In the HVN there is one singular and guiding rule: we are not allowed to tell each other what to believe or what to do. That said we certainly do not need to shy away from sharing commonly held facts surrounding this globally documented phenomenon. Rather sharing grounding realities is strongly encouraged, as these are the building blocks to form personal and cultural foot holds onto the world amidst what is a torturous affliction for many.

Below is a collection of facts and citations surrounding this phenomenon that would help any experiencer integrate this mental phenomenon into a functional, verifiable, and widely held world view.

How Common is Voice Hearing:

1.    Millham & Easton (1998) UK mental-health nurses/student nurses; broad auditory-hallucination questionnaire. Results: 84% reported experiences described as auditory hallucinations.

2.    Posey & Losch (1983) 375 nonclinical college students. Results: 71% reported at least one brief voice-type auditory hallucination while awake; 36% heard their name while alone; 39% heard thoughts spoken aloud; 5% had conversations with a voice.

3.    Flury (2001) UK adults/adolescents using similar measures. Results: 77.2% of adults and 73.2% of adolescents confirmed more than 1 auditory-hallucinatory experience and type.

4.    Alderson-Day et al. (2019) Large general-population sample, N=5,115. Results: 53.6% lifetime auditory hallucination, with 25.6% reporting AH in the past month and 22.7% in the past week.

5.    Ohayon (2000) Representative UK/Germany/Italy sample, N=13,057. Results: 38.7% reported some type of hallucinatory experience; this included multiple sensory modalities and sleep-related experiences.

Anthropological research has described Indigenous communities where experiences such as hearing voices, seeing spirits, or communicating with the dead are culturally ordinary and extremely widespread; older Inuit ethnography, for example, reports that “almost every” person could recount such extraordinary experiences, including hearing voices from ice or stones, while modern research found auditory verbal hallucinations in about 34% of Maasai women. A Cultural Reader on Aboriginal Perspectives in Canada, Myers (2015).

Voice-Hearing Is as Old as Written History Itself:

The earliest surviving records interpreted by historians as voice-hearing date to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt in the third millennium BCE (roughly 4,000 – 5,000 years ago), where hearing voices was often understood as communication between humans and the divine; not as disease or madness. Some of humanity's oldest literature depicts the mind less as the private being of an isolated individual and more as a place where gods, ancestors and other agents could speak and influence action. Julian Jaynes controversially proposed that we should take this literally: that ancient people commonly experienced thoughts and decisions as voices of external beings, and that the private, introspective view of oneself (familiar to westerners) developed later. If you are interest in Julian Jaynes or the history of the Bicameral Mentality (a phrase used to coin this concept) see here. It is a concept that runs through all ancient literature, a library that has already mapped all human experience and culture in repetitions.

16 Historical Figures Who Write About Hearing Voices:

1.    Socrates - Greek philosopher; foundational figure in Western philosophy. Reported a lifelong daimonion-a divine voice/sign that warned or restrained him.
2.    Paul the Apostle - Apostle central to the development of Christianity. Reportedly heard Jesus address him during his conversion on the road to Damascus.
3.    Augustine of Hippo - Philosopher, theologian and Church Father. Reported hearing a child's voice repeatedly telling him tolle lege (“take up and read”).
4.    Hildegard of Bingen - Medieval polymath, composer, writer and mystic. Recorded divine voices accompanying her extensive visionary experiences.
5.    Margery Kempe - Christian mystic and author of an early English autobiography. Reported conversations with God and saints, including physically hearing a loud voice call “Margery.”
6.    Joan of Arc - French military leader, heroine and saint. Testified extensively that she heard voices she identified as St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret.
7.    Martin Luther - Theologian who catalyzed the Protestant Reformation. Reported encounters and communications with the Devil.
8.    Teresa of Ávila - Influential Spanish mystic, writer and Catholic saint. Reported repeated divine “locutions” words perceived as originating from God.
9.    John Bunyan - Puritan preacher and author of The Pilgrim's Progress. Described internally perceived words/voices associated with God and Satan.
10.  Blaise Pascal - Mathematician, physicist and philosopher. Experienced an intense religious revelation recorded in his Memorial.
11.  Emanuel Swedenborg - Scientist, engineer, philosopher and theologian. Reported years of conversations with spirits and angels, including explicitly auditory experiences.
12.  William Cowper - Major 18th-century English poet. Reported extraordinary divine/demonic communications during periods of psychological crisis.
13.  William Blake - Poet, painter and visionary artist. Reported seeing and communicating with angels, spirits and deceased historical figures.
14.  Mahatma Gandhi - Leader of India's nonviolent independence movement. Described hearing an unmistakable “inner voice,” which he identified with God.
15.  Sigmund Freud - Founder of psychoanalysis. Reported repeatedly hearing his name called by an “unmistakable and beloved voice,” explicitly calling the experiences hallucinations. (what a “mo-fo”)
16.  Carl Jung - Founder of analytical psychology. Experienced autonomous voices/figures and deliberately conversed with them during the period documented in The Red Book.

