11 ms·

People Who Hear Voices Could Be on to Something

57 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Talking through a problem in my head is the most natural way to solve it for me. I've always wondered if that counts as hearing voices. Especially because sometimes it's hard to shut off at night when I need to go to sleep.
- yoodenvranx 9y ago
  > Especially because sometimes it's hard to shut off at night when I need to go to sleep. I recently realized that listening to a "boring" podcast or youtube videos while trying to fall asleep will shut down all those voices and thoughts.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    It does. But now it's almost impossible to sleep without it. I'm not sure which is worse.
  - probablybroken 9y ago
    Yes - I've used ASMR videos for the same purpose; Gently varying sounds seem to be enough to suppress the internal dialogue for me.
  - BurningFrog 9y ago
    There is a window between "interesting enough that it keeps my attention" and "not interesting enough that I need to hear the whole thing" that works for me. It can't have a narrative arc that makes you want to hear the end, so mostly it's witty but aimless conversations, and newscasts type programs.
- accountyaccount 9y ago
  It doesn't "count" from a psychological perspective until it really starts impacting your life in negative (and measurable) ways. A common example might be "keeps you up at night" — which can happen to people from time to time, but the moment it starts damaging your relationships and ability to live comfortably it becomes something that might be a part of a clinical diagnosis (simply "hearing voices" isn't a problem on its own without other factors). If the public could learn one thing about psychology I think it should probably be that there's never "just one thing" when it comes to identifying problems. A single compulsion doesn't mean you have OCD, for example.
  - bitJericho 9y ago
    Or you've made some pretty shitty decisions and need to fix your life! Sometimes the voices are trying to help!
    - accountyaccount 9y ago
      typically good voice: "this feels bad, get your shit together so you can avoid this in the future" typically bad voice: "this feels bad, maybe god will notice you if you start setting things on fire"
- teilo 9y ago
  No, it's not the same thing at all. There is a distinct difference between your own internal dialogue and hearing voices. When you are hashing out things with yourself, you perceive yourself as the source of the voices/thoughts. On the contrary, when you hear voices, they are like an intrusion. You do not perceive them as yourself, nor as your own thoughts, but as if someone else stepped into your head and said something that you were not contemplating, in a voice that sounds nothing like your own. A lot of people experience this phenomena when they are just on the verge of falling asleep. Now imagine that same thing happening when you are wide awake.
  - daveguy 9y ago
    In my teens and early 20s I would hear friends calling my name when I was alone especially after a long period of social activity. I know it was just in my head, but it was still an odd sensation. I've never heard anything outside that, but it was definitely different than the inner monologue. I don't experience it before falling asleep, and rarely at all anymore. My daughter says hearing voices happens to her somewhat regularly on the verge of sleep. I am interested to try the "imagine a talking head as you are going to sleep" that someone else mentioned. I think this kind of conversation is fascinating. Personally think that neuroscientists exploring these phenomena and "edge cases" will help improve our understanding of intelligence, the mind, and brain function.
    - teilo 9y ago
      I have had a few cases where a voice has intruded when I was tired, but not about to fall asleep (in one case I was driving). In each case the voice was not talking to me at all, and it was just a snippet, less than a sentence, and then it's gone and does not recur. It is almost as if I am eavesdropping on a bit of random conversation. I have never experienced a visual hallucination (and I have never taken any drugs that could cause either).
- mikestew 9y ago
  I've always wondered if that counts as hearing voices. In my reading of Buddhist writings, the non-stop, live-streaming audio track is common enough (arguably universal) that this is addressed in those writings. So, no, I don’t think it counts if we all have it. :-) As far as going to sleep, meditation helps. Zen-style Buddhist meditation addresses “the voice” specifically: be apathetic to it, not trying to block or ignore it, just be with it. Of course the whole of Zen thought can’t be described in a sentence. Contact your local zendo for more information. :-) Personally, when I’ve been a “good” Zen student for a period of time, “the voice” can go away on occasion, usually during meditation. Now that is...different.
- pierrebai 9y ago
  You hear voices while you dream. In my dreams, other people talk without me controlling what they say, so obviously they have their own internal voice independent of mine, yet they all live in my mind. (People I know tend to act like I'd expect them to act. They're the embodiement of my perception of them in real life, but autonomous.) I've always found that strange that people could live in my head during dreaming. What's more, I sometimes dream of people doing creative things or creating stories. Yet those things obviously come from my own brain. I can't figure out how my brain does it. It's smarter than my conscious self.
skc 9y ago
