Auditory hallucinations are a form of hallucination in which a person may hear different voices and sounds that are not actually there. This condition can occur for a variety of reasons, and it does not always indicate the presence of a mental illness. The reasons for their appearance may be other. But at the same time, this condition in any case requires the attention of specialists and treatment. Treatment for such hallucinations involves identifying the cause of their occurrence. In most cases, this requires treating the cause, not the effect.
Symptoms of auditory hallucinations
Despite the fact that auditory hallucinations can occur for a variety of reasons and have different manifestations, their symptoms are largely similar. This illness is that a person hears voices and sounds that are not really there. But at the same time, he can often sincerely believe in their reality and not understand that all this only seems to him. It is interesting that this phenomenon can sometimes occur not only with all kinds of diseases or painful conditions, but also in some conditions in completely healthy people.
Symptoms of auditory hallucinations include a variety of voices and sounds. It can be human voices, barking dogs, various creaks, rustles, rattles, the roar of a car or other engine, whistles, laughter, the sound of water and much more. At the same time, many people can hear completely understandable phrases or words. Some types of such hallucinations pose virtually no danger to both the patient himself and those around him, while others can cause serious harm to himself or jeopardize public safety.
Professional psychiatrists often divide such hallucinations into true and false. In the presence of true hallucinations, their manifestation seems quite realistic. Therefore, a person has no doubt that these voices and sounds actually exist. And with false hallucinations, the person with whom this phenomenon occurs also doubts the reality of this phenomenon.
Most of these voices and sounds are practically harmless to the patient himself and the people around him. This phenomenon can only complicate the patient’s life. In many cases, it contributes to the disruption of his work and social life, impairs sleep and interferes with the conduct of many usual activities.
And the most dangerous are hallucinations, which are usually called imperative. In this case, the voices that inhabit his head and seem very real may force him to kill someone or himself, steal something, or commit other dangerous or illegal actions. The patient may be forced to drive a car at high speed, jump from great heights, commit suicide, or engage in self-harm. At the same time, he is completely confident in the reality of such voices and phrases, and therefore often, without a shadow of a doubt, commits such dangerous and criminal actions against himself or other people. Such events must be properly distinguished from deliberate actions.
Characteristic
Perception is a cognitive activity that results in the formation of sensory images that are interpreted into an object using the senses. Cognitive activity is active in nature and is not considered as a passive recording of impressions. Perception is the process of forming an image from impressions. The process includes the following steps:
- Perception (primary selection of impressions from the general mass).
- Apperception (comparing a new image with existing similar objects stored in memory).
- Categorization (moving an image to a specific group of similar objects).
- Projection (supplying an image through thought with additional details that remain beyond the limits of perception by the senses).
Auditory hallucinations are a disorder that reflects the perception of a non-existent sound stimulus, which is accompanied by a lack of critical assessment of the phenomenon. Patients perceive such phenomena as existing in reality, and not fictitious. Attempts to explain to the patient that sound stimuli are imaginary cause reactions of irritation, aggression and protest.
Sound hallucinations that appear before bed and throughout the day are the main symptom of mental illness. Acoasms are elementary, simplest sound non-speech phenomena that are perceived by the patient as real, including ringing, breathing, noises, and tapping. Phonemes consist of verbal components, represented by words, calls, sighs, laughter, crying, exclamations.
There are also complex and simple, daytime and nighttime hallucinations. The simple form is represented only by the sound phenomenon. In complex forms, clinical manifestations include additional stimuli - auditory, tactile, olfactory. Complex hallucinations may consist of a voice component and a video sequence. The patient can simultaneously see an imaginary person, hear his voice, smell him, and feel touch.
Music belongs to a separate group, which also includes singing - solo and choral. Musical hallucinations usually accompany schizophrenia, psychoses of alcoholic and epileptic origin. Hypnagogic forms occur in the head when falling asleep or waking up. The duration of imaginary sound stimuli is several seconds or minutes. In most cases we are talking about pseudohallucinations.
The patient becomes aware of the true nature of sound phenomena. The hypnotic form occurs with a frequency of about 37% of the population, often correlates with narcolepsy (a pathology characterized by daytime sleepiness with episodes of sudden falling asleep). True hallucinations are characterized by vividness and realism.
Often, imaginary sound stimuli, despite their irrational content and meaning, are more realistic for the patient than the surrounding reality. When real and fictitious sound phenomena contradict each other, the patient is in extreme confusion, which means that there is a pronounced conflict between the conscious and spontaneous, unconscious.
Causes of auditory hallucinations
The causes of auditory hallucinations can be very different. Despite the fact that most often they are a manifestation of various mental illnesses, this phenomenon is also inherent in poisoning with all kinds of psychoactive substances. In addition, hallucinations may indicate other diseases and conditions that are not mental. There are also cases when they appeared in healthy people under certain conditions.
In the modern world, a very common cause of such hallucinations is poisoning of the body with psychotropic substances such as alcohol and various types of drugs. However, such people are not always recognized as drug addicts or alcoholics. In addition, the phenomenon can also occur during ordinary household poisoning with various poisons, food products of poor quality, household chemicals, all kinds of gases, etc.
