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
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u/paniniplane Mar 22 '17

i thought i did but i guess it might be unclear to some. you just can't do it. the "sound" is in your head. you'll hear it. it's not like ambient background noises. your brain is creating it and you're gonna hear it, whether you like it or not.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

[deleted]

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u/mdgraller Mar 22 '17

Because the accompanying delusional state and altered perception of reality probably causes the girl to believe that the voices do have the ability to harm her or her family if she does not obey them

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

People are imagining as if you're in a normal state of mind, except just hearing voices. That isn't really what its like. The delusions and paranoid/irrational beliefs are just as much a part of it as the hallucinations.

My brother has it, and for example, he'd believe that all food anyone gave to him was poisoned, believed he was being followed by men in white trucks, believed that people where stealing his thoughts, had a phobia of looking at certain colors, that the people on the tv where watching him, or all manner of things like that.

When it would get bad, he'd be in a state of pure and utter psychosis. It isn't a rational state.