But there is always a voice talking in our heads. It's just that we generally ascribe it to our own consciousness but when you really sit down and think about it, it's a bit creepy when you realise that you don't actually know where it's coming from and what is prompting it to say what it is saying.
- hacker_9 9y ago
  You should try meditation. Effectively you 'stop' listening to the voice and then things all go a bit crazy. The voice talks to itself, memories become really vivid, hallucinations can happen too. And all while you just observe what is going on. Can be quite fun.
  - daveguy 9y ago
    Are you serious? Sounds almost like a dream state. I've "meditated" with breathing control somewhat superficially for a few minutes at a time, but never experienced anything like that. Any guides to this kind of meditation?
    - hacker_9 9y ago
      Do it everyday when you lie down to sleep. I don't set a timer and usually do it until at least my mind is calm (results in better sleep). I listen to my heartbeat in my veins in my forehead instead of breathe, which sounds harder than it is. Also at the beginning of the session it can be difficult to 'relax', so don't even try just wholly focus on listening to the heartbeat even if you need to tense, scrunch up face etc. Then as you get more into it you will relax naturally and fully. Hard part after that is drifting off into memories, which takes experience to lessen that. Effectively you get better at observation, which leaves the unconscious free to do as it likes and it can get up to all kinds of weird stuff. I've observed it playing a racing game and controlling the car and overtaking other cars. Or sometimes it'll jump me into a lucid dream state, (where you know you are dreaming). You are never quite sure what it'll do.
      - 9y ago
sharkweek 9y ago
Watching Anderson Cooper try a schizophrenia simulator is one of the most stress-inducing things I've ever seen. I'll occasionally hear a voice here and there (I guess this is somewhat common?), but am able to normally brush it off. I couldn't imagine living daily with this much noise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL9UJVtgPZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL9UJVtgPZY One thing of note, found in the YouTube comments, that this example is pretty generic voices, and instead for someone suffering with schizophrenia, imagine having the voice be very specific about the individual, attacking known issues ("Your parents don't love you!" "You're so stupid and everyone thinks you're a failure!"). I can't imagine that level of suffering...
- vpribish 9y ago
  That was remarkably well done. Actually a great use of a celebrity reporter! thanks for sharing it.
bitwize 9y ago
C-f Jaynes Nothing. Modern psychology needs to come to grips with The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. A trove of riches for anyone interested in practical psychology.
- lukasb 9y ago
  It's uh ... speculative to say the least. But it's a fantastic read.
- Cozumel 9y ago
  Nice! Was going to leave this comment myself.
- Phemist 9y ago
  One of my thoughts as well. Also _hallucinations_ by Oliver Sacks.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  That's like saying that archaeology needs to come to grips with Erich von Däniken. It's not as if modern scholars are oblivious to Jaynes’ ideas. They have been examined, but they have been found wanting.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Do you know of any specific critiques of Jaynes' ideas? I'd be very interested to read them.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    His (tentative and ancillary) neurological conjectures haven't worked out. The main ideas have not been engaged with or found wanting;there is no prevailing theory of consciousness, and psychology as taught and practiced in the US is laughably reductionistic and has never shaken off the influence of behaviorism. Western science treats the brain as an organ amounting to little more than a set of synaptic reflexes to be either drugged or trained. A 'healthy' mind is is equated with an untroubled economically productive one, and there's no real theory of experience or identity. Thinkers like Sacks, Dennett, and Hofstatder are well-respected but have little visible influence on the practice of psychology, and the field as a whole is treated as a sideshow in the intellectual carnival. Admittedly the Us does not have a strong public intellectual discourse so I may be looking innovative thinkers who are confined to the academy and have difficulty reaching a wider audience.
microwavecamera 9y ago
I'm sorry, as a schizophrenic I'm calling bullshit on this one. Psychics? Seriously people? How about adequate treatment programs and access to affordable medication.
- ltwdm 9y ago
  I agree,but isn't the article a good step towards educating the public about the nuances of these diseases? I think the spectrum is so broad, and maybe it will help the people with milder symptoms at it's tail end by making the society more receptive. I have a relative who is scheizophrenic and I can't stress how important it is to make people aware, and enable them to see from a compassionate angle. To me this article goes in the same direction as the remarkable article done years ago by Rachel Aviv [1] To me we need more like this. And also the article does mention how the researchers stress on proper diagnosis and treatment. [1] http ://www.columbia.edu/cu/neuwrite/pubs/avivHarpers.pdf
  - microwavecamera 9y ago
