(no subject)

[tigrin.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to add in yet another question, but this has been something I've been wondering about for a while, and am curious to see if and how people here experience it...

Usually when I'm awake, my thoughts are heavily preoccupied either by just me musing about things, or music. Music, actually, seems to dominate my mind, blocking out almost everything but my thoughts... it's only a problem if I'm trying to listen or pay attention, like in class... the music can get really, really distracting. My inner voice is androgynous and ambiguous... it doesn't seem to have a particular age or gender to it.

Where am I going with this... anyway... I find that sometimes when I really force myself to relax - like when I'm trying to sleep - I can sometimes get the music to shut off, or at least turn down... and I'll start to hear voices. they tend to be pretty random... the only thing that has been remarkable about it, to me, is that all the voices are very distinct, unlike my inner voice... they are specifically connected to certain ages and genders... they sound just like any voice you might hear. I could be wrong but they don't seem quite like hallucinations to me... for one, they are distinctly -inside- my head. I would never mistake them for a voice anywhere outside my body. I thought it might be sleep paralysis, but that would mean the voices would have to be hallucinations... plus, usually when this is going on, I can move around just fine. usually I have to be pretty still, though, or my concentration will get thrown off and the music will come back on. I've described it before as almost like walking through a crowd and catching mostly just snippets or impressions of people talking... groups of guys, children laughing, etc. every once in a while I'll hear a distinct sentence or something like that. a couple times it has been what sounded like a young boy. there have been some others I can't quite remember...

I guess my question is, do you think there is an explanation for this? Has anyone experienced something similar? I'm not sure if this is related or not, but in the context of multiplicity, do you ever actually "hear" the others, and are the voices distinct? Whatever else you'd like to add, any questions, anything's greatly appreciated... I don't talk about this too much in public, as you tend to get rather strange looks when you start to say you hear voices in any way.

Comments

[egyptian-spider.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we hear the others all the time.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Please don't apologize for questions! If you don't ask questions how will you find out anything?

We constantly hear music and always have. We have always been able to tell that it is a brain or mental function, and as you say, we would never mistake one for the other. This is probably where a lot of our analogies to radio come from, when speaking about our own world and the way we communicate -- why everything is tied into radio or television (notice our Livejournal handle). We've done that our whole life -- not just after we started working in media in college. In fact one reason we got into media was because we were fascinated by radio.

We never hear each other's voices, but we do occasionally have auditory effects due to sleep paralysis. Mostly it sounds like a snarky talk radio station. It does not sound like anything you'd hear on Laura, where announcers are traditionally very gentle and softspoken, and we can never make out any words. The other night we got tropical birdcalls instead, that's a bit unusual.

Do you get dizzy or nauseous?

[tigrin.livejournal.com]

I always get rather nervous about asking questions... never know what kind of responses I'm going to get. ^^;

Dizzy or nauseated... in general, or just when I'm hearing things?

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

People might argue or debate or disagree with you, but if anyone flames you they will be banned (http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=multiplicity).

Dizziness or nausea when you're hearing things or at other times. Something that comes and goes.

[tigrin.livejournal.com]

hmm.. not something I've paid much attention to in that situation... aside from that... I get both relatively often, or at least often enough that some of my friends think I'm chronically ill. anxiety attacks make me extremely nauseated, to the point it used to keep me from leaving the house... I'll get dizziness sometimes when something distresses me. there's usually a reason for both but sometimes I can't really tell what's setting me off.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

You might want to get checked out for Meniere's, which is a chronic illness affecting the ears and a lot of other things.

http://www.menieresinfo.com/start.html

One of several reasons I get a little snarky when people say they must be multiple because they have memory loss and hear voices is that both of these are known symptoms of Meniere's (although not all people with Meniere's have them).

Of course it's also entirely possible to be multiple and have Meniere's, same way we are multiple and also have those voices and sound effects when we're really tired. We have mild tinnitus also. For a while I was not entirely convinced this body didn't have Meniere's, but we never have dizzy spells or vertigo and it seems not to be getting worse as we get older, but staying the same, so I don't think so.

[tigrin.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link... I've never heard of that before. Looking it over, I don't feel like it fits my experience... I never experience anything odd with my ears, like tinnitus, hearing loss, or pressure... and when I get dizziness it isn't rotational vertigo... it's more like a feeling of fuzziness, like I might pass out or something.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

Sometimes people just hear random voices when they're falling asleep. It doesn't have anything to do with multiplicity.

On the topic of hearing voices though, there are apparently societies and support groups for that now:

http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/page.cfm?pagecode=PMAMHV
http://society.guardian.co.uk/mentalhealth/story/0,8150,593910,00.html

[tigrin.livejournal.com]

A couple people have told me they experience something similar when they fall asleep, but they hear it outside, like a television...

Thanks for the information. :)

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

This is AWESOME. Thank you!

[morgil-lomion.livejournal.com]

Would that someone would react in the same ways to multiplicity... and recieve media coverage for it.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Hey, we're tryin'... (http://www.karitas.net/pavilion/)

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

We 'hear' each other fairly regularly. Sometimes it's so clear you could almost feel like it's somebody outside the body, but generally it's very easy to tell it's not being processed from an external stimulus at all.

Can lead to some fun (eh) things, like having heated arguements but *knowing* you have to keep quiet because the voice is inside your head and people'd think you were crazy.

Sometimes I hear Lu in the background even when she's not talking to me. She reports the same thing for me. It seems fairly normal.

[ricktboy.livejournal.com]

we can always hear each other...well, when we're in the same room, that is...if Faith and I are in one room, and Rick is in another, we won't hear him, but we will hear each other...

Tara
Pack Collective

[echoesnspectres.livejournal.com]

We had this as (a) teenager(s). We figured it had to do with overload; voices and pictures in our head most of the time. When we had a sort of breakdown (related to trying to live like a "normal" person while being autistic) and got into the psych system, they asked us what was on our mind... we said, people talking all the time, and pictures which change very fast. The person who asked that seemed pretty shocked. We were amazed that it was considered abnormal. It's like there are a couple of tv screens and radios on, and you can't really understand it, it's too much and too fast; some of us have it still, especially when tired. Looking back I don't know if we got this "static" from being tired, or if we got tired from having it...

And yeah we also hear music a lot of the time; again some of us more than others. Sometimes we mentally hear "improvements" on music we hear with the ears.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

we hear the "improvements" too :) lots of'em!