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Healthy people can hear the voice in their head, too
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Mandatory hallucinations are when a person begins to hear voices in their head. It is believed that only people with various mental disorders begin to hear voices, but a recent study has shown that sometimes voices occur in completely healthy people.
Voices in the head are a verbal deception, they have no external stimulus and arise exclusively in the thoughts of a mentally ill person. Voices can in a commanding or pleading tone encourage a person to take certain actions.
When a person who does not suffer from any mental disorders begins to hear a voice in their head, it causes an ambiguous reaction from those around them. Some say that this is the initial stage of schizophrenia, others consider it a common phenomenon (for example, mediums or psychics who can communicate with the world of the dead).
Until recently, experts believed that sounds occurring in the head were a symptom of a mental disorder and people who began to hear something needed urgent medical attention.
But recently, as it turns out, voices in the head can also occur in completely healthy people and, as numerous examinations have shown, do not suffer from mental disorders in any form.
To understand the unusual phenomenon, experts from Durham University in England surveyed over 150 people online. All survey participants were specially selected - each of them periodically experienced auditory hallucinations.
After analyzing the survey results, specialists found that 26% of participants had no complaints about mental health issues. More than 80% heard more than one voice in their heads. Of the total number of participants, 70% had noted imperative hallucinations with characteristic features, while 60% simultaneously experienced tactile hallucinations (such participants noted that when a voice arose in their heads, a feeling of heat and tingling passed through their bodies, as if they were touched by some object). Often, such hallucinations were painful and rough. During the study, specialists found that such tactile hallucinations are associated with traumas suffered in the past.
The survey created by the specialists aimed to find out what people feel during attacks of auditory hallucinations. As it turned out, most of the participants experienced fear, anxiety, indifference, some fell into depression. But 1/3 of the participants amazed the group of specialists - they noted that during imperative hallucinations their mood improved, they felt joy, an all-pervading feeling of happiness came.
Regarding such a phenomenon as auditory hallucinations, almost all specialists believe that this condition requires urgent medical care, since in the early stages the disease is easier to cure, otherwise such hallucinations can result in serious consequences that are dangerous not only for the patient, but also for his environment, in particular, we are talking about suicide or murder.