    Got busy, just got a chance to respond. I'm all about raising awareness and have experienced first hand the stigma of having a mental disorder like schizophrenia. It's not fun. The stigmatization or the condition. In fact, being schizophrenic is nothing short of extensional horror. Associating a metal disorder, like schizophrenia, with "psychics", I feel would only further stigmatize people with mental disorders and lessen the seriousness of the condition to the public. I would find it disheartening that someone would get the idea that talking to a psychic would somehow improve the condition of a person with a mental disorder. We need to raise awareness about these things but people need to be aware of the woeful lack the available treatment programs and the high cost of medication the prevents us from getting better, not that a "psychic" could somehow help in any way.
- deleted 9y ago
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moomin 9y ago
It's fairly easy to trick yourself into hearing voices: as you're going to sleep, picture yourself watching a newsreader. Keep watching them talk. Eventually your brain starts to switch to sleep mode and you actually start hearing something. (Well, you might fall asleep first.) If you're conscious enough it'll surprise the heck out of you and then the voice will go away. Given how easy it is to pull this trick on yourself, I'm not entirely shocked that some people find it possible without conscious effort. But I think the content is rather like dreams: sometimes it's just nonsense, sometimes it's like that idea that comes to you in the shower, but always part of your brain processing your waking experiences.
- ltwdm 9y ago
  How do you imagine the content the newsreader is supposed to read? Isn't it hard to produce random coherent content in your mind?
  - wayn3 9y ago
    no. the mind, when at ease - when you truly do not try to think a particular thing - will do its own thing. just like when you're dreaming. deep neural networks have no trouble producing random but coherent content, either.
justinpombrio 9y ago
EDIT: Wrong article! > Overall the machine works well but I’m still not happy with the hopper and the first stage belt. It is running much slower than the speed at which the parts recognizer works (30 parts / second) and I really would like to come up with something better. It sounds like your existing hopper is reliable but slow? If that's the case, could you just make two (perhaps somewhat smaller) hoppers and merge their outputs?
- orf 9y ago
  Am I.. seeing... voices or is this comment about the Lego sorting machine?
  - dgacmu 9y ago
    > A lot of time on that blog was spent mocking purely aesthetic features of the homes and I feel like if you like the aesthetic then there is not much else to consider. In fairness, the blogger spends a lot of time going into the philosophy underlying architectural aesthetics. For example: http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/post/161514422581/mmh-does-architectural-theory-part-5-empiricism http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/post/161514422581/mmh-does-a...
muninn_ 9y ago
Carl Sagan talks a little bit about Schizophrenia in his book Dragons of Eden. I've held for a long time now that what we experience as "consciousness" is just an evolutionary adaptation and what we call Schizophrenia is this same adaptation just gone a little haywire. I believe animals, mammals in particular, are fundamentally no different in this regard, it's just that the sophistication of their inner voice is likely to just be far inferior to ours due to our brain/body ratio and the development of the neocortex in humans. For me, personally, I feel that when I speak to myself in my head, the inner-chatter I think of as consciousness, I also feel as though I'm speaking words through my mouth, I'm just not using it. Maybe language also has something to do with it? Maybe we developed language and "consciousness" together? Just a pet personal theory, could be likely very wrong and I'm sure since this is the Internet somebody will be happy to oblige.
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  " Maybe we developed language and "consciousness" together?" I read/watched something some time back. It used to be believed that folks that couldn't hear - and therefore, couldn't talk - also had low IQ's. It turned out this can be correct if folks aren't taught sign language early in life. It went on to refer to language as the program that lets us run consciousness. So yeah, you are probably onto something. Language and consciousness, if not developed together, definitely seem to go hand in hand.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- ltwdm 9y ago
  I like that theory. Maybe much of what we associate with the word "consciousness" are the mental models which cannot exist without language, like the social aspects Yuval Noah Harari talks about.
FrozenVoid 9y ago
Voices can be blocked by changing brain frequency with binaural beats(brainwave entrainment). Brain is at etheric level a radio receiver.
- jamiek88 9y ago
  What does 'etheric level' mean?
  - FrozenVoid 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etheric_body https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etheric_body
xyzzy4 9y ago
If you want to hear voices, just take 400-500mg of Benadryl. Enough to hallucinate, not enough to hospitalize you.
crispytx 9y ago
Rule #1 of Mental Illness: If God starts talking to you, it's not God.
pcunite 9y ago
You can hear God speaking to you in your mind if you'll make the effort to pray to Him. However, what He responds back with will never contradict his written word (Bible). People claim God told them to go kill a famous person. What they actually heard was from the devil. They already had some internal reason to want to do the crime anyway.
- jackmott 9y ago