Hallucinations are common in people with mental illness. Voices and sounds can be heard by patients with schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, senile dementia and similar diseases. Similar phenomena can occur with traumatic brain injuries, brain tumors, and certain types of infectious diseases that affect brain activity. In addition, they can result from a strong increase in body temperature and some other painful conditions.
In addition, sometimes completely healthy people can hear various voices that do not really exist. This sometimes happens during severe fatigue, when a person has not slept for several days in a row, and in some individuals, upon awakening, when it is difficult to draw the line between reality and sleep. Sometimes people can react in this way to the death or serious illness of loved ones, violence or other serious psychological shock. Auditory hallucinations can occur in people of all ages, from young children to the elderly.
Medical care for schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental illness that can only be cured with psychotropic drugs. A large number of high-quality atypical antipsychotics allows you to choose a drug that will be easy to take, without causing side effects, and can enable patients to lead a quality lifestyle. This is very important due to the fact that antipsychotic therapy for schizophrenia must be taken for a long time (from 3 to 5 years, and in some cases longer).
Often, patients with schizophrenia do not criticize their illness and the need to take the necessary therapy. Therefore, it is very important that their loved ones understand and monitor the intake of prescribed medications. Irregular use of medications or refusal to take them leads to chronicity of productive symptoms (hallucinations and delusions), as well as to the formation of a characteristic personality defect (irreversible changes in the brain, which are described in detail in previous articles on schizophrenia). And this leads to a decrease in the social adaptation of patients and the inability to lead a normal lifestyle,
Modern medicine has a significant arsenal of psychotropic drugs - antipsychotics, which, when taken regularly, can not only relieve the patient of hallucinations, but also lead to stable remission and the patient’s return to their previous state and lifestyle.
We constantly detect plagiarism on our materials without providing a clickable follow link to them. In this case, without warning, we turn to Google DMCA , which leads to pessimization of the plagiarist. On the contrary, we welcome the popularization of our materials, but with the obligatory active follow link to this page psyhosoma.com/gallyucinacii-pri-shizofrenii-osobennosti-i-kak-pobedit/ .
Types of auditory hallucinations
Such hallucinations can be very different. At the same time, they are divided into true and false. The patient can clearly hear different words and phrases, as well as human voices and sounds of wildlife, car sirens, barking dogs, ringing bells and many other sounds.
Professional psychiatrists identify the following types of auditory hallucinations:
- Tinnitus is all kinds of noises like whistling, grinding, crackling, and the like;
- Acoasms are sounds that differ in specificity. These may include dripping water, the sound of the surf, wind, the sound of rain, barking dogs, the noise of cars, the howl of a siren, the ringing of bells and sounds close to them;
- Phonemes - this type of auditory hallucination is often considered the most dangerous. After all, when it appears, the patient can clearly hear certain words and phrases, sometimes spoken by a specific and very real person. In many cases, such illusions can be very dangerous for the one who hears them or for the people around him.
Auditory hallucinations in adolescents
Auditory hallucinations are quite common in adolescents. In many cases, they are caused by all sorts of psychological problems in relationships with parents and peers, difficulties in growing up and puberty, and can also be the result of violence or severe shock.
In addition, traumatic brain injuries are common in adolescence, which can also lead to auditory illusions. They can also be the result of infectious diseases or occur at high temperatures.
Modern schoolchildren, often under the influence of older friends, actively experiment with alcohol or drugs. Often their overdose leads to the formation of various types of hallucinations, including auditory ones.
Also, this phenomenon in a teenager can be a consequence of mental illness.
Reasons for development
The following reasons can cause this condition:
- Excessive stress on the nervous system. This is observed with neurasthenia, neuroses, physical and emotional stress, lack of sleep, and depression.
- Drinking large amounts of alcohol, drugs or certain medications. Potentially, such hallucinations may appear during treatment with antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and tranquilizers .
- Accompanying illnesses. Sometimes various illusions of a visual or auditory nature arise against the background of syphilis, rheumatism, atherosclerosis, on the eve of a heart attack, encephalitis, or in the presence of any neoplasms in the brain.
- Mental disorders. The appearance of various illusions often becomes a symptom of schizophrenia or epilepsy.
Auditory hallucinations in children
Auditory hallucinations in children of preschool and primary school age are a very common phenomenon. At this age, they are often caused by fever, various infectious diseases and traumatic brain injuries. But they can also appear due to violence, serious psychological shock as a result of any events they have seen or experienced that are terrible for them. Poisoning with various poisons and toxic substances can also cause a similar phenomenon. In addition, such hallucinations sometimes indicate the presence of a mental illness. But sometimes similar illusions arise in healthy children due to severe fatigue.
general description
Hypnagogic illusions are short-term visions that occur while falling asleep, sometimes upon awakening. The phenomenon is difficult to diagnose and can be easily confused with other disorders. It differs in that a person perceives what he sees or hears as if from the outside, without being a participant in the events taking place. At this time, the patient does not experience strong emotions and reacts to everything calmly.
