A new study led by psychologists from UNSW Sydney has provided the strongest evidence yet that auditory verbal hallucinations – or hearing voices – in schizophrenia may stem from a disruption in the brain’s ability to recognise its own inner voice.
That’s pretty interesting. Schizophrenic voices sound like they can be pretty different from a typical internal monologue, I wonder how that comes about. (And if it’s related to how dreams end up being like dreams, I always wonder how I could be manufacturing those myself)
There’s also the noted tendency for them to be negative or bullying in the first world, while people in poorer regions have neutral or friendly voices.
I wonder if there’s a kind of positive feedback loop with one’s own thoughts being mistaken for other entities’ voices and the contents of the those thoughts.
For example, if you get a bit freaked out by suddenly hearing an unidentified voice in your head, you might fear it, and if you fear it and think it malevolent, you might start to imagine what type of things it might want or say and then by imagining it and simulating it, you essentially create the very thoughts this malevolent entity ultimately speaks to you but since you can’t identify the source as yourself and it becomes the voice of this malevolent entity.