  This is nonsense tautological reasoning. The written word isn't even consistent with itself. Grow up.
  - DigitalJack 9y ago
    You could have said "This is tautological reasoning. The written word isn't even consistent with itself." And left it at that. As is, your post is just mean.
  - pcunite 9y ago
    I've been studying the Bible as if it was a programming book. Kinda like code for how to live~think. I've found it perfectly consistent when taken all in together. You have to understand the different dispensations being referenced therein. It's really been amazing to actually put it into practice. Take being humble for example. Why would I do that?! Well, it is a concept the Bible mandates. So, I've taken to doing that. I now fully realize how truly stupid I am where previously I felt so smart. I can learn from others much better now.
- DigitalJack 9y ago
  "People claim God told them to go kill a famous person. What they actually heard was from the devil." Tell that to Abraham.
  - mysterydip 9y ago
    God vs devil aside, there was a reason for it in that particular story, and Abraham was given an alternative in the end. That being said, there are numerous other stories where God did tell people to kill (David vs Goliath, the Isrealites vs the various peoples inhabiting the Promosed Land, etc).
sreeramvenkat 9y ago
This seems related to Karna Yakshini in Hindu mysticism - a being that whispers in ears.
deleted 9y ago
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occultist_throw 9y ago
I've trained myself how to do this. Sure, call them psychics. I usually attribute them as having an innate ability to do this. As for me, there are schools of magic that teach how to develop this. I didn't believe at first, but with enough "coincidences", I accepted it tentatively. I still seek for a way to harmonize this with science proper. But most people are too caustic and closed-off to even give this a consideration. There are really 2 options: 1. Everything is purely physical. When you die, you are worm food, the end. Many people 'believe' this, given no proof of either way. 2. The other option is that there is some unknown type of "energy" (boy, do I hate that word, BTW). And our bodies are some sort of receiver. Some times, we can receive other stuff. It would also explain out of body experiences, dreams that feel like more, feeling people watching you, near-death experiences, parents being able to sense when their child's hurt at a distance, and other things. How does this work? No bloody clue. If everything's simply physical, then who cares? You're worm food anyways. The second offers much more - some people can communicate with it. So, how does it work? How can I receive it, say, from a computer receiver? How do I transmit? How do I view it? But hostiles will be hostiles, well, until we start seeing more "Science of Consciousness" work. Then finally, we can bring the Occult and Psychism to science proper. ------------------------------ (EDIT: Wow, again, another mod-storm. It seems the staunch atheists and antitheists are going at this thread with a vengeance. I'm only highlighting 'interesting' phenomenon, for a possibility others might find something interesting and share their findings. You know, it's kind of how science works. Well, unless it's an echo-chamber filled with sycophants repeating their own religious dictates that 'the occult and psychism doesnt exist'. I know the path I understand it, but it is unprovable to others. Tl;Dr: study of N=1. I'll wait for you deniers to explain consciousness. I'll be waiting.)
- muninn_ 9y ago
  And that's what we call Religion.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - occultist_throw 9y ago
0898 9y ago
When I was a child (5 or 6) I remember often hearing voices – sometimes muttering, sometimes shouting angrily. It was often when I was sick, or suffering from a fever. It stopped happening I guess, but I still wonder if that's normal?
- notvplez 9y ago
  This happened to me during my childhood fevers as well. Multiple voices more or less simultaneously saying the same thing, like a group of people whispering in a room, at times growing louder, more insistent, angrier, in the end shouting. Almost forgot about it until I experienced something similar during my brief experimentation with salvia divinorum in my early twenties, though this time the voices sounded somewhat unified and much less like an angry mob, more like some kind of incredulous medieval choir reciting lines about what I was doing while not having any of it. Fast forward twenty years and the angry insistent mob decided to once more pay me a visit during a sleepless and feverish night, this was about a month ago. Not sure if normal, I'm definitely not, but I've never heard or seen anyone mention this phenomenon in a way I could relate to until you just did.
  - 0898 9y ago
    Yes, exactly that – the voices started out whispering, but would culminate in rage. Interesting, I wonder if there's a name for this.
ltwdm 9y ago
Interesting research on how hallucinations relate to "an increase in tiny movements in the muscles associated with vocalization". Maybe the movements and the brain activity causing that happen first, and the "consciousness" just try to interpret that in the best way it can.(I think there are some patterns here that is much like the "interpretations" described in the split brain studies [1]). When the signals get too weird and does not fit in to any interpretation that is defined as "normal", we go into the Schizophrenia territory. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/split-brain-research-sperry-gazzaniga https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/split-bra...