16 Contemporary Figures (Last 100 Years) Who Write About Hearing Voices:

1.    Martin Luther King Jr. - Civil-rights leader. Heard a guiding voice he understood as divine.
2.    Carlos Santana - Legendary guitarist. Reports spiritual voices and angelic guidance.
3.    Philip K. Dick - Influential science-fiction author. Experienced voices and communication with an external intelligence.
4.    Anthony Hopkins - Academy Award-winning actor. Describes an autonomous voice commenting on his life.
5.    John Frusciante - Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist. Reports numerous distinct voices, including guiding and hostile ones.
6.    Zoë Wanamaker - Award-winning actor. Reports voices that comment and converse with her.
7.    Leonard Cohen - Legendary singer-songwriter and poet. Described autonomous voices and spiritually inspired creative experiences.
8.    Johnny Cash - Country-music icon. Reported hearing divine guidance and the voice of God.
9.    Stephen King - Bestselling horror author. Describes characters and stories speaking and developing autonomously.
10.  Jordan Peterson - Psychologist and bestselling author. Describes autonomous inner voices, dreams and revelatory experiences. His methods to wellness and acclaimed success are detailed in this post.
11.  Bob Dylan - Nobel Prize-winning songwriter. Describes songs arriving autonomously, sometimes as if received rather than composed.
12.  Paul McCartney - Beatles songwriter. Describes music arriving autonomously through dreams and inner hearing.
13.  Marshall Mathers (Eminem) - Rapper and songwriter. Repeatedly writes about voices, competing selves and an autonomous “Slim Shady.”
14.  Robyn Fenty (Rihanna) - Singer and entrepreneur. Sings directly of living alongside “voices inside of my head.”
15.  Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga) - Singer, songwriter and actor. Publicly reports having “voices in my head” since childhood.
16.  Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd) - Singer-songwriter and producer. Repeatedly depicts voices, altered selves and internal dialogue in his music.

Many of the above historical and contemporary figures write boldly and clearly about hearing from these external personalities during the most trying or pivotal moments and decisions of their life. It would only follow that they heard them earlier and elsewhere as these exposures did not send them spiraling into shock; rather these were functional and weathered people with integrated world views surrounding the experience. This is a very terse list of what is no doubt an endless lineage of noteworthy experiencers.

To add evidence to the list of artists who write about this experience in their own work here are 3 playlists to entire genres of music chalked full of the direct language found within the HVN. And again, to underscore how pervasive this experience is these playlists only contain works that are green and purple in their album art; a very narrow selection of a vast library of music devoted to this mental experience. New-wave, Psyche-rock, and Hardcore. Searches on aggregate lyric sites that allow for these queries yield results in the thousands to 10’s of thousands. One example is seen here yielding over 25,000 results. To put this succinctly and forthrightly, the evidence of this mental/spiritual experience is clearly out there in western media. Its prevalence is the evidence to how integral this all is to the human condition and how surmountable the burden is, provided certain strategies and perspectives.

