I'm not saying that I do what they say, because most of the time I don't understand them. [Leave it to me to have the voices in my head speaking in tongues...] However, occasionally, I do hear them. I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for the phenomenon that doesn't involve extraordinary mental abilities nor disturbed bio-chemistry nor any form of mental defect.
Maybe you can hear them too... I can never guarantee that I'll hear them. But, if it's late at night and I start drifting off to sleep, sometimes I'll hit that state where nothing's quite connected to the real world any more. If, when that happens, I can manage to be not thinking about anything else, it's like I turned on the radio in my head and everyone's transmitting on the same frequency.
<tangent> Everyone knows that the way you sound when you talk is not the way you think you sound. You're going to get a different sound pattern inside your skull based on the proximity of your ears to your throat and the fact that your Eustacian tubes provide a different path for the sound to take. I'm always surprised when I hear myself recorded and think: "C'mon... That's not really me...", but I know that it is.
But what does your internal "voice" sound like? It's the voice that you "hear" when you talk to yourself. Heck, it's probably the voice you hear when you think to yourself. But I'm willing to guess that it's usually the same voice. I think I'm (relatively speaking) normal in that respect, and I know that I always hear the same voice when I talk to myself. I'm not saying it's the voice that I hear when I actually talk, because it's not, but it's a fairly consistent voice. Oh, I can occasionally change the sound if I'm fantasizing and need to put another person in there, but it's a fairly conscious effort. </tangent>
Which brings me (in my usual not-quite-related way) to <tangent> self-hypnosis. A long time ago, I read a book on hypnosis. This was back in high school when I was doing my early voracious reading bit. I'd been curious about it, so I actually went to the library and borrowed a book on the subject. <sub-tangent> Much as I approve of the institution of libraries, I have to admit that I don't use them much (if at all). I like owning my books and being able to carry them around without worrying that they be protected to extremes (or to more extremes than I'd go to normally). Plus I like the idea that I can go and pull an old book off the shelf (now that the bookshelves are up in the family room) and re-read it any time I want. You just can't do that as conveniently with a state-sponsored library. </sub-tangent>
So here I am, reading this book on hypnosis and discovering that it's all about getting someone into that drifting state where they're suggestible. One of the "tests" that you can do for someone who's drifting into hypnosis is to tell them that they can't do something and then ask them to try. For example, you could tell them that their finger is too heavy to move and then ask them to try, all the while reinforcing that they can't.
Well, I found, through self-experimentation, that I have enough of an "inner voice" that I can self-hypnotize. All it takes is me starting very relaxed and telling myself to start drifting even more. I can even do the test on myself. The strange bit is that the hypnotized-me knows that it's a fake and I can obviously lift my finger. But the hypnotizing-me manages to override. Maybe it's just some screwed up internal wiring that lets me specifically tell myself to do this, but it works. </tangent> [Note that the preceding tangent really wasn't apropos of anything other than talking about my ability to self-hypnotize...
Which sort of brings me back to my voices. They're only there when I'm specifically not trying to listen to them - think of the phrase "Empty your mind". And they're definitely not any of my "normal" voices. I don't know what they are; probably just random neuron firings in a brain that's normally too busy to notice. But they're there sometimes and occasionally even interesting to listen to.
So... if your voices don't sound like you or you've been talking to my voices, let me know... Or maybe you should just have your voices talk to my voices - perhaps they can learn from each other.
Author: ben@tmk.com