57 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

Talking through a problem in my head is the most natural way to solve it for me. I've always wondered if that counts as hearing voices. Especially because sometimes it's hard to shut off at night when I need to go to sleep.

yoodenvranx 9y ago
> Especially because sometimes it's hard to shut off at night when I need to go to sleep. I recently realized that listening to a "boring" podcast or youtube videos while trying to fall asleep will shut down all those voices and thoughts.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  It does. But now it's almost impossible to sleep without it. I'm not sure which is worse.
- probablybroken 9y ago
  Yes - I've used ASMR videos for the same purpose; Gently varying sounds seem to be enough to suppress the internal dialogue for me.
- BurningFrog 9y ago
  There is a window between "interesting enough that it keeps my attention" and "not interesting enough that I need to hear the whole thing" that works for me. It can't have a narrative arc that makes you want to hear the end, so mostly it's witty but aimless conversations, and newscasts type programs.
accountyaccount 9y ago
It doesn't "count" from a psychological perspective until it really starts impacting your life in negative (and measurable) ways. A common example might be "keeps you up at night" — which can happen to people from time to time, but the moment it starts damaging your relationships and ability to live comfortably it becomes something that might be a part of a clinical diagnosis (simply "hearing voices" isn't a problem on its own without other factors). If the public could learn one thing about psychology I think it should probably be that there's never "just one thing" when it comes to identifying problems. A single compulsion doesn't mean you have OCD, for example.
- bitJericho 9y ago
  Or you've made some pretty shitty decisions and need to fix your life! Sometimes the voices are trying to help!
  - accountyaccount 9y ago
    typically good voice: "this feels bad, get your shit together so you can avoid this in the future" typically bad voice: "this feels bad, maybe god will notice you if you start setting things on fire"
teilo 9y ago
No, it's not the same thing at all. There is a distinct difference between your own internal dialogue and hearing voices. When you are hashing out things with yourself, you perceive yourself as the source of the voices/thoughts. On the contrary, when you hear voices, they are like an intrusion. You do not perceive them as yourself, nor as your own thoughts, but as if someone else stepped into your head and said something that you were not contemplating, in a voice that sounds nothing like your own. A lot of people experience this phenomena when they are just on the verge of falling asleep. Now imagine that same thing happening when you are wide awake.
- daveguy 9y ago
  In my teens and early 20s I would hear friends calling my name when I was alone especially after a long period of social activity. I know it was just in my head, but it was still an odd sensation. I've never heard anything outside that, but it was definitely different than the inner monologue. I don't experience it before falling asleep, and rarely at all anymore. My daughter says hearing voices happens to her somewhat regularly on the verge of sleep. I am interested to try the "imagine a talking head as you are going to sleep" that someone else mentioned. I think this kind of conversation is fascinating. Personally think that neuroscientists exploring these phenomena and "edge cases" will help improve our understanding of intelligence, the mind, and brain function.
  - teilo 9y ago
    I have had a few cases where a voice has intruded when I was tired, but not about to fall asleep (in one case I was driving). In each case the voice was not talking to me at all, and it was just a snippet, less than a sentence, and then it's gone and does not recur. It is almost as if I am eavesdropping on a bit of random conversation. I have never experienced a visual hallucination (and I have never taken any drugs that could cause either).
mikestew 9y ago
I've always wondered if that counts as hearing voices. In my reading of Buddhist writings, the non-stop, live-streaming audio track is common enough (arguably universal) that this is addressed in those writings. So, no, I don’t think it counts if we all have it. :-) As far as going to sleep, meditation helps. Zen-style Buddhist meditation addresses “the voice” specifically: be apathetic to it, not trying to block or ignore it, just be with it. Of course the whole of Zen thought can’t be described in a sentence. Contact your local zendo for more information. :-) Personally, when I’ve been a “good” Zen student for a period of time, “the voice” can go away on occasion, usually during meditation. Now that is...different.
pierrebai 9y ago
You hear voices while you dream. In my dreams, other people talk without me controlling what they say, so obviously they have their own internal voice independent of mine, yet they all live in my mind. (People I know tend to act like I'd expect them to act. They're the embodiement of my perception of them in real life, but autonomous.) I've always found that strange that people could live in my head during dreaming. What's more, I sometimes dream of people doing creative things or creating stories. Yet those things obviously come from my own brain. I can't figure out how my brain does it. It's smarter than my conscious self.