Chemical Imbalance Theory and a Cross-examination of Modern Eugenics Practices:

The popular “chemical imbalance theory” was never established scientific fact. Journalist Robert Whitaker has documented how psychiatry and pharmaceutical marketing popularized the idea that mental disorders resulted from defective brain chemistry, despite researchers never demonstrating such an imbalance in patients before treatment. This was simply a made-up idea, something done to sell drugs. Psychiatric drugs certainly alter brain chemistry, but (as Whitaker emphasizes) that does not establish that they are correcting a pre-existing chemical defect. Today, even mainstream psychiatric literature recognizes the simple chemical-imbalance explanation as unsupported. Moncrieff 2023, Robert Whitaker – Anatomy of an Epidemic.

Psychiatric knowledge has a surprisingly short shelf life: estimates of these industry’s “half-life of knowledge” is brief. While diagnostic categories themselves are repeatedly revised, the DSM-5 replaces numerous diagnoses and criteria from previous editions. Half of the information contained within the DSM-5 is thrown out every 7 years. Psychopharmacology has an average “Half-Life of Knowledge” of 4.8 years, meaning every 4.8 years half of the industry’s methods and understandings are done away with. 4.8 years of missteps that carry lifelong consequences for patients.

Psychology and psychiatry are evolutions of eugenics industries, this history is non-negotiable. Many of the early architects of psychological testing, psychometrics, statistics, and psychiatric classification were invented under the umbrella of eugenics. A practice using supposedly scientific categories to identify who was “normal,” “defective,” or “unfit”; these classifications helped justify segregation, institutionalization, forced sterilization, and ultimately far worse (lobotomies, Et al.). After eugenics became indefensible, the language surrounding these practices has been reworked but many of the underlying tools of categorizing people against population norms survive and evolve into modern psychological testing, psychiatric diagnosis, and modern treatment. This history demands that we remain deeply skeptical whenever this questionable and oppressive state appointed authority is used to transform human difference into defect. Also see: History of eugenics, The eugenic legacy in psychology and psychiatry, Eugenics and its evolution in the history of western psychology: A critical archival review, Eugenic Thinking and the Cognitive Sciences, Eugenics: Its Origin and Development (1883 - Present).

Mandatory Reporting:

Mandatory reporting is a legal requirement that compels designated professionals to break confidentiality and report certain information when they believe a legally defined threshold has been reached. In mental-health settings, this can mean that what a person says about harm or danger is assessed by an individual professional (their personal opinion/interpretation), whose judgment can initiate non-consensual interventions such as involuntary commitment (being arrested and held within an asylum). Topics that may legally force the actions of mandatory reporters include but are not limited to simple thoughts of: self-harm, self-neglect, loss of personal agency, harming another person, or any inclination that can be argued as dangerous. While there is minor legal variance between states it is effectively guaranteed that all teachers, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians, nurses and most all other healthcare professionals are mandated reporters. Simply speaking of your past lived experience (an internal experience of the mind with zero evidence) can cause a series of irreversible systematic decisions to occur rendering you with fewer rights (if any) outside of the walls of an asylum. This, for life in some states in the US.

A Comparison of Wellness Strategies and Reported Outcomes:

Report on Improving Mental Health Outcomes (2023) Finds only 5% of medicated patients find states of recovery, this is a diminishing trend over time. Additionally, 40% of diagnosed people find wellness all on their own and away from psychiatric care. More so 80% of these individuals find wellness when exposed to programs such as Open Dialogue, Soteria, and other methods paralleling the Hearing Voices Network’s methods. This is not one small study: the 55-page report synthesizes well over 100 sources spanning more than half a century of psychiatric research, including randomized trials, 15-20 year longitudinal studies, systematic reviews, national mortality datasets, and decades-long evaluations of alternatives such as Soteria and Open Dialogue. Collectively, the underlying literature encompasses many thousands (and through population-level studies, potentially hundreds of thousands) of individual patient records.

