“There Are Voices Talking at Home”: Auditory Hallucinations Are Not Necessarily an Illness, Nor Necessarily a Ghost

Many people have had such moments: alone at home, they suddenly hear someone call their name, or hear a sentence spoken clearly. They look back, but there is no one there.

This kind of experience is far more common than most people think.

In 1894, a group of scholars in Britain conducted a large survey called the “Census of Hallucinations,” asking more than seventeen thousand people a simple question: Have you ever, while awake, seen, heard, or felt something that no one else could see? The result was that nearly one in ten answered “yes.”

Later surveys were similar: among ordinary people, five to fifteen percent have heard at least once in their lifetime a sound that others could not hear.

When does it tend to happen? When under extreme stress; when sleep-deprived; just after falling asleep or just after waking up; when extremely fatigued; when spending a long time alone; and after losing a loved one.

Research into the period after the death of a loved one includes an early survey that interviewed nearly three hundred elderly people who had recently lost a husband or wife; nearly half said that after being widowed, they had felt the other person nearby, or heard their voice, or seen their figure. Other studies put the proportion at thirty to sixty percent. These experiences are mostly brief, not painful, and often bring comfort. Doctors call them “bereavement hallucinations.”

Often, no treatment is needed. But there are a few situations where you should see a doctor: the voices never stop, occurring every day; the voices command you to do dangerous things, harming yourself or others; or you are so frightened that you cannot live normally.

Many people are unwilling to speak up, afraid of being thought crazy, so no one knows that actually quite a few people around them have had such experiences.

Most people only experience it once or twice, and once it’s over, it’s over, and it never happens again.

#Paranormal #网络转载 #科学解释