This woman talks of hallucinating real people talking to or about her. She struggles to distinguish between what friends, family and neighbours really say and what is in her mind. One reoccurring hallucination was constantly hearing her father saying “I’m Just sick of it”.[1]

Patient 3 similarly hallucinates the speech of people around her. For instance she believes that doctors tell others to “kill her”. Additionally, this patient suffers from auditory hallucinations that appear to come from inside her mind. She talks of the character “Michael” who is in her mind and who calls her a “retarded bitch” and “geek”. He also tells her to “drop dead”.[2]

Not all auditory hallucinations are voices, however, as this woman hears constant clicking.[3]

This person explains how they hear loud crowd sounds whilst trying to get to sleep. They also hear scary laughter.[4]

Here, Eleanor explains that her voices increased and became more aggressive once she was diagnosed and consequently stigmatised.[5]

From this speech, and other research it became apparent that voices are not necessarily always violent or scary. Sometimes they can provide “support and encouragement”.[6] Despite this, I have chosen to focus on negative hallucinations.

In addition to these videos, through further reading, I found that being in large crowds can be very difficult for people who suffer from auditory hallucinations.[7]