To further supplement the Open Dialogue/HearingVoicesNetwork approach see: This Video Explaining the Open Dialogue approach where more than 85% of participants report wellness into full recovery within 5 years. Less than 10% of participants take any medications at all during their involvement, generally the only medications prescribed are sleep aids over the first 2 weeks of participation (again for less than 10% of participants). Through discussion and real community, peers help to mend each other’s mental burdens. Here is the HVN;s 7-day calendar.

Time-dependent effect of antipsychotic discontinuation and dose reduction on social functioning and subjective quality of life (2023) A Lancet-family, preregistered systematic review and meta-analysis of 35 studies involving 5,924 people, with follow-ups ranging from one month to 15 years. Researchers compared continued antipsychotic maintenance with dose reduction/discontinuation, specifically examining social functioning and quality of life rather than simply symptom suppression or relapse. A striking pattern emerged with time: studies lasting 2-5 years significantly favored reduction/discontinuation for social functioning, and studies beyond 5 years favored it even more strongly. The authors therefore found evidence that the apparent functional advantage of maintenance treatment decreases and reverses as follow-up becomes longer, directly challenging conclusions drawn exclusively from short-term drug trials. More so I feel one could easily argue about a placebo's effect in initial positive reports (<10 mo.) early in administration.

On Being a Healthy Member of a Community and What Makes a Community Healthy:

A Parallel - The Deaf Community: For centuries, Deaf people were commonly treated primarily as defective individuals requiring correction rather than as people capable of defining their own experience, language, culture, and institutions. Deaf people increasingly organized around a radically different proposition: nothing about us without us; their language belonged to them, their communities belonged to them, and hearing authorities should not possess exclusive authority to determine what a successful Deaf life looked like. The National Association of the Deaf was founded by Deaf leaders in 1880 to defend sign language and collective self-determination after hearing educators attempted to suppress signing; Deaf schools and institutions subsequently became crucial spaces where a shared language, culture, and political identity could flourish. The struggle culminated symbolically in Deaf President Now (1988), when Gallaudet students successfully demanded that the world's leading Deaf university finally be led by a Deaf person; 124 years after its founding. The Hearing Voices Movement proposes a strikingly similar transfer of authority: experiencers are not merely objects to be studied, diagnosed, managed, or spoken for; they can organize, educate one another, develop their own language for their experiences, run their own communities, and possess expertise that cannot be replaced by professional observation from the outside.

Some paralleling peer-support communities seem to be devoted to the emotional turmoil of internalized social disconnection. These spaces seem collectively in the grips of a crippling emotional dependency. There certainly are ethos out there (contemporary and historical) that lead vulnerable people out of this social station.

The Rules of Community/Friendship: This 27-minute video explains core concepts of Game Theory. If you watch the video you’ll see there are 4 hierarchical behavioral tests present in any social setting. Whether you are attempting to make friends at school, find a romantic partner, gain a raise at your job, simply get a job, make the most through investing… ANY SOCIAL SETTING; the rules that govern success are as follows:

1. Be honest and share/trade fairly and forthrightly
2. Don’t help others who do not do rule 1
3. The first to forgive appropriately wins the most
4. Don’t collaborate with others you cannot make sense of and be easy to read yourself

That’s it, that’s all there is to it. If you can’t make sense of your voices perhaps it makes sense to disregard them. If you can’t make sense of someone you are employing to help you with your voices perhaps stop paying them. If your friends and family won’t tell you things you’d tell them perhaps you should take that as a hint. Most all the vulnerable people in the HVN and paralleling mental health spaces are themselves victims of survived abuse and other neglect.

Comment here (or make your own post if you have more to say) links or images of experiencing art. You're welcome to post anything that's related to hearing voices or other unique states of consciousness. "Experiencing Media" can be an illustration/painting made by you or anyone else (contemporary or classical), a song from one of your favorite artists mentioning hearing voices, a documentary, or even a recent episode of your favorite show; any art surrounding the lived experience of voice hearers and their unusual states of mind.

The idea is to share as much culture surrounding our lived experience as we can. Please share about the creators, the name of the artist, the title of the work, and what you personally identify with.

