school?"
"Only a few."
Three questions -- same technique -- and the next question is
completely different. "You said you hear voices in your head. Describe that,
please."
"It happens very rarely, when I've been paying attention to a person
with a foreign accent. As I'm falling asleep I can hear his voice very
clearly. The first time it happened was while I was a student at MIT. I
could hear old Professor Vallarta say, 'Dee-a dee-a electric field-a.' And
the other time was in Chicago during the war, when Professor Teller was
explaining to me how the bomb worked. Since I'm interested in all kinds of
phenomena, I wondered how I could hear these voices with accents so
precisely, when I couldn't imitate them that well... Doesn't everybody have
something like that happen once in a while?"

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Auditory Hallucinations or illusions are amazingly common. How many times have you heard someone say "I thought I heard the phone ringing" ? I've often been in a situation where I could have sworn I heard the phone ring. Not as interesting as voices, but probably the same cause. Our eyes also often see shapes that aren't there as well. Most inquiries try to separate out an auditory illusion compared to a auditory hallucination - but this study didn't try to differentiate. So it is hard to tell if 10% really did have auditory hallucinations at some point.

Given the way our brains pattern match it is odd that it doesn't happen more often.

Mac

Tinnitus



I’m deaf. After being increasingly hard-of-hearing for three decades, I’ve been totally deaf ten years. My sister has been deaf since birth.

As do many on the cusp or in the throes of temporary or permanent deafness, both of us experience bouts of tinnitus, noises we "hear" which have no basis in external stimulus.

Many sufferers of tinnutus report sounds from buzzing to ringing to cricket chirps. At the onset of a bout, I often "hear" murmuring, sometimes my name, sometimes other words.

It’s spooky.

Chase said:

At the onset of a bout, I often "hear" murmuring, sometimes my name, sometimes other words.

It’s spooky.

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The human brain does some weird things sometimes!

It also happens with certain types of blindness - people end up seeing all sorts of weird images.

The most bizarre thing of all is that we each have a period once a day where we lose consciousness and have major auditory & visual hallucinations .. yet we just accept it like it's normal ! (I've only manage to have cool auditory hallucinations just before falling asleep.

Wikipedia tells me:

Hypnagogic imagery is often auditory or has an auditory component. Like the visuals, hypnagogic sounds vary in intensity from faint impressions to loud noises, such as crashes and bangs (exploding head syndrome). People may imagine their own name called or a doorbell ringing. Snatches of imagined speech are common. While typically nonsensical and fragmented, these speech events can occasionally strike the individual as apt comments on – or summations of – their thoughts at the time. They often contain word play, neologisms and made-up names. Hypnagogic speech may manifest as the subject’s own ‘inner voice’, or as the voices of others: familiar people or strangers. More rarely, poetry or music is heard

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)

Via the omniscient XKCD:



Mac

Teen are also a group that more often to give false self-reports, even on anonymous surveys.

Most kids/adolescents/teens can hear pitches that adults can't. (That's why those teen-repellent alarms work in high end stores. The sound annoys kids, and makes them not want to hang around the store, but adults can't hear them.)

Kids can hear TV-shows, radios, etc. that adults can't - even through walls that an adult would swear blocked out noise. Also, it depends on what kind of people they're polling. Kids on the autism spectrum have AMAZING hearing.

For myself, my hearing at the high pitch ranges has always been super acute. Things like "blue screen" TVs have a distinct sound, even if not on a receptive channel and just on the "silent" blue screen. At one point, I could tell you where every security camera in a building was by sound. Something about their power source emitted an audible signal that 99% of people couldn't hear.

Anything like that to someone who doesn't know better could be considered hearing "things".

I said no, though I have tinnitus constantly. So I have plenty of unreal sound in my ears. It just isn't a voice.

I do when I'm close to falling asleep or when I'm lacking sleep badly, which is more common than I'd like.

I've also had a few bouts of sleep paralysis. Now that was scary. I seriously thought (actually, it was more like knew) that there was a demon sat next to my head, laughing in my ear, and I was going to die. Crazy, huh? And conscious, I'm so rational

I suppose it isn't so strange - the brain has no real contact with the outside world, it just relies on input from the senses, and sometimes the wires get a little crossed or fire when they aren't supposed to. Makes for entertaining dozing.

I tend to imagine voices in human voice range noise, such as the sound of a vacuum cleaner running. Not like I imagine the vacuum cleaner is talking, but that I think someone spoke in another room and I half-heard it through the noise. But other than that no, I don't recall ever imagining voices while I was awake.

How could I possibly know? Sometimes I hear things that maybe were there. Maybe not. I always have a very animate internal debate. Imaginary external voices have to fight for attention.

veinglory said:

Teen are also a group that more often to give false self-reports, even on anonymous surveys.

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Now that's the truth. I recall filling out anonymous school surveys about sexual activity when I was 15. I claimed to have had multiple sexual partners when in fact I had no sexual experience whatsoever!

I've had two auditory hallucinations and it's about the damned strangest thing ever. It's not at all like hearing voices on a regular basis, but if this is what they experience, no wonder they're loopy.

Once I came out of our downstairs bathroom and said to my husband, "Aw, why'd you turn that off? I love that song."

He looked at me like I'd grown a new head. I absolutely heard the stereo go on with a Collective Soul song that I quite like. A few lines rang out and then it went quiet. My husband was in the room with the stereo and the speakers. It never happened.

The only other time was when I had a group of friends over and my best friend, Jess, was late. There were probably five or six ladies milling around my living room and kitchen and I heard Jess come through the front door, talking and calling out to me. I came around the corner with a tray of snacks giving her a hard time for her tardiness.

Again, much open-mouthed staring at me. It didn't happen. Jess wasn't there yet. Of course, we were all convinced she'd died on the road on the way over. She showed up about five minutes later.

Both of these incidents happened with a year of each other, about eight or nine years ago. I cannot recall ever having anything like it before and certainly nothing since. No other symptoms or weird stuff going on, so I never got it checked out, but I can tell you, it will make you wonder. I heard it as clear as could be. I would have sworn in court that it happened. It was that real.

Freaky.

Yeah, mine were unmistakeable, although they did happen with wind blowing, or a crowd, etc.

At first, I'd turn around and look for who said it. After a while, I realized it was just another symptom in my mystery illness (I already had a ton of neuro symptoms).

I was on campus at the time, and it was quite possible that someone saw me and was calling for me from a distance. Except they never were. So creepy!

My pillow was too loud, too, lol. The crinkling. Strangely magnified. But hey loud is loud, real or not

yes, and listening to the voice (my dead grandmother) saved my life, but perhaps you mean something else.

I did in my early 20s. Giving up the booze made them stop. For real; I was a bit out of control at the time.