Auditory hallucinations - about the causes and symptoms. Why auditory hallucinations occur and what to do about them

Hallucinations are a reason to be alarmed, whether you experience this phenomenon on yourself or observe it in another person. Mild cases of hallucinations can be successfully treated at home, but severe or chronic hallucinations require mandatory medical intervention.

Steps

Part 1

Understand the nature of hallucinations. Hallucinations can affect any of the five senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch—and can have a variety of underlying causes. However, in any case, a person experiences them while being conscious, and they seem absolutely real.

• Most hallucinations are disorienting and uncomfortable, but some seem interesting or enjoyable.
• If you are a person hears voices, such hallucinations are called auditory, if you see non-existent people, objects, light - these are visual hallucinations. The feeling that insects or something else is crawling on the skin is a common tactile hallucination.

1. Measure the temperature. High body temperature can cause hallucinations of varying severity, especially in children and the elderly. Even if you don't belong to any of these age categories, it can cause hallucinations, so it's best to check if you have a fever.

2. Get enough sleep. Mild to moderate hallucinations can be caused by a severe lack of sleep. Severe cases of hallucinations usually have other causes, but lack of sleep can make them worse.

   • An adult needs an average of seven to nine hours of sleep a night. If you are currently suffering from severe sleep deprivation, you may even need to increase this amount for a few hours until your body recovers.
   • Daytime naps can disrupt the normal sleep cycle and lead to insomnia and, as a result, hallucinations. If your sleep pattern is off, try to set it to normal.

3. Manage stress more effectively. Anxiety is another common cause of mild hallucinations and can also exacerbate severe hallucinations from other causes. Learning to minimize psychological and physical stress can help reduce the frequency and severity of hallucinations.

   • To reduce physical stress, you need to maintain the body's water balance and get enough rest. Regular light to moderate exercise will also improve your overall health and relieve you of stress-related symptoms, including mild hallucinations.

4. Know when it's time to ask for help. If you are unable to distinguish between reality and hallucination, you should seek emergency medical attention immediately.

   • If you're experiencing mild hallucinations but it's happening over and over again, you should also make an appointment with your doctor, as it's most likely medical. This is especially likely if general measures to improve well-being have not brought any effect.
   • If you experience hallucinations accompanied by other severe symptoms, you also need emergency medical attention. Such symptoms include discoloration of the lips or nails, chest pain, clammy skin, confusion, loss of consciousness, high fever, vomiting, rapid or slow pulse, difficulty breathing, injury, seizures, severe abdominal pain, or behavioral disturbances.

   Part 2

   Home treatment (helping others)

   1. Learn to recognize the symptoms. People who experience hallucinations may not talk about it openly. In such cases, you need to know how to identify the less obvious signs of hallucinations.

      • A person experiencing auditory hallucinations may not notice others and actively talk to himself. He may seek solitude or obsessively listen to music in an attempt to drown out voices.
      • A person whose gaze is focused on something you cannot see may experience visual hallucinations.
      • If a person combs or shakes off something invisible to the eye, this may be a sign of tactile (tactile) hallucinations, if he pinches his nose for no reason - hallucinations associated with smell. Spitting out food can be a symptom of gustatory hallucinations.

   2. Keep calm. If you need to help a person suffering from hallucinations, it is important to remain calm at all times.

      • Hallucinations can become a source of increased anxiety, so that the patient may be in a state of panic. If stress or panic increases because of you, it will only make the situation worse.
      • If someone you know is hallucinating, you should also discuss this with them at a time when they are not hallucinating. Ask what the likely cause might be and what kind of support you can offer.

   3. Explain what is really happening. Calmly explain to the patient that you do not see, hear, touch, taste or smell what he is describing.

      • Speak directly and without accusations, so as not to upset the patient.
      • If the hallucinations are mild to moderate and the person has experienced hallucinations before, you can also try to explain to him that his feelings are not real.
      • Those who have hallucinations for the first time, as well as those who suffer from severe hallucinations, may not be able to understand that they are hallucinating and act aggressively in response to your doubts.

   4. Distract the patient. Depending on the circumstances, it can be helpful to distract the person by changing the subject or moving to another location.

      • This advice is good for mild to moderate hallucinations, but you may not be able to influence someone who has severe hallucinations.

   5. Convince the person to seek professional help. If someone you know has recurring hallucinations, strongly encourage them to seek medical or psychological help.

      • Talk to the person when they are not hallucinating. Discuss the severity of the situation and share any knowledge you have regarding possible causes and solutions to the problem. Your approach should be based on love and support. Never take an accusatory position.

