Conversations and Voices

I spoke with my sister today. She called at half past one, a couple of hours after I got up. I was still feeling kind of spacey, so I could tell my conversation was a bit off. Stumbling over words. Jabbering slightly about how my treatment sucks.

“You don’t hear voices or anything like that?” she asked.

“Uh… not really,” I said.

I do sometimes hear voices. Rarely. I heard some last night. This was after I’d turned the lights out, but before the process of sleep had started. They weren’t hypnogogic. I had my eyes open and was wide awake. There were many different voices, some male, some female, some not readily identifiable as either. The things they said weren’t particularly relevant or disturbing. It was like fragments of conversation. And I was in no doubt that they were no more real than any other imagined thing, even though the process of imagining them wasn’t apparent to me. I didn’t pay them much notice. The accompanying visual show when I closed my eyes was kind of disturbing, but as I was trying to get to sleep this could have been more hypnogogic in nature. Mostly faces, some kind of monstrous. But it didn’t worry me and I don’t see why it should.

I don’t think this kind of thing is any more pathalogical than the strange music I hear in white noise sometimes. The occasions when I have been confused between a real voice and an imagined voice have involved hearing my name called. I’ve found that when this has happened, I’m usually able to trigger it again. There’s a definite difference between imagining a voice and hearing it said, and knowing that I was able to consciously generate both experiences was something of a relief.

I didn’t explain all this to my sister. I think she was trying to ask if I was schizophrenic. I told her that lots of people who aren’t ill hear voices occasionally. It’s not pathological. It only becomes pathological when the ability to distinguish between real and non-real is diminished or it starts interfering with everyday life.

I’m not sure whether the perceptual shifts that I experience are relevant symptoms. I don’t think they’re common experiences. Certainly when I was looking in the mirror while my sweet-and-sour microwave dinner rotated in the microwave, it was weird to see my face deform. I’d probably be more worried about it if I hadn’t had similar experiences while tripping. The feeling that every action I take is contrived is more worrying. The feeling of being an actor in your own life, of everything being no thicker than a strip of celluloid is uncomfortable. It also happens to be a prelude to self-harm, although the feelings have to continue for days for me to get to that point. Cutting then is a way of exiting and existing again.

And despite all this, the event that seems to have preyed most on my mind today was a girl working in the shop down the road chatting to me. I’m looking fairly decent thanks to my recent bursts of activity. I’m wearing a shirt. I look far less crazy than I did a couple of weeks ago. But the first thoughts that ran through my head were “What does she want from me?” Deep suspicion. But then the automatic systems take over, because responding weirdly to conversation draws attention. Maintain neutral body posture. Make reasonable responses. Smile politely. Replace attempts at real emotional connection with the false persona. It’s a way of hiding in plain sight.

I think she was just being friendly, rather than there being any underlying motivation to her attempts to engage me in conversation. And honestly, what response could I have given to “I’m looking forward to going down the pub later for a couple of drinks and a smoke.”? Somehow the honest response doesn’t seem appropriate: “Sounds fun, but I’m not allowed to drink at the moment because I’m currently being treated for a sleep disorder you’ve never heard of. Incidentally, I’m crazy, too.”

(On further analysis, that seems like an line looking for a response of “I know what you mean. Where are you heading? I’m going out later, myself. Maybe I’ll see you there.” Smile. Take receipt. Walk away. Then again, I’m not exactly the master of social subtext, so I may well be wrong. And it’s all fairly academic anyway.)