That's a great question. It mostly happened when I was a good distance from the phone. So I would be running to pick it up before the caller hung up or it wen

That's a great question. It mostly happened when I was a good distance from the phone. So I would be running to pick it up before the caller hung up or it went to the answering machine. (Early 90's). I do think the ringing would get louder as I got closer to the phone, but it never actually went off that I remember in my hand or even when I was within 5 feet of it. Really close, the sound would have been much different. Also the phone should have actually vibrated in my hand which never happened. I always thought that meant I had 'just missed' the person who was calling. But it may have just been the limit of what the hallucination was able to produce.