Do you hear internal voices, external voices, both, or none?

For those with schizophrenia like symptoms: Do you hear internal voices (coming from inside your head or mind), external voices (coming from outside your head, i.g. you hear them through your ears), both internal and external voices, or no voices?

While we've never done it in poll format and there are a bunch of new people a lot of this was discussed a while back....here is the link

http://forums.psychcentral.com/schiz...head-both.html

psychosis, never heard voices

Both. Not that often right now. My pills are helping. But when very psychotic, I hear people talking about me, threatening me, and government agents. Internally its like thought insertion. Also government agents, and other beings. I also have the normal people hallucinations, hearing my name being called CONSTANTLY. That still happens. My brother messes with my mind. My brother calls me "schizo." So I constantly hear, "Schizo, come here!" Then when I walk over to him, he goes on to say, "I never said anything." That is even though now I've been diagnosed with bipolar 1 with psychotic features. My brother still insists on calling me schizo. Hope its OK to post here. Its still the psychotic features.

I hear external and internal. Depends but I have no control over it. Sometimes I feel it in the front of my head or the back or deep or light. Idk. It's strange. Whispers are usually in my ears, like the heavy breathing and stuff and normal convos are usually external and internal but like I said it's never precise.

Both, mostly internal but external once in a while. Also music.

Not sure if schizotypal counts here so i'll just vote via message: I don't hear voices. I do definitely have my own voice affecting my thoughts in a zillion aspects but not in that manner.

Why does this matter? It feels like a comparison of symptoms or "I am legitimately mentally ill and you are not". During all my hospitalizations patients would do this.

Sorry, I just don't get the point of even polling this. How is this supportive?

It's some thing to do as a community, we do polls, games, and serious stuff too. It's what forums do. So this forum is about MI, naturally a lot of the topics will be related to that. Some will be deemed silly some interesting, can't please everyone at the same time

I don't think it's about legitimacy so much as curiosity....I know when I got sick I desperately wanted to connect with other people who had similar hallucinations so I read books....people's experiences were pretty divergent and it was hard to find commonality with them...I find a lot more connection on the forum, even though individual hallucinations are different you start to see patterns that are similar like this forging a community. It's more like oh me too than you are different than me...

i hear both

I also hear both. The furnace talks to me, but I don't understand what it's saying.

I hear both types, though slightly more internal than external. I apparently don't have psychosis though, but I'm not sure my new doctors are any good because they've been corrupted by the Govt. I mostly hear a man and a woman judging me. But I also hear 'the whispers' occasionally which are really malevolent & scary. My printer also talks to me, but usually random or made-up words. And I once heard my dog talking in his sleep, worrying about "pink paperwork", which was funny at the time.

*Willow*

I went ahead and answered both because I"m not sure any more. But my extrernal stuff is random and far between.

Both. The internal voices are more my own stream of thoughts, negative or otherwise. External voices range from chattering noise to children singing or laughing, sometimes the TV speaks to me as well, but that's pretty rare.

Both for me too.

Both, before I was on medication I had a lot more external voices. They sounded like several people standing just behind me and they talked like those obnoxious people who talk in the movie theater. I used to have them on and off throughout the day and even at night; at worst there was one week before I was hospitalized the first time when they talked almost nonstop. Now on meds I have external voices a couple times a day and have more internal voices that come and go throughout the day.

I've had mostly second-person voices, some third-person voices, and almost never audible thoughts (first-person voices). I had some command voices as well. On occasion my internal voices felt like they were coming from inanimate objects.

It's helpful to know what others experience.

For me, I hear an internal voice saying scary things, but the voice is not mine or the voice of anyone I recognize. It sounds like a threatening demon-like voice.