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Anyone here have non-psychotic auditory hallucinations? Apparently they're surprisingly common.
I don't, but Julian Jaynes makes this same point in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, and even says that he himself had one that came as an insight. (He says while working on some academic problem alone in his apartment, he suddenly heard, "Replace the knower with the known!" or something like that, and genuinely believed it was from someone else to the point of searching his place, but found no one.)
Jaynes claims this phenomenon is evidence for his thesis that humans 3000+ years ago were like modern schizophrenics in that they heard voices that guided them with insights and that they identified as gods, but which we today identify as part of our own internal narrative.
Heh. Yeah, Morendil introduced me to the theory a couple months ago and I haven't stopped thinking about it.
Hmm. This could finally explain a mystery for me regarding my mother. I think she believes that her ancestors talk to her, and I could never reconcile this with the fact that in all other ways, she's a very rational, non-superstitious and pragmatic person.
When I was about 4 -- barely talking because my family was bilingual and I'm less adept at language anyway -- I told my mother I saw 'people' on my eyes. I meant that scratches in my eyes looked like people. To my astonishment, she seemed very happy and started including me in conversations with invisible people. My dad found out and put a stop to it, but I've always wondered about it.
Six years ago at my wedding, I overheard my mother talking about the ancestors with her sister. I decided it was some kind of family delusion. Maybe it's a genetic trait I didn't inherit.
Interesting. But note: Jaynes sayes that it's mainly enculturation that determines whether the tendency to hear voices is suppressed or not, so there are both genetic and cultural influences. ETA: He says that it's a latent tendency in everyone, thus genetic, but is revealed or not depending on upbringing.
Huh. If this is a thing, it could explain some stories of the "second sight" being passed down through families.
Or maybe ghosts are just real. That also explains the facts.
I started reading it a while ago. It's split up into three parts:
1) Explanation of the theory
2) Evidence from historical records
3) Vestiges of the bicameral mind in the modern world
I skipped part 2 and read most of 1 and 3. I don't know whether to recommend for or against it at this point. He definitely brings up some interesting evidence I hadn't known about involving schizophrenics, hypnotism, religious rituals (incl. Greek philosophers' experience with "gods"), and the development of modern science, and D. Dennett recommends him (in a bit of a back-handed way), but at the same time I get the sense of confirmation bias permeating the book. It's a big question mark at this point, and I've since focused efforts on more reliably insightful works.
The prominent linguist and writing systems scholar Peter T. Daniels once made the following comment about Jaynes's book:
I've read Jaynes's book, and my impressions confirm this view. Jaynes is certainly an excellent writer. The book is well worth reading even if just for entertainment value, and there is certainly much worthwhile about its creative and interesting theoretical speculations, as well as many gems of erudition that are strewn throughout it.
However, I don't think Jaynes's arguments ultimately hold water. The evidence he presents is sparse and far-fetched, and overwhelmingly limited to the ancient Mediterranean and Near East civilizations. He says very little to nothing about other human societies. There is no clear and unambiguous historical account of encountering a bicameral-minded society, even among peoples who were below the development level of the old civilizations discussed by Jaynes when first contacted by Westerners and other literate civilizations who have left extensive and clear histories. This seems to require a lot of special pleading to explain away, so I'd say it's a decisive argument against his theories.
Also, I remember several claims made by Jaynes that, to my knowledge, contradict well established findings in various fields. However, I would have to re-read the book to write down a precise critique; my memory of it isn't reliable enough to talk about the specifics right now.
Dennett has written that he sees Jaynes's theory as a modular theory, and that the historical hallucinations part is one part that he would like to discard, but that his ideas about consciousness coming from "talking to yourself" are spot on.
In any case, Jaynes is careful to say that he doesn't take any of it too literally and his thoughts are only suggestions and musings on how consciousness might have originated. Some of his critics seem to miss the larger picture and get caught up on factual details. Jaynes's book is really about large philosophical ideas, not historical facts.
At last, an explanation for The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind: Jaynes was crazy.
Sorry, sorry.
Very rarely (maybe once a year or less) and only when I'm falling asleep or am extremely sleepy. (I'm only counting things that I think are real; I routinely have vivid audiations that are not confusable with reality.)
I have also noticed hearing things when I am very sleepy: usually music or words that I can't quite hear clearly.
I'm very confused by this sentence! You know the auditory hallucinations aren't real, right? And what are these vivid audiations you speak of?
There's a distinct difference between hearing something vividly in your head, which is more like imagining a sound, and having an actual auditory hallucination. I read last night: schizophrenics may know that their auditory hallucinations aren't real, but they also can't distinguish them from real sounds.
Whenever I have had an auditory hallucination (also, very rarely), it has been of my name being called as well!
I often (~monthly) believe that my name is being called when further investigation suggests otherwise. I believe it is a result of a similar sibilant sound and my upbringing. My stepfather insisted that if he shouted my name I had to come running, even if I was out of earshot blocks away. Thus I was "nurtured" towards false positives.
This audio hallucination always fools me, but visual hallucinations never do.
At approximately the same rate (monthly), I imagine I see a cloaked figure. This is more an optical illusion in my peripheral vision, which I quickly recognize. Occasional Melatonin or Vitamin D greatly reduce the occurrence of this optical misidentification.
I also have a story about conditioned susceptibility to hallucinations: At one point I was in a long-distance relationship and I started hallucinating Google chat's New Instant Message notification sound. This happened several times a day, and if I happened to be in proximity to a computer I would have to check to see if it was real.
This happens to me constantly.
I'll take your questions in reverse order. (Note: Wikipedia gives audiation a purely musical meaning, but I'm using it here to include hearing speaking voices and other nonmusical things in one's head.)
I have what I think is above-average skill at visualization and audiation. (For musical things, my skill is definitely above average even among the musicians I know.) During the day, these are both under my conscious control -- I decide to see or hear something in my head, and I do.
When I'm falling asleep, though, my visualizations and audiations become
Despite the vividness and spontaneity, though, I never think any of this is real. It has a clear quality of coming from inside my head rather than the external world.
In the very rare occurrences of actual hallucinations, which are always voices and usually saying my name, they seem real. The only way I know they're not real is context -- I live alone so I figure it's more likely that I'm hallucinating than that someone has entered my house late at night and is talking to me. (Back when I lived with someone I would holler back if it sounded like someone was calling me from another room.)