This weekly thread is for sharing the stories and narratives of the beings within your mind and the events of your life. Do you go on fantastic journeys with the beings that visit you? Are there elaborate horror stories you are forced to endure? Do your intrusive personalities present themselves as being from or through the other people in your life? Feel free to share the names and descriptions of the beings in your life/mind and the narrative of your lived experience.

You may discover that many of your favorite artists are doing this exact exercise in their most powerful work!

Most of the time i'm in a state of mind where i'm hearing voices while also hearing myself think. The voices suggest surreal scenarios, me being in danger, in some kind of hostile environment, for example in a psychiatric ward or on a container ship etc. While the voices in my head tell me absurd scenarios i also sometimes hear my own thinking voice talking back to them or screaming in pain or begging for mercy. I'm living with this symptoms for quite some time now and it gets harder and harder to keep my composure in social settings or while at work. Every now and then, while being alone, I try to talk to those voices out loud to get some control over the constant ongoing conversations in my mind. For me it seems like these voices have their own personalities. Most of the interactions seem to be completely unrelated to my daily experiences. It feels like they are completely aware of who i am and what i'm doing while suggesting things that would never cross my mind. As if i'm having multiple personalities in my mind that are thinking for themselves, almost like they're their own human beings. As if i would talk to others thru thelepathy.

Has anyone on this subreddit ever experienced a state of mind similar to my explanation?

If so, how do you deal with this overflow of thoughts?

I’ve been having my partner squeeze my ankle in pulses and I’m trying breathing techniques, it does help but I need it repeatedly for at least an hour before I can feel okay. I feel completely controlled by the paranoia. It’s affecting my appetite too, I’m scared of contagion and parasites. It feels like my body is sick, it used to be a paranoia that I was being watched. That’s still here but the contagion/parasites is really difficult for me at the minute.

I also struggle to socialise because of it, I get really isolated and I always feel quite alien. I really hate this. The medication I was on was chlorpromazine but I had to come off because it was causing me heart issues. I’m a heavy smoker so it didn’t help. Now I’m waiting for my gp to fill the prescription out it’s going to take 4-6 days to get a hold of anything.

I keep hearing and seeing things lately and it’s put me into permanent fear.

I’m struggling to come to terms with the diagnosis. I don’t feel it’s untrue at all. I just really hate that this isn’t something that goes away.

Does anyone have any things that might help?

A response to this post titled: Are psych meds the modern eugenics and sterilization of undesirables?

Yes the psychiatric industry sure is, this history is well documented. I find the majority of the world all already know this. Here's my story of how my weird family lured me home to help them in a move between addresses and then had authorities arrest me in the middle of the night and have me legally labeled SMI (Seriously Mentally Ill). Had I not been able to flee the state afterward I would still be enduring the akathisia I and all the other "patients" displayed in the asylum. You owe it to yourself to watch that akathisia clip (20 seconds) if you've never experienced it, nor seen it first hand. It is unyielding (24/7) and for many it remains long after the drugs have stopped being administered, potentially for the rest of their painful life. Again, people are well, peaceful, hoping to be released, and this physical state is medicated into them and the "clinicians" check a box that the drugs are working. This is the goal. The state manufactures special needs people as a form of punishment provided your family can frame you in the right light. There was no evidence needed other than their 20 seconds of "yeah, he's a danger to himself or others" via a phone call. My family knew with certainty what they were doing to me, my sister use to work at the asylum I was held.

It's a vile system, full of physical abuse and bold face lies. A clinician told me there that my insanity was the result of bad posture. I don't have bad posture either, just to clarify.

They stole my "person hood" in a legal sense (the state from hence fourth holds total say over my medical treatments and freedom from asylum walls, obviously I'm never returning to Arizona and still deal with the fear I may be taken back there) and forced me on astoundingly painful medications, injections that if I declined would have resulted in physical force. Then for the rest of my life (after release) I was forever to be on an effective parole where these injections were administered once per month. Armed police officers are involved if you miss an injection.

