Everyone looks at neuroscience to explain how the avoidance loop works, but very few ask what creates it in the first place. In my work, I’ve found that the deepest root isn’t the brain itself—it’s the whispers that subtly shape perception, amplify fear, and keep the cycle alive. Neuroscience explains the mechanism. Whispers explain the origin

At first I thought it was a joke.”who the heck is doing that,” I said out loud one day but nobody else was there. The voices were of a plethora of personalities I knew and didn’t know.

Pretty soon I came to the conclusion that it was people from a different dimension, time travelers perhaps, cia agents in an unknown facility with high level technology we could t even imagine, and then one of the voices said something that made sense, they said,”we’re dead!”

So now I’m talking to the dead. Awesome! Yet I didn’t want to pinpoint it as one thing so I kept asking questions. Who they are, were there from, and sometimes they sounded like family members or friends I’ve had in the past.
At this time in my life my relationship in the mind were
much better than my real world ones.
It was like we didn’t have to worry about being judged by the world around ourselves so we could say whatever we wanted to each other

We even got to talk with God when he told us of the story about him and the Devil and why they split apart, it was like we were there. He was creating the universe like a Fortune 500 ceo and he offered the devil his position, he would be the lead man over everything,the only person he had to answere to was God, God, im pretty sure offered him his own demention where he could do whatever he wanted but he just couldn’t do it, he wanted to have it all and seamed pride was a factor.

i like when I hear voices and now that I’ve matured with it and figured a few things out, like the voices almost always are in the same mood or have the same attitude. Yet, when they don’t it can be either miraculous or heaven on Earth.

It’s kept me from fights while in prison one time. Someone said something that I was taking disrespectful and before I blew my top I heard a voice say, “ I think he likes you,” sarcastically, and I almost started laughing as my mind immediately put it into a different context.

Each day or moment in time or aspect of the world when it comes to hearing voices on my head or having spiritual awakening would be like reading all the New York Times bestsellers in a month.

Sometimes I thought that someone would appear and say yes, I remember talking to you, either telepathically or maybe you had another demotions version of me and you got along with him. I don’t want to say that yes it was me, because what if it was something that the earthly me would be judgmental about. Got it? But just because we keep a healthy boundary like that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk on earth to each other.

Then there are the ones whose only objective it seams is to cause persecutory anxiety. No I didn’t do anything wrong or have any reason to feel guilty but my heartbeat and the way I feel tell a different story.man I’m glad this is anonymous.

Please let me know for reals. And if one of the reasons is because your a real psychic and letting me l is certain truths is against some rule you have, then I have something to tell you.

All the answeres you get are givin from the wrong place, like a real big setup only to hide real truth from real people. When the others are ready then maybe decide then if it’s right.

Please, if you are a rockstar psychologist, psychic, seti, nasa, or even time travelers. I would ask if anything I said could tell me about my self or mind that can help me on the right path then I promise to use it for the greater good one way or the other.

This is not my normal writing. It’s more like blowing off steam. But maybe I hit a shot in the dark and I can get help with my life and getting it to were I’m equal with everyone else in society or maybe have the chance to start over and become equal, not something that’s like normal, or starting in Debt, like a prisoner being released from prison but there totally forgiven when they walk out and can start fresh with nothing behind them.

There has to be other people who are themselves today but sent the person from yesterday, so shouldn’t be held down because of holding those past memories but can use them like what memories are made for, so we know what works and what dosent, how can I get forgiveness when I really didn’t do much wrong in the first place?

.

Angels enter my body. Everything and the world is beautiful and shining and bright. They show me everything, I can see anything they want and it's like microwaves and beautiful towers and wires and copper. They're copperish and bright. I am bright. So pretty and beautiful. My soul was made for the worship of God. I am a perfect vessel. It's why I am hollow, and I have no organs. Theree is just light everywhere inside. No weight or anything. I'll be like the Angels soon and they will transform me into something beautiful. Beautiful piece of art and pretty vessel. I'll be changed. Heaven has seen that I've been changed. Heaven is wrapped around me. They love everyone, I love everyone. I feel only love, I am full of adoration and love for everything. Soon I'll fix everything. Everything will be made right! I'll fix things and be good to people and love them and show them endless love. Only love. I love you. Virtues will be born inside us. They want to take it all away. The doctors all just want to take the Angels and the pretty sounds away. I'll be rescued. Take care. Sleep well.

