https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/h/hearing-voices
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ps ... ear-voices
It is the most common type of hallucination in people with psychotic disorders. However, a large number of otherwise healthy individuals have also reported hearing voices.
It is difficult to describe what it is like to hear voices, particularly if you’ve never heard voices yourself. Persons have described them as the voice of someone standing right next to them, or as voices that are thought-like. Some persons have reported experiencing a combination of both.3 The voices heard can be critical, complementary or neutral. They may give you commands that are potentially harmful. They may even engage you in conversation.4
You may think you have never experienced this, but are you sure? You may have had the experience of hearing someone call your name only to find that there is no one there. Indeed, research shows that, especially for recently bereaved people, it is not uncommon to hear the voice of someone who isn’t actually there speaking to you, or who may even be dead.
It's also common for people to hear voices as if they are thoughts entering their mind from somewhere outside themselves. This is not the same as a suddenly inspired idea, which people usually recognize as coming from themselves. These thoughts are not their own and would seem to come from outside their own consciousness..
I am curious on other people's thoughts on people who hear voices. Why is it such a common phenomenon? What do you think are the sources of these voices? It's already been mostly established that it happens at a very high frequency in non-psychotics.. So is it a coping mechanism? ESP? Anatta displaying it'self in full view?A study published earlier this year, based on a World Health Organization (WHO) survey of over 30,000 people across 18 countries, revealed that 2.5% of respondents reported voice-hearing at some point in their lives. In fact, the reported prevalence of 2 to 3 voice-hearers out of every 100 people is low compared to other similar studies that have found rates of anywhere from less than 1% to 84%
Thoughts/Opinions? If you want to research it more before posting, there is plenty of information out there, even quite a bit of peer-reviewed research on it. Especially since it's related to mental illness.