skc 9y ago

But there is always a voice talking in our heads. It's just that we generally ascribe it to our own consciousness but when you really sit down and think about it, it's a bit creepy when you realise that you don't actually know where it's coming from and what is prompting it to say what it is saying.

hacker_9 9y ago
You should try meditation. Effectively you 'stop' listening to the voice and then things all go a bit crazy. The voice talks to itself, memories become really vivid, hallucinations can happen too. And all while you just observe what is going on. Can be quite fun.
- daveguy 9y ago
  Are you serious? Sounds almost like a dream state. I've "meditated" with breathing control somewhat superficially for a few minutes at a time, but never experienced anything like that. Any guides to this kind of meditation?
  - hacker_9 9y ago
    Do it everyday when you lie down to sleep. I don't set a timer and usually do it until at least my mind is calm (results in better sleep). I listen to my heartbeat in my veins in my forehead instead of breathe, which sounds harder than it is. Also at the beginning of the session it can be difficult to 'relax', so don't even try just wholly focus on listening to the heartbeat even if you need to tense, scrunch up face etc. Then as you get more into it you will relax naturally and fully. Hard part after that is drifting off into memories, which takes experience to lessen that. Effectively you get better at observation, which leaves the unconscious free to do as it likes and it can get up to all kinds of weird stuff. I've observed it playing a racing game and controlling the car and overtaking other cars. Or sometimes it'll jump me into a lucid dream state, (where you know you are dreaming). You are never quite sure what it'll do.
    - 9y ago

sharkweek 9y ago

Watching Anderson Cooper try a schizophrenia simulator is one of the most stress-inducing things I've ever seen. I'll occasionally hear a voice here and there (I guess this is somewhat common?), but am able to normally brush it off. I couldn't imagine living daily with this much noise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL9UJVtgPZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL9UJVtgPZY One thing of note, found in the YouTube comments, that this example is pretty generic voices, and instead for someone suffering with schizophrenia, imagine having the voice be very specific about the individual, attacking known issues ("Your parents don't love you!" "You're so stupid and everyone thinks you're a failure!"). I can't imagine that level of suffering...

vpribish 9y ago
That was remarkably well done. Actually a great use of a celebrity reporter! thanks for sharing it.

bitwize 9y ago

C-f Jaynes Nothing. Modern psychology needs to come to grips with The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. A trove of riches for anyone interested in practical psychology.

lukasb 9y ago
It's uh ... speculative to say the least. But it's a fantastic read.
Cozumel 9y ago
Nice! Was going to leave this comment myself.
Phemist 9y ago
One of my thoughts as well. Also _hallucinations_ by Oliver Sacks.
Mediterraneo10 9y ago
That's like saying that archaeology needs to come to grips with Erich von Däniken. It's not as if modern scholars are oblivious to Jaynes’ ideas. They have been examined, but they have been found wanting.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Do you know of any specific critiques of Jaynes' ideas? I'd be very interested to read them.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  His (tentative and ancillary) neurological conjectures haven't worked out. The main ideas have not been engaged with or found wanting;there is no prevailing theory of consciousness, and psychology as taught and practiced in the US is laughably reductionistic and has never shaken off the influence of behaviorism. Western science treats the brain as an organ amounting to little more than a set of synaptic reflexes to be either drugged or trained. A 'healthy' mind is is equated with an untroubled economically productive one, and there's no real theory of experience or identity. Thinkers like Sacks, Dennett, and Hofstatder are well-respected but have little visible influence on the practice of psychology, and the field as a whole is treated as a sideshow in the intellectual carnival. Admittedly the Us does not have a strong public intellectual discourse so I may be looking innovative thinkers who are confined to the academy and have difficulty reaching a wider audience.

microwavecamera 9y ago

I'm sorry, as a schizophrenic I'm calling bullshit on this one. Psychics? Seriously people? How about adequate treatment programs and access to affordable medication.

ltwdm 9y ago
I agree,but isn't the article a good step towards educating the public about the nuances of these diseases? I think the spectrum is so broad, and maybe it will help the people with milder symptoms at it's tail end by making the society more receptive. I have a relative who is scheizophrenic and I can't stress how important it is to make people aware, and enable them to see from a compassionate angle. To me this article goes in the same direction as the remarkable article done years ago by Rachel Aviv [1] To me we need more like this. And also the article does mention how the researchers stress on proper diagnosis and treatment. [1] http ://www.columbia.edu/cu/neuwrite/pubs/avivHarpers.pdf
- microwavecamera 9y ago
  Got busy, just got a chance to respond. I'm all about raising awareness and have experienced first hand the stigma of having a mental disorder like schizophrenia. It's not fun. The stigmatization or the condition. In fact, being schizophrenic is nothing short of extensional horror. Associating a metal disorder, like schizophrenia, with "psychics", I feel would only further stigmatize people with mental disorders and lessen the seriousness of the condition to the public. I would find it disheartening that someone would get the idea that talking to a psychic would somehow improve the condition of a person with a mental disorder. We need to raise awareness about these things but people need to be aware of the woeful lack the available treatment programs and the high cost of medication the prevents us from getting better, not that a "psychic" could somehow help in any way.
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moomin 9y ago

