Hearing voices

This link is to a long and interesting Washington Post Magazine article about people who hear voices in their head. Many such folk now network via the internet and encourage each other in the (very common) belief that they are the victims of secret government mind control technology. This belief is also encouraged by some credible reports of government research into beaming auditory words into heads via microwaves. However, there seems little reason to believe that the success was much more than the equivalent of a party trick.

It's a bit too sad to get too much fun from some of the delusions mentioned, but it is worth noting that there is a company that sells undergarments designed to protect the wearer from electro magnetic radiation, and their range includes aluminium lined boxer shorts.

Auditory hallucinations are a pretty fascinating part of mental illness. Why, for example, are the voices usually harassing and nasty? Helpful voices are not completely unknown, as in the case of science fiction author Philip K Dick, but they seem the exception. (I seem to remember reading that the specific advice PKD got from the helpful voice included such mundane things as changing the margin settings on his typewriter.)

The other thing that interests me is why some people are able to reach a point where they do realise that the voices are delusions, and have enough insight to know they need additional medicine if they are heard again. Other people, like those detailed in the article, spend their entire life in obsessional rationalisation of the reality of the voices. As the article notes, some people for whom anti-psychotic medication works still rationalise this by thinking that the medicine simply protects their brain from the secret technology.

Anyway, go read the article if the topic is of interest to you.