   6. Continue to monitor the situation. When the hallucinations worsen, they can become a safety hazard for the sufferer or those around them.

      • When it comes to safety, urgently call an ambulance.
      • If hallucinations are accompanied by other severe physical symptoms, or if the patient is no longer able to distinguish hallucinations from reality, emergency medical attention is also required.

   Part 3

   Health care

   1. Diagnose and treat the underlying cause. Hallucinations are a typical symptom of certain psychiatric disorders, but can also be caused by a number of physiological causes. The only way to get rid of hallucinations in the long term is to treat the underlying cause.

      • Mental causes include schizophrenia, schizoid and schizotypal personality disorder, psychotic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and bipolar disorder.
      • Physiological factors affecting the central nervous system can also cause hallucinations. These include brain tumor, delirium, dementia, epilepsy, stroke, and Parkinson's disease.
      • Some infectious diseases, such as bladder or lung infections, can also cause hallucinations. Some people experience hallucinations when they have a migraine.
      • The use of drugs or alcohol can also cause hallucinations, especially when taking large doses or during periods of discontinuation (withdrawal, or "withdrawal").

   2. Take antipsychotic medications. Antipsychotics, also known as antipsychotics, are most commonly used to help manage hallucinations. These drugs may be prescribed for the treatment of hallucinations caused by both mental and physiological causes, especially when other treatments are unavailable or insufficient.

      • Clozapine, an atypical antipsychotic, is usually prescribed at a dosage of 6 to 50 mg per day, depending on the severity of the hallucinations. The dose should be increased gradually to prevent complications. Blood counts should be monitored regularly while taking this drug, as it can lower the white blood cell count to a dangerous level.
      • Quetiapine is another atypical antipsychotic used to treat hallucinations. As a rule, in most cases it is less effective than clozapine, but it is also safer.
      • Cocaine, LSD, amphetamines, marijuana, heroin, ketamine, phencyclidine, ecstasy are all hallucinogens.
      • Hallucinations can occur not only with the use of drugs, but also with its abrupt cessation. However, hallucinations caused by withdrawal symptoms can usually be treated with antipsychotic drugs.

   3. See a psychotherapist regularly. Cognitive behavioral therapy, in particular, can help some patients with recurring hallucinations, especially if they are caused by psychological disorders.

      • This therapy examines and evaluates a person's feelings and thoughts. By identifying the likely psychological causes of a problem, a professional psychotherapist can develop a strategy to help the patient cope with it and reduce symptoms.

   4. Find a group therapy opportunity. Help and self-help groups can help reduce the severity and frequency of hallucinations, especially auditory hallucinations, caused by psychological causes.

      • Help groups teach patients to stay in touch with reality and help them separate hallucinations from real life.
      • Self-help groups motivate people to take responsibility for their own hallucinations, thereby helping to control and cope with them.

Specialists always approach the treatment of such a delicate phenomenon as auditory with great care, since the process in each case is very individual, and depends on what reason caused such a violation of perception. That's why,

It is categorically not recommended to self-medicate, and take various medications on the advice of a friend. If once his grandmother "was like that too", and a certain medicine helped her. Only qualified specialists who do sometimes use psychotropic drugs for this and can prescribe medication. But quite often it happens that simple remedies help get rid of auditory hallucinations.

If a patient who has applied to a doctor with complaints of auditory hallucinations uses a hearing aid, then the solution to this issue always begins with the fact that it is the device that passes the diagnostics. Only after making sure that everything is in order with him, you can continue the examination. Sometimes it is enough to replace the device, and obsessive phenomena recede. It is typical for some hearing aids to "catch" the waves of radio stations, and broadcast them very quietly. An audiologist will help test the device.

Currently, scientists are developing special devices that stimulate certain nerve endings and help to cure auditory hallucinations. But, while these devices are in the testing stage and do not have mass application. It is known that such a device affects the patient's brain with electricity and sounds. This influence produces an activating effect on the cerebral cortex, causing it to respond to those sounds that exist.

in real. Scientists also believe that it is possible to influence the activity of the brain using the vagus nerve, through which impulses go directly to the brain.

To determine the correct direction of treatment of auditory hallucinations, it is necessary to know their cause, features of occurrence. It is believed that with auditory hallucinations, an incorrect perception of sounds, noise, voices of people and animals occurs. This condition is not as harmless as it might initially seem, because it can be a sign of mental illness. Basically, auditory hallucinations are characteristic, they are also observed in patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Also, do not forget that hallucinations of various types are prone to persons suffering from alcoholism, or abusing certain medications.