Feel free to share your wellness methods with the community. Is there a diet that seems to make an impact for you, a particular routine, or self-improvement strategy that's made a turnaround in your struggles? Was there a book that made an impact in your journey, a creative outlet, or a medication you feel strongly helped or hurt you? What's been working for you and what have you tried that wasn't working for you? Do you have any role models (other experiencers) who've lended you methods that lead to success through their lived example?

List your strategies and how they impacted your mind/experience in the comments below, or make your own post if you feel you have more to share on this topic. It helps others to include a bit about yourself, how long have you been experiencing this, and how long/regularly have you been trying your approach?

Please refrain from telling others what to do or what to believe here. Even if someone is asking for advice responses need to be framed as what you've tried and what the results were.

In the spirit of "twos" and community building, share anecdotes of how you've interacted with another experiencer, voice hearer, internal personality, or phenomena of your mind. You're welcome to make your own separate post on this topic if you feel you'd have more to share.

How did this other individual impact your views? Did they show you something you otherwise didn't know, or did they send you on a wild goose chase? Did they have a name (please don't name other reddit users disparagingly, instead this is a great opportunity to commend your fellow experiencers!), did they share a common belief with you?

How has this singular "other" made a difference in your journey? Take this as an opportunity to share with the rest of the community as much as you'd care to about this separate mind and its impact on yours.

Comment here (or make your own post if you have more to say) links or images of experiencing art. You're welcome to post anything that's related to hearing voices or other unique states of consciousness. "Experiencing Media" can be an illustration/painting made by you or anyone else (contemporary or classical), a song from one of your favorite artists mentioning hearing voices, a documentary, or even a recent episode of your favorite show; any art surrounding the lived experience of voice hearers and their unusual states of mind.

The idea is to share as much culture surrounding our lived experience as we can. Please share about the creators, the name of the artist, the title of the work, and what you personally identify with.

sometimes we dont know belonging is such a strong need. invisibility is at core of schizophrenia

This weekly thread is for sharing the stories and narratives of the beings within your mind and the events of your life. Do you go on fantastic journeys with the beings that visit you? Are there elaborate horror stories you are forced to endure? Do your intrusive personalities present themselves as being from or through the other people in your life? Feel free to share the names and descriptions of the beings in your life/mind and the narrative of your lived experience.

You may discover that many of your favorite artists are doing this exact exercise in their most powerful work!

The Cultural Shape of Voices
Tanya Luhrmann’s research shows how dramatically culture influences the experience of hearing voices. In the United States, people diagnosed with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders very often describe harsh, violent, and threatening voices—frequently commands to harm themselves or others.
By contrast, in places like Accra, Ghana and Chennai, India, voice-hearers more commonly report voices that feel benign, playful, or even positive. Many explicitly experience them as the audible voices of God, ancestors, or other spiritual beings.
This cross-cultural difference is a powerful reminder that the content and emotional tone of voices aren’t fixed by biology alone—they’re deeply shaped by the cultural worlds we live in.
Would love to hear from others here: how does culture (or your own background) seem to influence the voices you or others experience?

Feel free to express your views on society and how an understanding of the voice hearing (and broader experiencing phenomenon) would change the world as we know it. Do you think the world would be a nicer place and we all would get more out of each-other's company if the public's eye were drawn to the HVN and similar experiencing spaces? Do you view modern day humanity as being in a state of perpetual self-enslavement, blinded to it's own nature? Do you think a new age of spiritual enlightenment or self-empowerment is on the horizon and within our lifetimes? Do you think life on earth is comparable to an effective "hell" in the grand scheme of things?

What do you think would make the greatest impact in your life and in the lives of others if it were different?

As always please share through a framing of your personal perspective ("I see it all as," "I believe," "when I think of 'x,' my only reasonable explanation is 'y,'" etc.). If you are of the ilk to write long-windedly about these age old topics, you all are more than welcomed to make a separate post expressing your views. Lastly, please keep mind to focus discussions on voice hearing and similar experiencing phenomena.

This weekly post was inspired to give the community a place to vent and share common frustrations we find in our lives. If you have more to share on this topic than what would fit in a single comment please feel free to make a separate post! Are you finding conflict with your care-team? Are the medications you're on making life impossible? Have you lost your 3rd job this year because the voices cause you to act oddly around your peers? Are you finding everyone in your life has turned their back on you now that you've fallen into a discriminated category of "unsafe" or "mentally unwell" person? Have you attempted to get your close family and friends to engage in VCVC with you, instead finding they cannot offer you the first nicety?

