Are these classed as hallucinations?

When an individual has voices that are INSIDE their heads, like an internal monologue, eg. Like when you read a book. Are these classed as hallucinations? Are they classed as symptoms of psychosis? I also mean when these voices sound foreign and are nothing like your internal voice. I read that they are called internal hallucinations and can indicate the first phases of psychosis.

Can you talk to them? Do they answer you?

If so I'd say this sounds more like a sign of DDNOS-1/DID than psychosis, but I would definitely talk to a T no matter what. Best of luck

lifelongthing wrote:Can you talk to them? Do they answer you?

If so I'd say this sounds more like a sign of DDNOS-1/DID than psychosis, but I would definitely talk to a T no matter what. Best of luck

I cannot talk to them and they don't answer me back. One example is this, I don't want to do something because I think it's morally wrong and the voice goes, " I know I want to". Also I thought voices in DID where a type of hallucination, a type of internal hallucination but without psychotic symptoms as you still have insight?

I was diagnosed as having psychosis for 8 years. I always heard voices. They existed both outside and inside my head. I could also sometimes see the voice, as in I could see the person from whom the voice came. This is pretty typical of psychosis and schizophrenia.
However it has always been the same voices, the same people. I could easily identify whose voice it was and it wasn't like a random voice that gave out commands or made comments about me. Plus anti-psychotics didn't make these voices go away.

Now docs are thinking it's more likely DID/DDNOS because of the nature of the voices. The voices have names, ages and so on and I can talk to them pretty much whenever. They also appear to represent certain emotions or functions I struggle with and also the fact they can, at times, assume some control over me. As these voices seem to be so much more than a voice i.e almost like real people it seems they are probably less likely a psychotic hallucination but an alter.
I still refer to them as hallucinations sometimes because I can hear and see them and no one else can so in some respects I suppose they are hallucinations but they go much deeper than that as well.
I hope this was helpful
-Hunter

ocdlfc wrote:I read that they are called internal hallucinations and can indicate the first phases of psychosis.

Can you post the link where you found this? I haven't read that before.

Frank_Darko wrote:...The voices have names, ages and so on and I can talk to them pretty much whenever. They also appear to represent certain emotions or functions I struggle with and also the fact they can, at times, assume some control over me. As these voices seem to be so much more than a voice i.e almost like real people it seems they are probably less likely a psychotic hallucination but an alter.
...
I hope this was helpful

I agree. Well said.

They sound like hallucinations, yes, and they also sound more like possible alters than psychosis.

With DID, visual and auditory hallucinations are possible and often common.

With psychosis, yes there are hallucinations, but there is also a loss of reality that is not present in DID. Reality can seem questionable at times, since it is a dissociative disorder, but overall, people with DID tend to have a good grip on reality.

DID is commonly misdiagnosed as schizophrenia or psychosis.

Here is a link that may be helpful to you. It contains DID/DDNOS resource websites along with categorized threads from this site that discuss symptoms, hearing alters, communication with alters, discovery experiences, and much more.
DDNOS/DID Resources: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic100829.html (Just so you don't miss them, there are updates on the 2nd page, and the updates towards the bottom discuss DID development, causes, and structure stuff).


Hope this place is helpful to you!


~The Hawk

Auditory hallucinations are merely the experience of hearing something that other people do not hear. Auditory hallucinations are very common: they occur in normal people, in people who are experiencing psychosis, and in people with many other things going on.

Some authors use "auditory hallucination" to mean voices heard only in the context of psychosis. Others use a much broader definition. Context is everything.

Psychosis, simply put, is the objective failure of reality testing. So a therapist who denies the reality of DID will tend to judge a client with DID who reports hearing voices as having defective reality testing. In this case, actually, it is the therapist whose reality testing is defective!

Thanks for all the helpful replies guys, what confuses me is this, why are internal voices like those in DID classed as auditory hallucinations when they cannot be heard? Shouldn't they be reclassified as a whole new hallucination instead?

ocdlfc wrote:why are internal voices like those in DID classed as auditory hallucinations when they cannot be heard?

Because they are on a continuum with voices experienced as being audible.

The voices I hear in my head are very distinct and "not me". It is as if I am wearing a bluetooth type earbud, through which my alters listen to all my conversations and sometimes interject a comment of their own. The people around me do not hear what I hear through an earbud, but I can relay what I hear for their benefit.

Like Una+ said.

I have voices that are outside of my head and in the room, I have voices that are more internal but I still hear them and I have voices that are more like thoughts that don't belong to me. These are all different but exist within the same category of experiences.