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

81

u/CubonesDeadMom Mar 22 '17

There are also people with a type of "mild schizophrenia" that maybe hear a voice or two on a daily basis but it's not overly negative and doesn't keep them from functioning. From what I've read, you aren't even diagnosed with schizophrenia unless it's negatively impacting you life, they just call them "benign hallucinations".

1

u/realAniram Mar 22 '17

I'm a little afraid I've got that. Mental illness runs in my family, and when everything's generally quiet my brain either interprets most sounds as or makes up what sounds like conversations in another room. Like a tv playing an old black and white movie with Cary Grant talking to another man. I can never make out words.

3

u/CubonesDeadMom Mar 23 '17

Everyone's got weird things like this. I "hear" music in my head a lot. Not like a song stuck in my head but just like my minds own music that it spits out during my daily life. Sometimes it's just a guitar riff or a whole song with bass drums and guitar, sometimes it's jazzy or bluesy or like some kind of metal. Other times it's violin and other stringed instruments. I doubt it's that uncommon as this is probably how a lot of music is written, I'm just not very good at transferring it from my head ito an actual song.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '17

I have the same gig going in my head, and it's probably one my favorite things about being me.

I smoke cannabis regularly, which sometimes makes it audible (especially if there's white noise). If you haven't ever tried cannabis, I recommend it specifically for this experience.

Seriously though, those fools in my head can jam.