It has been established that at least 30% of the world’s population have observed manifestations of hypnagogic hallucinations in any form.
The average child faces this problem more often than an adult. But they also experience similar hallucinations quite often. Typically, visions have an episodic development; several years may pass between periods of exacerbation.
Those who have encountered this problem indicate that the events taking place are more vivid than a dream. They are remembered in the smallest details. A person can see the faces of familiar and unfamiliar people, bright lights and flashes.
Auditory hallucinations after alcohol binge
After an alcoholic binge, all kinds of hallucinations often appear, including auditory ones. Moreover, they are often very dangerous and can lead to very unpleasant or terrible consequences. Indeed, in such a state, the alcoholic experiences various fears, cannot sleep normally and react to the surrounding reality. This phenomenon is caused by exhaustion of the body by prolonged consumption of large quantities of alcoholic beverages, often low-quality or surrogate ones. Many alcoholics in this state may hear distinct voices that tell them to cause significant harm to their own health or commit some other illegal or dangerous act. Therefore, often after a few days after drinking, many drinkers commit suicide, murder, or become guilty of serious road accidents.
When to see a doctor
In most cases, there is no need to see a doctor about hypnagogic hallucinations, especially if they are episodic and do not interfere with normal functioning. Specialist help is required only when the disorder is accompanied by additional symptoms or occurs very frequently.
Patients are first advised to consult a therapist. He can additionally refer you to a psychiatrist, neurologist, narcologist, or somnologist.
How to treat auditory hallucinations
If signs of this phenomenon occur, you should not self-medicate, as it can pose a serious and even fatal danger to the body. Also, you should not hope that hallucinations will go away on their own without medical intervention. Therefore, a person who observes such symptoms in himself or his loved ones should not think about how to treat auditory hallucinations, but should consult a doctor as soon as possible. At the same time, it is not at all necessary that this problem will be treated by a psychiatrist, whom many people are very afraid to contact. After all, such auditory phenomena often occur in diseases or conditions not related to psychiatry. And the very appeal to a psychiatrist does not mean at all that such a person will be declared incompetent and will soon become an outcast from society. Modern psychiatry is very far from what it was in the twentieth century. Now many diseases that were previously considered incurable or socially dangerous are quite amenable to drug therapy.
Hallucinations in schizophrenia are also divided into true and false (pseudohallucinations)
True hallucinations
Endowed with spatial projection in the perception of a false image or object. Patients can accurately indicate their location. They can be observed in schizophrenia, but are more common in exogenous psychoses.
False (pseudohallucinations)
They do not have a spatial projection, they seem to be devoid of objective reality - patients hear voices inside themselves (in the head, ears, chest and abdominal cavity), they supposedly come from the head, chest, abdomen, heart. Patients say that they “see with the inner eye” or “hear with the inner ear”; they call hallucinations “voiced” thoughts that cause a feeling of “doneness” and violence. Pseudohallucinations are not perceived by patients as realistically as true hallucinations ; they influence their actions to a lesser extent, but still retain a sensual character. It is typical for pseudohallucinations when the voices do not address the patient personally or by name, although they can not only comment on events, but also give advice. They can say pleasant things and then the patients call them “good”, but they can scold and insult them - then the patients call them “bad”.
In schizophrenia, there are also exogenous (outside) and endogenous (inside the head and body) hallucinations.
In cases where hallucinations predominate in the clinical picture of the disease, they speak of hallucinosis .
How to get rid of auditory hallucinations
In addition, often the answer to the question: “How to get rid of auditory hallucinations?” The psychologist also knows. Contacting him will be advisable if this problem is caused by violence, psychological trauma, severe fear or puberty in adolescents.
If such hallucinations are suspected in children, parents should be able to distinguish this problem from the manifestation of a child’s violent imagination or the child’s retelling of his dreams. And parents of teenagers, if they have sound or other hallucinations, should exclude the abuse of alcohol, drugs and other psychoactive or toxic substances.
Therapy
The method of treating the disorder is determined by the reasons that provoked it. All types of hallucinations in neuroses can be treated with medication. Depending on the severity of the patient’s condition, sedatives (valerian, motherwort), antipsychotics (Clozapine, Risperidone), antidepressants (Fluvoxamine, Fluoxetine), tranquilizers (Sibazon, Valium) are prescribed .
Additionally, patients are recommended physical therapy and psychological consultations. It is also necessary to change your lifestyle, which, in the absence of serious pathologies, will lead to a complete cure:
- Maintaining a daily routine. Going to bed and waking up should occur at approximately the same time (both weekdays and weekends).
- It is recommended to allocate 7-8 hours for sleep. Rest less or more is harmful for a person.
- It is advisable to organize your day so that the body’s biorhythms coincide with natural rhythms. It is recommended to wake up at dawn and go to bed no later than 10 pm.
- The use of alcohol, drugs and smoking is strictly prohibited.
- You should limit the amount of coffee and tea you drink as much as possible, especially in the afternoon.
- It is advisable to protect yourself from negative events and learn to deal with stress and bad thoughts.
- It is necessary to eat right and lead an active lifestyle.
