ELI5, Schizophrenic Voices. Are they “legitimate” voices in your head, or more like an extra intrusive normal voice similar to you saying to yourself in your head, “I need to buy bread today”.
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Psychiatrist here-auditory hallucinations are by definition a true sensory experience without the presence of an external stimulus. In other words someone with schizophrenia who is hearing voices hear them just like you would hear someone who is actually present speaking to you. They are not “in their head”. True the cause of them is internal, but the actual experience that they have is that of a true voice.
There are symptoms of other illnesses which cause so called “pseudopsychosis” or “micropsychosis”. In these conditions patients will say they have auditory hallucinations, but it is really an inner dialogue. Whereas in true psychotic disorders the hallucinations are very real and the patient invariably (at least at first) has no way to tell the difference between the hallucination and someone real that is speaking to them.
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