auditory hallucinations?
December 29, 2019 2:28 AM Subscribe
i belong to a bipolar support group. we all have the exact same auditory hallucinations. how is this possible?
Another possibility is that they're not hallucinations per se. What do they sound like and under what circumstances do you hear them?
posted by flabdablet at 5:36 AM on December 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 5:36 AM on December 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Are you discovering that you already had the same ones even before you started the group? Or were they different before you joined the group, but now they're the same?
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:50 AM on December 29, 2019
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:50 AM on December 29, 2019
Response by poster: i should have mentioned - it's online, so we're from all over the world (though mostly the states). almost to a one, we all hear what sounds like old-timey radio shows and music. everyone i've been able to talk to had the experiences before we joined the group, before we started talking about it. i don't know the details of everyone's where/when/how, but i've experienced it everywhere i've lived - vegas, richmond, durham, chicago, florida and of course the surroundings were different in each instance. we are all on different cocktails of meds - some with antipsychotics, some not. some only hear them in more extreme episodes (why you could expect psychosis to be present) and some hear them basically anytime.
posted by megan_magnolia at 9:15 AM on December 29, 2019
posted by megan_magnolia at 9:15 AM on December 29, 2019
I have a kind of internal radio station that plays bits and snatches of music all the time and never really goes quiet as long as I'm awake, not even while deep in meditation (I can bear no witness to what it does when I'm asleep).
This is not something I think of as hallucinations, because I perceive it as unambiguously internal; turning my head this way and that doesn't alter it in the slightest, so it's easy to pick apart from sounds I'm actually hearing, and if those external sounds are loud enough they'll mask it. I've always just thought of this as something my own odd brain wiring does. It could instead have given me something vaguely approaching a workable visual memory and/or ability to visualize a scene I'm not seeing, but no, all I get is disconnected bits of Jimi Hendrix mashed up with the Archer theme or whatever it's programmed for me this hour.
How is what you're experiencing different from that?
By the way: now that you've mentioned old-timey radio, my internal network has just switched to having Garrison Keillor on guest vocals with Jimi, so thanks for that :-)
posted by flabdablet at 10:46 AM on December 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
This is not something I think of as hallucinations, because I perceive it as unambiguously internal; turning my head this way and that doesn't alter it in the slightest, so it's easy to pick apart from sounds I'm actually hearing, and if those external sounds are loud enough they'll mask it. I've always just thought of this as something my own odd brain wiring does. It could instead have given me something vaguely approaching a workable visual memory and/or ability to visualize a scene I'm not seeing, but no, all I get is disconnected bits of Jimi Hendrix mashed up with the Archer theme or whatever it's programmed for me this hour.
How is what you're experiencing different from that?
By the way: now that you've mentioned old-timey radio, my internal network has just switched to having Garrison Keillor on guest vocals with Jimi, so thanks for that :-)
posted by flabdablet at 10:46 AM on December 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
Also, I'd be quite interested to learn how you'd go about cross-checking with each other to verify that your mutual hallucinations are indeed the exact same, as opposed to merely being susceptible to description using similar words.
As to how this is possible: I'm not sure you're going to find a definitive answer beyond brains being even weirder than cats and sensitive to many kinds of subtle and usually unnoticed communication cues, and it being frankly astonishing that any of them work anywhere near as well as they do.
posted by flabdablet at 10:52 AM on December 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
As to how this is possible: I'm not sure you're going to find a definitive answer beyond brains being even weirder than cats and sensitive to many kinds of subtle and usually unnoticed communication cues, and it being frankly astonishing that any of them work anywhere near as well as they do.
posted by flabdablet at 10:52 AM on December 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I get these. Most of the time I just write them off as particularly vivid and persistent earworms, but I’ve definitely had moments where it’s been so vivid that part of me contemplated whether I’m (or my fillings, or the plate and screws in my ankle) acting as a radio receiver. This is worst when going to sleep, as part of the typical hypnagogic process. My 100% speculative guess is that BPD makes your group more susceptible this sort of doubt about the cause of a normal psychological/biological process.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 2:51 PM on December 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 2:51 PM on December 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: hm. interesting. i don't know how we would cross-check this! i never paid much attention to others until someone described it exactly how i did. but i can't say for anyone else, of course. the group making us more susceptible makes sense to me. i'll ask my dr next time i go. thanks y'all!
posted by megan_magnolia at 12:08 PM on December 31, 2019
posted by megan_magnolia at 12:08 PM on December 31, 2019
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posted by Waiting for Pierce Inverarity at 5:26 AM on December 29, 2019 [1 favorite]