Therefore, it is not surprising that starting the treatment of auditory hallucinations, the doctor may refer the patient for an additional consultation with a narcologist. But what if auditory hallucinations occur in a healthy person who does not suffer from mental disorders, does not abuse alcohol, and leads a normal life? It turns out that such phenomena can occur in those who have experienced a nervous shock, a stressful situation. Often there are hearing impairments that defy any scientific explanation, since this issue has not been studied enough, and is fraught with many secrets.

In this case, treatment can be difficult, and sometimes the doctor prescribes several methods at the same time in order to fully influence the cause. That is, in addition to medication, the patient is prescribed a course of psychotherapy, and other methods. In any case, decide on the appointment or cancellation of a certain course of treatment

only a psychiatrist can. Many people, when using medications used in connection with diseases that are not related to auditory hallucinations, sometimes do not bother to carefully read the instructions for patients. But often anticonvulsant drugs are the reason that a person begins to hear unreal sounds and voices. Naturally, in this case, the treatment is the abolition of drugs with a pronounced side effect.

Sometimes it really happens that auditory hallucinations disappear without requiring special treatment. If the patient has undergone surgery performed under general anesthesia, then for some time he may experience hallucinations that do not require treatment. As soon as the body is freed from the influence of anesthesia, the patient's condition returns to normal. The same can be said about some infectious diseases that occur in a chronic or acute form. After the patient is relieved of the underlying disease, hallucinations will not need to be treated.

Auditory hallucinations require the closest attention of doctors, as well as serious treatment, if the patient hears non-existent threats addressed to him, or some voices persuade him to commit suicide, take the life of another person. Such phenomena often really cause real damage, both to the patient himself and to those who are close to him. Therefore, if one of the relatives noticed that a person is behaving strangely and talks about non-existent interlocutors, the patient should immediately be taken to the doctor.

A fairly common problem caused by hallucinations is tinnitus, the occurrence of sounds of unclear origin, which are not in reality. It should be noted that such phenomena are not as harmless as is sometimes believed. Constant, or intermittent sound can be symptoms of disorders, and sometimes quite serious. In patients with sound hallucinations, the noise manifests itself in different ways. In the mild form of the disease, the phenomenon is especially pronounced in silence, in other situations, the sounds present in the environment overlap the hallucinations. Often, patients complain that incomprehensible sounds occur at the moment when a person changes the position of the body, makes certain movements.

Sometimes, with an additional examination, it turns out that such a condition is associated with a change in pressure in the blood vessels, muscles, and nerves. As a rule, usually patients say that sound hallucinations can be compared with a low-frequency whistle, or a hiss, buzz, creak, and other sounds are heard. Moreover, low-frequency noises with sound hallucinations are observed less frequently. Such noise is often mistaken for the sounds that are produced by running ventilation, or other household electrical appliances. If you hear noise, but you are not sure that it has an external source, you should clarify this circumstance with others.

Another kind of sound hallucinations are various sounds that can be classified as musical. Such phenomena are characteristic of people with partial hearing loss, in patients with normal hearing they are quite rare, and if they are observed, they quickly disappear. Sound hallucinations are also known, which are called pulsating. Their peculiarity is that the patient hears rhythmic sounds that sound to the beat of the heart. In most cases, they are caused by changes in blood flow in the vessels that are near the ears. Such hallucinations are very irritating to the patient, and can lead to an extremely agitated state when immediate medical attention is required.

Causes of auditory hallucinations

When sound hallucinations occur, one of the common causes of the disease is a damaged inner ear. In this case, the sounds that a person hears get into it, then, using the auditory nerves, information about the available sounds is transmitted to the brain. If there is any damage to the inner ear, then the access of information to certain parts of the brain may be impaired. Thus, these areas begin to persistently "demand" the missing information of the parts of the inner ear that continue to function normally. But under such conditions, their signals are distorted, creating auditory hallucinations.

If such a disorder occurs in elderly patients, then auditory hallucinations may accompany the aging process, during which hearing becomes worse. Young people often suffer damage to the inner ear due to regular exposure to excessive noise. Also, among the causes that damage the inner ear, and lead to sound hallucinations, there can be many diseases. For example, middle ear infections, otosclerosis, Meniere's disease, anemia, Paget's disease. It happens that sound hallucinations are caused by the accumulation of earwax, which has a blocking effect on the ears.