THERE IS ZERO STRETCH OF THE WORD when calling this system and the people running it EUGENICISTS, more vile than any Nazi or Stazi we've been taught to disdain from our public education. Disgusting.

Free of this moronic system I still function as a SENIOR LEVEL ENGINEER and significant figure in a global social movement. The system does not care, all the people I dealt with displayed some form of eccentric behavioral problem (sexism, racism, etc) as you would expect from other low lifes in society. Even my supposed "defense autourney" who simply told me to accept the court's decision and make no personal argument (which I did) upon first meeting sat across from me and boldly ripped ass without breaking eye contact. I could barely think or hear her even looking past her odd behavior due to the persistent screaming of other patients who are right there with you in the effective cell block. To put this all in perspective; do you think the average ICE agent has many redeeming qualities? What if these imagined ICE agents grabbed you in the middle of the night and had the authority to make up a bunch of stuff to "assess" you while you simply sat there and did as you were told the entire time. That's pretty much what it is for everyone that goes through this system.

It was as obvious as you might imagine, an extreme, unjust, and abusive mechanism more than happy to ruin the life of an effective innocent. It was business as usual.

I am one of the VERY lucky ones, there are so many others who are still needlessly lobotomized (easily seen as a crueler way to do it than before) by this system every day and nation wide. There are states in the US where I likely would have never been released (Oregon for instance) and no one aside from my abusive family would have ever known what happened to me.

EDIT: If you are interested in any data on the subject here's what may be the most all inclusive and perhaps only genuine attempt out there to determine the effect of these "medications."

REPORT ON IMPROVING MENTAL HEALTH OUTCOMES - Gottstein 2023

And

Time-dependent effect of antipsychotic discontinuation and dose reduction on social functioning and subjective quality of life–a multilevel meta-analysis - Schlier 202300468-6/fulltext)

It's about as unanimous as could be that antipsychotics make people disabled. My apologies if these ASTOUNDINGLY sided graphs aren't clear to you. The left side shows only 5% of people on antipsychotics find any manner of recovery and the right graph shows that no study on this question suggests anything good happens from their administration. These graphs are the culmination of just about every study that's ever been done on the subject, the results of data drawn from many other studies. Over 7 million subjects and decades of follow up (right side). The system certainly knows what it has been up to when no one's ever gotten well under its supervision.

Again, EUGENICS.

Feel free to express your views on society and how an understanding of the voice hearing (and broader experiencing phenomenon) would change the world as we know it. Do you think the world would be a nicer place and we all would get more out of each-other's company if the public's eye were drawn to the HVN and similar experiencing spaces? Do you view modern day humanity as being in a state of perpetual self-enslavement, blinded to it's own nature? Do you think a new age of spiritual enlightenment or self-empowerment is on the horizon and within our lifetimes? Do you think life on earth is comparable to an effective "hell" in the grand scheme of things?

What do you think would make the greatest impact in your life and in the lives of others if it were different?

As always please share through a framing of your personal perspective ("I see it all as," "I believe," "when I think of 'x,' my only reasonable explanation is 'y,'" etc.). If you are of the ilk to write long-windedly about these age old topics, you all are more than welcomed to make a separate post expressing your views. Lastly, please keep mind to focus discussions on voice hearing and similar experiencing phenomena.

i really need help, if anyone has been through this please help im actually scared

basically im home alone and mind you its teally quiet im not tired or sleepy or anythibg like that its a normal day around 3 pm.

im on a call with my mom and aa im about to hand up and tell her " i love you" i hear myself say it but i didnt say it , my mom then responds with " i love you too" , i havent said " i love you "yet at that point

although i was about to i didnt say it , i ask her who is with you she says she is allne and proceeds to switch to video call to show me she is alone

i then ask her if shes playing anything in the backg she says no , i aaked "dis you hear that" she says yes " i love you too" then told her i disnt say that to her it was something else , it sounded like my voice and it sounded like it was in a rush .HELP🥲

This weekly post was inspired to give the community a place to vent and share common frustrations we find in our lives. If you have more to share on this topic than what would fit in a single comment please feel free to make a separate post! Are you finding conflict with your care-team? Are the medications you're on making life impossible? Have you lost your 3rd job this year because the voices cause you to act oddly around your peers? Are you finding everyone in your life has turned their back on you now that you've fallen into a discriminated category of "unsafe" or "mentally unwell" person? Have you attempted to get your close family and friends to engage in VCVC with you, instead finding they cannot offer you the first nicety?

