Hearing Things

What is it like to experience hallucinations? What kinds of things can cause them? How common are they? How do they arise in the brain? How can they be treated when they become problematic? This roll is meant to provide answers to some of these questions, and give you our most up-to-date understanding of how these phenomena occur. Hallucinations, or percepts in the absence of a physical stimulus, have been described across the world's cultures and appear to occur more frequently than previously thought. While they may be some of the more distressing symptoms of psychosis, hallucinations may also occur due to certain metabolic disorders, ingestion of a hallucinogenic substance, or as part of everyday experience. By themselves, they may not require someone to seek the care of a psychiatric professional. However, when accompanied (as they often are) by the distress and impairment in functioning that define any psychiatric disorder, hallucinations can and should be treated by a psychiatrist. I am a schizophrenia research fellow at the Yale University Department of Psychiatry, and in this roll I curated articles that provide the reader with current information about hallucinations. I also focus on the science behind hallucinations, the brain’s mechanisms that underlie them and their role in psychiatric disease.

Hearing Things: The Ins and Outs of Hallucinations

What is it like to experience hallucinations? What kinds of things can cause them? How common are they? How do they arise in the brain? How can they be treated when they become problematic? This roll is meant to provide answers to some of these questions, and give you our most up-to-date understanding of how these phenomena occur.

What Are Hallucinations & What Is It like to Have Them?

What Causes Hallucinations?

There are a few things that can cause hallucinations - the brain and/or an external stimulant. I have divided them into 3 categories - psychiatric illness, non-psychiatric illness, and hallucinogens - so you can explore how each effects an individual and their hallucinations.

Psychiatric Illness

This category explores the mental illness component of experiencing hallucinations.

  • Auditory hallucinations in childhood

    The occurrence of auditory hallucinations in childhood is sometimes associated with adversity and trauma. The authors of this article examine this relationship and what it might mean for these childrens' future experiences.

  • Hallucinations as a top-down effect on perception |

    How does the experience of having hallucinations relate to how everyday perception works? The authors review the evidence surrounding this relationship and offer a model for how hallucinations can arise out of normal perceptual processes.

  • Hallucinations in PTSD

    Hallucinations have been described as part of "complex" post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This article compares and contrasts these experiences with those of individuals with psychosis.

Non-Psychiatric Illnesses

Psychosis can be an illness experienced by an individual during a point in time and may not be connected to mental illness at all. Read on to see what these cases may be and how one may experience hallucinations in their life.

  • Initial medical work-up of first-episode psychosis - Scholarly article

    Because the symptoms of psychosis (including hallucinations) can be seen in a number of different illnesses, doctors who first evaluate those who have these symptoms need to consider everything that might cause them. While sometimes technical, this article gives a good overview of what other illnesses can cause hallucinations and how we can go about ruling them in or out.

  • Secondary psychoses - Scholarly article

    Some "medical" illnesses can cause psychiatric conditions that look very much like psychosis. The authors examine three of these in depth.

Hallucinogenic Drugs

When the chemicals in your brain are disrupted in a specific way, or caused to interact with each other in a different manner from ingesting a substance, hallucinations can result. Find out how and why this happens.

  • Hallucinogen Definition

    A hallucinogen is a psychoactive agent which can cause hallucinations, perception anomalies, and other substantial subjective changes in thoughts, emotion, and consciousness. This is a good review of the substances that can cause these effects.

  • What are Hallucinogens? And What is tripping like?

    Hallucinogens are drugs that cause hallucinations (profound distortions in a person’s perceptions of reality). Under the influence of hallucinogens, people see images, hear sounds, and feel sensations that seem real but do not exist. Some hallucinogens also produce rapid, intense emotional swings.

  • Ketamine-induced hallucinations - Scholarly article

    How is it that some drugs can produce perceptual distortions and others can produce outright hallucinations? As it turns out, this may have to do with the environment when these drugs are administered. The authors use this specific example to propose a way by which hallucinations might occur in general.

  • Serotonin and the hallucinogens - Scholarly article

    Many of the drugs that cause hallucinations have one thing in common: they act on a particular kind of receptor in the brain. Find out what it might mean for the other receptor systems involved in hallucinations and psychosis.

So Does This Mean I'm Crazy?

Many people associate seeing or hearing hallucinations as being socially-defined as "crazy". But there may be reasons for hearing or seeing things that might not mean you are in fact "crazy." Read on to find out why.

  • What is Psychosis? - MINDMAP

    This is a simple, straightforward explanation of psychosis, how it is evaluated, and how it might be treated.

  • Hearing Voices Network - Welcome

    The Hearing Voices Network, formed in 1988, is a network of people who hear voices and wish to provide these people with support, often outside of mainstream psychiatric treatment.

  • Psychotic experiences in the general population

    In this paper, the authors make the case that psychotic experiences, including hallucinations, occur on a continuum - -with some people who experience more severe and disruptive symptoms (and requiring psychiatric intervention), to others who do not.

  • Varieties of Voice-Hearing - Psychics and the Psychosis Continuum

    In this paper the evidence for the existence of voice-hearing outside of psychiatric illness is reviewed, and the authors explore the voice-hearing experiences of a group of non-psychotic voice-hearers: clairaudient psychics.

How Are Hallucinations Treated?

OK so you have seen or heard something that isn't there; early diagnosis and the proper treatment can make all the difference. Find out how.

Meet The Author

  • Albert R. Powers, M.D., Ph.D. - Medical Director of the Psychosis Prodrome Research Clinic for Yale University

    Dr. Powers was a schizophrenia research fellow at the Yale University Department of Psychiatry and is now their Medical Director of the Psychosis Prodrome Research Clinic. In addition to treating individuals who suffer from the symptoms of early psychosis, he uses computational approaches to understand how sensory systems might go awry to produce hallucinations and other symptoms of psychosis.

  • Read some of my research - Psychics Who Hear Voices Could Be On To Something

    The ways some “healthy voice hearers” cope might be able to help people with psychotic disorders.