Rarer causes of tinnitus and non-existent sounds include traumatic brain injury, the result of exposure to unexpected and too loud noise, such as an explosion or a gunshot. In some cases, auditory hallucinations are caused by an acoustic neuroma, a rare benign growth that affects the auditory nerve. In clinical practice, there are cases when sound hallucinations are side effects caused by an overdose of certain drugs. People who abuse drugs or suffer from alcoholism are also at risk, and it is not uncommon for them to experience various types of auditory hallucinations.

Treatment of auditory hallucinations

Auditory hallucinations are a very good reason to seek professional help. Do not forget that this condition is a clear danger, as it may turn out that these are symptoms of diseases that require immediate treatment. To identify the cause of noise and incomprehensible sounds in the ears, a special hearing test is used, the work of the vestibular apparatus is evaluated, an X-ray of the ears and a blood test are also performed. Sometimes the doctor prescribes magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography.

In the treatment of auditory hallucinations, the therapeutic effect is on the immediate disease, which must be cured in order to get rid of tinnitus and eliminate sounds that do not exist in reality. Sometimes the treatment is simple, and the patient only needs special drops. In some cases, the doctor prescribes procedures to remove earwax. But, of course, unfortunately, there are only a few such simple cases, and so simply sound hallucinations cannot be cured. In addition, there are no drugs that can quickly eliminate the symptom.

It is generally accepted that a person experiencing auditory hallucinations, by definition, should be in a psychiatric clinic. However, history claims that such phenomena happened to such prominent people as the Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, the Protestant priest and public figure Martin Luther King, and many others who led a fruitful creative life. So is it worth it to be afraid of "voices in the head"?

Types and causes of hallucinations

Auditory hallucinations are the ability to perceive sounds without an external auditory stimulus. Psychiatrists distinguish two types of hallucinations:

1. "True hallucinations" - when the patient hears sounds from outside and behaves accordingly, looking around, turning his head, that is, orienting himself to an external source of false information. For example, this happens with chronic alcoholic hallucinosis due to toxic damage to the brain.
2. "False hallucinations" - when the patient hears voices inside his head. As if "cockroaches in the head" are talking. This is most often observed in schizophrenia, but it also occurs in other mental disorders.

True hallucinations arise due to the impact on the human brain of an external pathological factor. This means that doctors must look for and treat a real physical disease (tumor, poisoning, trauma, etc.). False hallucinations are more unpredictable - since their causes are not well understood, it can be difficult to eliminate them.

"Inner voice": norm and pathology

In fact, for the first time we begin to hear the "voice in the head" in early childhood. The development of the thought process in a child occurs in several stages.

• First stage. At this level, the child learns to have a normal dialogue with people who are actually present outside.
• Second stage. The child is talking for someone, for example, for a toy, endowing it with certain character traits and desires.
• Third stage. Conducting an internal monologue with yourself. Often this is speaking out loud in a low voice.
• Fourth stage. The ability to think verbally without the need to verbalize the entire course of deductions to oneself. Actually, this is where the “inner voice” appears.

Fans of The Lord of the Rings may remember Gollum, who constantly uses the second and third stages of internalization of the inner "voice" even when he has to communicate with actually present hobbits. Soviet psychiatrists from the time of developed socialism would have immediately diagnosed the unfortunate Gollum with schizophrenia, a paranoid hallucinatory form, and treated him with haloperidol.

In some cases, for example, during stressful conditions, psychotrauma, etc., the so-called re-externalization of the inner voice may occur, when the patient begins to perceive the voice as projected from outside, alien or even hostile. Sometimes this condition goes away on its own, but sometimes a patient, especially one with a predisposition, can get stuck for a long time. Therefore, the help of a specialist is needed here.

Why are auditory hallucinations dangerous?

Is there direct harm from hallucinations, or do they only destabilize the psyche and disorient a person? Yes, they are dangerous. The greatest danger is represented by "voices" in the form of direct orders of a destructive nature. It does not even matter whether these hallucinations are true or false.

In any case, the patient is sure that he is controlled from the outside, and may begin to behave in accordance with the theme of the voices: attack other people, injure himself, destroy the environment. Of course, such actions of the patient require immediate hospitalization in a specialized hospital, where round-the-clock monitoring and emergency medical care will be provided.

Also, "voices" can simply interfere with a person's life, constantly discussing, "commenting" on his actions, arguing among themselves. Here the doctor decides in each case whether to treat the patient in a mental hospital or on an outpatient basis. There is no direct imperative.

