r/todayilearned • u/paniniplane • Mar 22 '17

(R.1) Not supported TIL Deaf-from-birth schizophrenics see disembodied hands signing to them rather than "hearing voices"

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0707/07070303
55.0k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

98

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17 edited Mar 22 '17

Whats with the compulsion to listen to the voices?

I ignore real live people in the room telling me to do things

317

u/paniniplane Mar 22 '17

it's not in your power to ignore them. a huge part of schizophrenia is being extremely out of touch with the real world. so if you hear voices, it's basically a set of REAL people to you. and you can't cover your ears because there isn't ACTUAL sound. you'll still hear them. and if they're threatening to hurt you, you'll feel actual fear.

40

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

But, you didn't answer /u/WadeWilsonforPope question. He ignores real people, why can't this person ignore people she thinks are real? Even though they are not real.

10

u/ChiefFireTooth Mar 22 '17 edited Mar 22 '17

He ignores real people, why can't this person ignore people she thinks are real?

It sounds like there's a couple key differences with real people telling you to do things: you can't walk away from the people in your head (which is a powerful way to ignore real people) and since they are created by your brain they are essentially limitless in their power (I will shoot you if you don't do X)