It's fairly easy to trick yourself into hearing voices: as you're going to sleep, picture yourself watching a newsreader. Keep watching them talk. Eventually your brain starts to switch to sleep mode and you actually start hearing something. (Well, you might fall asleep first.) If you're conscious enough it'll surprise the heck out of you and then the voice will go away. Given how easy it is to pull this trick on yourself, I'm not entirely shocked that some people find it possible without conscious effort. But I think the content is rather like dreams: sometimes it's just nonsense, sometimes it's like that idea that comes to you in the shower, but always part of your brain processing your waking experiences.

ltwdm 9y ago
How do you imagine the content the newsreader is supposed to read? Isn't it hard to produce random coherent content in your mind?
- wayn3 9y ago
  no. the mind, when at ease - when you truly do not try to think a particular thing - will do its own thing. just like when you're dreaming. deep neural networks have no trouble producing random but coherent content, either.

justinpombrio 9y ago

EDIT: Wrong article! > Overall the machine works well but I’m still not happy with the hopper and the first stage belt. It is running much slower than the speed at which the parts recognizer works (30 parts / second) and I really would like to come up with something better. It sounds like your existing hopper is reliable but slow? If that's the case, could you just make two (perhaps somewhat smaller) hoppers and merge their outputs?

orf 9y ago
Am I.. seeing... voices or is this comment about the Lego sorting machine?
- dgacmu 9y ago
  > A lot of time on that blog was spent mocking purely aesthetic features of the homes and I feel like if you like the aesthetic then there is not much else to consider. In fairness, the blogger spends a lot of time going into the philosophy underlying architectural aesthetics. For example: http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/post/161514422581/mmh-does-architectural-theory-part-5-empiricism http://mcmansionhell.tumblr.com/post/161514422581/mmh-does-a...

muninn_ 9y ago

Carl Sagan talks a little bit about Schizophrenia in his book Dragons of Eden. I've held for a long time now that what we experience as "consciousness" is just an evolutionary adaptation and what we call Schizophrenia is this same adaptation just gone a little haywire. I believe animals, mammals in particular, are fundamentally no different in this regard, it's just that the sophistication of their inner voice is likely to just be far inferior to ours due to our brain/body ratio and the development of the neocortex in humans. For me, personally, I feel that when I speak to myself in my head, the inner-chatter I think of as consciousness, I also feel as though I'm speaking words through my mouth, I'm just not using it. Maybe language also has something to do with it? Maybe we developed language and "consciousness" together? Just a pet personal theory, could be likely very wrong and I'm sure since this is the Internet somebody will be happy to oblige.

Broken_Hippo 9y ago
" Maybe we developed language and "consciousness" together?" I read/watched something some time back. It used to be believed that folks that couldn't hear - and therefore, couldn't talk - also had low IQ's. It turned out this can be correct if folks aren't taught sign language early in life. It went on to refer to language as the program that lets us run consciousness. So yeah, you are probably onto something. Language and consciousness, if not developed together, definitely seem to go hand in hand.
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ltwdm 9y ago
I like that theory. Maybe much of what we associate with the word "consciousness" are the mental models which cannot exist without language, like the social aspects Yuval Noah Harari talks about.

FrozenVoid 9y ago

Voices can be blocked by changing brain frequency with binaural beats(brainwave entrainment). Brain is at etheric level a radio receiver.

jamiek88 9y ago
What does 'etheric level' mean?
- FrozenVoid 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etheric_body https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etheric_body

xyzzy4 9y ago

If you want to hear voices, just take 400-500mg of Benadryl. Enough to hallucinate, not enough to hospitalize you.

crispytx 9y ago

Rule #1 of Mental Illness: If God starts talking to you, it's not God.

pcunite 9y ago

You can hear God speaking to you in your mind if you'll make the effort to pray to Him. However, what He responds back with will never contradict his written word (Bible). People claim God told them to go kill a famous person. What they actually heard was from the devil. They already had some internal reason to want to do the crime anyway.