Mentally healthy people also hear "voices"

History knows many examples when people who came up with wonderful ideas claimed to have received this revelation “from above”. Most of the world's famous religions and philosophies, to one degree or another, arose in connection with this unusual mental phenomenon. In this case, we are talking about “revelations from above” and other forms of the emergence of ideas in a person that came “from outside”. In the modern world, this phenomenon has not disappeared anywhere, it continues to excite the minds and raises many questions from scientists.

With regard to mental health: in 1991, the American professor Allen Tien and independently W. W. Eaton conducted extensive studies and found that approximately 2.3-2.9% of the population regularly experience overt auditory hallucinations and are completely mentally healthy.

With all due respect to the religious feelings of believers, it should be understood that your "voices" are the fruit of the work of your brain. If auditory hallucinations are destructive, a visit to a psychiatrist (not a psychologist) is MANDATORY. If the “voices” behave “decently”, the ideas expressed by them are non-standard, but do not harm anyone, including you, then most likely you are a creative person and, with proper education and diligence, can count on the Nobel Prize.

Sergei Bogolepov

Photo istockphoto.com

When auditory hallucinations occur, a person begins to hear various sounds, including voices, conversations, which in reality do not exist. In this case, you should take this violation seriously and seek help from a qualified specialist. As medical practice shows, almost every person had to talk to himself at least once. For example, having forgotten the phone at home, he may think: “Well, when will I learn to be more collected”! Now imagine that after the said phrase, a voice is heard inside the person’s head that says: “Yes, indeed, you are too forgetful.” If something similar happens to a person, then it's time to suspect that mental health is not in order.

In a situation where an individual hears non-existent voices, they say that he has auditory ones, for the occurrence of which there may be a number of reasons, therefore it is difficult to name the exact reason without an appropriate examination. First of all, experts suggest that in this case there is a mental disorder of varying severity, as well as neurological diseases. The biggest mistake is that some people take such violations lightly, and postpone the visit to the doctor until better times.

The causes of auditory hallucinations are currently being debated by many scientists. Some experts argue that the auditory hallucinations that sometimes sound in the head are their own voiced thoughts, that is, denounced in verbal form. In this regard, the individual begins to perceive this phenomenon as the voice of an unfamiliar and extraneous subject, and sometimes even several. If the cause of the auditory hallucination is a nervous or mental illness, then the patient believes that the voices that sound in his head exist in reality.

What diseases cause auditory hallucinations?

The peculiarity of auditory hallucinations is that a sick person can quite seriously say that an inner voice ordered him to commit suicide, or gave an order to take the life of loved ones, acquaintances. The most dangerous thing in this case is that the patient does not consider such orders a hallucination, and has no doubt that he

obliged to comply with these inadequate instructions. Among the causes of such disorders is often called schizophrenia. This is a disease that causes very serious mental disorders. Younger patients are most affected. At the same time, auditory hallucinations occur in people suffering from various manias and depressive states.

Among the causes of auditory hallucinations, such a factor as alcohol abuse is named. A similar condition may be due to the adoption of certain medications, especially in case of an overdose. Sometimes similar side effects are observed when taking antispasmodics. In this case, when you go to see a doctor, you must make a list of all the medications you take in advance in order to show it to your doctor. But do not forget about such a banal reason as the poor quality of the hearing aid. Therefore, if a patient using a hearing aid begins to hear strange sounds, incomprehensible voices, noise, then first of all, you should find out if the hearing aid is in order.

It is known that auditory hallucinations occur not only in mentally ill people who need serious and urgent psychiatric help. Very often perfectly healthy people who do not have mental disorders, but who are in a state of severe depression, may experience auditory hallucinations. Basically, they are expressed in the fact that when falling asleep they hear voices, supposedly calling them by name. Doctors say that such a factor is not a manifestation of mental illness. In this case, the cause may be the usual nervous tension, overwork, stressful situations at work or in the family.

In order to determine what is the real cause of this disorder, the doctor must make a detailed examination, talk with the patient, ask a number of questions necessary in this case. Only after this, the specialist concludes whether there is a need to send the patient for treatment to a psychiatrist. Sometimes, in order to establish the cause, it is enough for a person to visit a therapist. At present, the mechanism of the occurrence of hallucinations is not well understood, and some causes that are selective in nature are not entirely clear.

There is an assumption that in some cases auditory hallucinations that occur in a healthy person are due to a special setting, a kind of distortion of perception, which is influenced by previous events. In the course of numerous scientific studies, it has been established that the cause of auditory hallucinations is also the excessive excitability of certain areas located in the brain. The simplest causes of this pathology include intoxication with substances of medicinal origin, for example, levodopa, ephedrine, meridil. Often the narcotic substances used are to blame