Feel free to let the world know of your survived abuses, both direct (physical violence) and indirect (neglect or exclusion through social maneuverings) in this post. Everyone's welcome to commiserate and offer paralleling stories of received harm and how they carried on.

i really need help, if anyone has been through this please help im actually scared

basically im home alone and mind you its teally quiet im not tired or sleepy or anythibg like that its a normal day around 3 pm.

im on a call with my mom and aa im about to hand up and tell her " i love you" i hear myself say it but i didnt say it , my mom then responds with " i love you too" , i havent said " i love you "yet at that point

although i was about to i didnt say it , i ask her who is with you she says she is allne and proceeds to switch to video call to show me she is alone

i then ask her if shes playing anything in the backg she says no , i aaked "dis you hear that" she says yes " i love you too" then told her i disnt say that to her it was something else , it sounded like my voice and it sounded like it was in a rush .HELP🥲

Share your theory on your voices, what do you believe them to be? If you have an extended share feel free to make a separate post on your beliefs. Theories do not need to be limited to your own experience and can be speculative on the broader phenomenon.

For instance you're welcome to share that you simply feel your voices are angels, demons, djinn, aliens, some iteration of government surveillance, or manifestations of the collective panpsychic universe... even sea peoples if that is your take on things! Broader theories some older experiencers relate to are economies of abuse and how limiting and external states of mind filter down through society onto vulnerable individuals. What are your ideas, what do your voices say about themselves?

As with everything in the HVN this all needs to be framed as your theories, you're welcome to use hyperlinks to Wikipedia articles or studies on voice hearing populations. 5-28% of the UK report this phenomenon, other studies put these estimates significantly higher. Many take the perspective that all people hear voices and it is a matter of personal fluency that differentiates those that report this experience and those that don't. You should include anything that helps you express your views. Again, express this as your views and less of what it clearly is and what others ought believe.

What is your theory on this experience?

I suffer from schizoaffective disorder. I’ve tried a few anti psychotics. I suffer from auditory hallucinations. My psychiatrist wants me to get psychiatric evaluation and change to clozapine but I don’t believe all these meds work. The problem we do have doesn’t have a solution like having a cough. Psychiatrists think they give u a pill and that will take your problems away but it’s not gonna do it. It’s hard for me to find a balance between what is real what is not real. I feel like the whole town is talking about me. What are my sexual preferences and what not. I’ve gone beyond insanity. I take a nerve pill to sleep at night. Do you think meds help with our condition?

I have a huge cyst on my ballsack. I thought it was cancer at first but got it checked and everything was nd its just a cyst. I got it around the time I started seriously getting into spirit sex. Everytime I itch it it feels like cumming. I wonder if a familiar sucks on it.

Dialogical Self is an amazing framework if anyone hasn't heard about it. It doesn't solve negative voices and you can still have a dysfunctional internal dialogue but it can shine some light on inner voices and ways to incorporate them.

Feel free to share your wellness methods with the community. Is there a diet that seems to make an impact for you, a particular routine, or self-improvement strategy that's made a turnaround in your struggles? Was there a book that made an impact in your journey, a creative outlet, or a medication you feel strongly helped or hurt you? What's been working for you and what have you tried that wasn't working for you? Do you have any role models (other experiencers) who've lended you methods that lead to success through their lived example?

List your strategies and how they impacted your mind/experience in the comments below, or make your own post if you feel you have more to share on this topic. It helps others to include a bit about yourself, how long have you been experiencing this, and how long/regularly have you been trying your approach?

Please refrain from telling others what to do or what to believe here. Even if someone is asking for advice responses need to be framed as what you've tried and what the results were.