jackmott 9y ago
This is nonsense tautological reasoning. The written word isn't even consistent with itself. Grow up.
- DigitalJack 9y ago
  You could have said "This is tautological reasoning. The written word isn't even consistent with itself." And left it at that. As is, your post is just mean.
- pcunite 9y ago
  I've been studying the Bible as if it was a programming book. Kinda like code for how to live~think. I've found it perfectly consistent when taken all in together. You have to understand the different dispensations being referenced therein. It's really been amazing to actually put it into practice. Take being humble for example. Why would I do that?! Well, it is a concept the Bible mandates. So, I've taken to doing that. I now fully realize how truly stupid I am where previously I felt so smart. I can learn from others much better now.
DigitalJack 9y ago
"People claim God told them to go kill a famous person. What they actually heard was from the devil." Tell that to Abraham.
- mysterydip 9y ago
  God vs devil aside, there was a reason for it in that particular story, and Abraham was given an alternative in the end. That being said, there are numerous other stories where God did tell people to kill (David vs Goliath, the Isrealites vs the various peoples inhabiting the Promosed Land, etc).

sreeramvenkat 9y ago

This seems related to Karna Yakshini in Hindu mysticism - a being that whispers in ears.

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occultist_throw 9y ago

I've trained myself how to do this. Sure, call them psychics. I usually attribute them as having an innate ability to do this. As for me, there are schools of magic that teach how to develop this. I didn't believe at first, but with enough "coincidences", I accepted it tentatively. I still seek for a way to harmonize this with science proper. But most people are too caustic and closed-off to even give this a consideration. There are really 2 options: 1. Everything is purely physical. When you die, you are worm food, the end. Many people 'believe' this, given no proof of either way. 2. The other option is that there is some unknown type of "energy" (boy, do I hate that word, BTW). And our bodies are some sort of receiver. Some times, we can receive other stuff. It would also explain out of body experiences, dreams that feel like more, feeling people watching you, near-death experiences, parents being able to sense when their child's hurt at a distance, and other things. How does this work? No bloody clue. If everything's simply physical, then who cares? You're worm food anyways. The second offers much more - some people can communicate with it. So, how does it work? How can I receive it, say, from a computer receiver? How do I transmit? How do I view it? But hostiles will be hostiles, well, until we start seeing more "Science of Consciousness" work. Then finally, we can bring the Occult and Psychism to science proper. ------------------------------ (EDIT: Wow, again, another mod-storm. It seems the staunch atheists and antitheists are going at this thread with a vengeance. I'm only highlighting 'interesting' phenomenon, for a possibility others might find something interesting and share their findings. You know, it's kind of how science works. Well, unless it's an echo-chamber filled with sycophants repeating their own religious dictates that 'the occult and psychism doesnt exist'. I know the path I understand it, but it is unprovable to others. Tl;Dr: study of N=1. I'll wait for you deniers to explain consciousness. I'll be waiting.)

muninn_ 9y ago
And that's what we call Religion.
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- occultist_throw 9y ago

0898 9y ago

When I was a child (5 or 6) I remember often hearing voices – sometimes muttering, sometimes shouting angrily. It was often when I was sick, or suffering from a fever. It stopped happening I guess, but I still wonder if that's normal?

notvplez 9y ago
This happened to me during my childhood fevers as well. Multiple voices more or less simultaneously saying the same thing, like a group of people whispering in a room, at times growing louder, more insistent, angrier, in the end shouting. Almost forgot about it until I experienced something similar during my brief experimentation with salvia divinorum in my early twenties, though this time the voices sounded somewhat unified and much less like an angry mob, more like some kind of incredulous medieval choir reciting lines about what I was doing while not having any of it. Fast forward twenty years and the angry insistent mob decided to once more pay me a visit during a sleepless and feverish night, this was about a month ago. Not sure if normal, I'm definitely not, but I've never heard or seen anyone mention this phenomenon in a way I could relate to until you just did.
- 0898 9y ago
  Yes, exactly that – the voices started out whispering, but would culminate in rage. Interesting, I wonder if there's a name for this.

ltwdm 9y ago

Interesting research on how hallucinations relate to "an increase in tiny movements in the muscles associated with vocalization". Maybe the movements and the brain activity causing that happen first, and the "consciousness" just try to interpret that in the best way it can.(I think there are some patterns here that is much like the "interpretations" described in the split brain studies [1]). When the signals get too weird and does not fit in to any interpretation that is defined as "normal", we go into the Schizophrenia territory. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/split-brain-research-sperry-gazzaniga https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/split-bra...