Feel free to let the world know of your survived abuses, both direct (physical violence) and indirect (neglect or exclusion through social maneuverings) in this post. Everyone's welcome to commiserate and offer paralleling stories of received harm and how they carried on.

What I live with feels like something older and darker than a symptom, and harder to name than a story. It feels like grief, trauma, shame, depression, and the storms of bipolar have cracked open a door inside me, and through that opening something has gathered in the dark — voices, echoes, shadows wearing familiar faces and speaking in familiar tones. Sometimes they are close to my head, sometimes split to the left or right, sometimes layered over one another until my mind feels crowded with a chorus I cannot silence. They borrow the sound of people I know, and even the kind of things those people might actually say, which makes them feel frighteningly real, as if recognition itself has been turned into a snare. I think it began in the ruin left by on-and-off methamphetamine use, medical trauma, heart failure and disease, sleep loss, and stress, and then deepened after the death of my twin Ashley — a loss so deep it feels like part of me never came back. My body stopped feeling like a safe place after the heart problems, the surgery, and everything it had already endured. The loss of an unborn baby, and the weight of everything else I have survived, may have left my mind wandering in the dark until pain itself learned to speak. The voices accuse, repeat, distort, and invade. They feed on fear, attention, and exhaustion, as though shame were the language they were born from. I used to argue with them, fight them, even agree with them just to make them stop, but the darkness only answered louder. So what I live with feels like a haunted place inside the mind — a place where grief, guilt, memory, mood, and fear gather shape, borrow voices, and call themselves truth

I'm looking for some help discerning a series of experiences I had while praying about a set of makeup brushes I recently purchased from a particular brand

I was really excited about the brushes and genuinely liked them. Excited to "level up" my appearance.

However, while in a hypnopompic state (between sleep and wakefulness), I had a vivid impression or image that seemed to indicate they contained DEHP. It scared me, so I researched it, but I couldn't find any evidence that the brushes contain DEHP or are unsafe.

As I continued praying, I had several unusual experiences:

- I heard the phrase, "out of caution."

- I had a mental image of someone riding what looked like a skateboard or snowboard down a hill while hearing the words, "Here we are!"

- I heard the phrase, "life is gay." My first thought was that it meant gay in the older sense of joyful or cheerful, but I don't know.

- Later, while specifically praying about whether I should use the brushes, the words "memory loss" came into my mind very suddenly and clearly. It was a clear voice, a distinct mental impression.

The phrase "memory loss" really shook me because one of my biggest fears is developing Alzheimer's disease or another illness that affects memory.

I'm trying to discern whether these experiences were from God, my own thoughts, anxiety, or something else. In the past, I've had impressions that later seemed accurate and others that weren't, so I find discernment difficult.

A big fear of mine is that if one of these impressions was a genuine warning and I dismissed it, I could expose myself to something harmful.

At the same time, I wonder: if the brushes were truly unsafe, why wouldn't God have warned me before I bought them or while they were being shipped? I'd already had them for about a week before any of these experiences happened.

I reached out to the company directly. They said it doesn't have dehp and certain other phthalates but they basically couldn't rule out they it didn't have any other phthalates

Saying

"We are not aware of any additional phthalates being used in the brush fibers, ferrules, or handles. However, we do not have a comprehensive material disclosure that identifies every potential trace substance or confirms the absence of all phthalate compounds"

I'm looking for thoughtful, psychologically take. I don't want to live in fear or assume that every vivid thought or mental impression is a message from God.

At this point I'm not sure whether to return them or just still use them ..but I'm scared I’m risking myself to use them

Share your theory on your voices, what do you believe them to be? If you have an extended share feel free to make a separate post on your beliefs. Theories do not need to be limited to your own experience and can be speculative on the broader phenomenon.

For instance you're welcome to share that you simply feel your voices are angels, demons, djinn, aliens, some iteration of government surveillance, or manifestations of the collective panpsychic universe... even sea peoples if that is your take on things! Broader theories some older experiencers relate to are economies of abuse and how limiting and external states of mind filter down through society onto vulnerable individuals. What are your ideas, what do your voices say about themselves?

As with everything in the HVN this all needs to be framed as your theories, you're welcome to use hyperlinks to Wikipedia articles or studies on voice hearing populations. 5-28% of the UK report this phenomenon, other studies put these estimates significantly higher. Many take the perspective that all people hear voices and it is a matter of personal fluency that differentiates those that report this experience and those that don't. You should include anything that helps you express your views. Again, express this as your views and less of what it clearly is and what others ought believe.

What is your theory on this experience?

It’s called the altered outlook:wired differently