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Diagnosis Made By Hallucinatory Voices

Loquaciousness

Loquaciousness

The misuse of the word "fact" annoys me
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Sep 3, 2011
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The full article in the British Medical Journal can be found here, you can get free access to the site for 14 days. http://www.bmj.com/content/315/7123/1685.
The summary is taken from Top 15 Bizarre True Stories compiled by one of FT's very own editors in 2007. This can be found here http://listverse.com/2007/07/06/top-15-bizarre-true-stories/.

" While on holiday a woman, referred to by the British Medical Journal (1997) as AB, heard two voices in her head telling her to return home immediately. Back in London the voices gave her an address that turned out to be a hospital’s brain scan department. The voices told her to ask for a scan as she had a brain tumour and her brain stem was inflamed. Though she had no symptoms, a scan was eventually arranged and she did indeed have a tumour. After an operation, AB heard the voices again: ‘We are pleased to have helped you,’ they said ‘Good-bye.’ AB made a full recovery."

Were the voices caused by her condition and her body's way of telling her something was wrong, or something else?
 
I remember that story, great isn't it? Scientifically you have to argue she was subconsciously aware of her condition and what to do about it, but that's like getting a phone call from your brain to break some bad news to you. At least there was a solution, and there is a lot about the workings of the brain that are so intricate that they're still not wholly understood. You can only imagine she had a very helpful personality.
 
I've often suggested that consciousness is a very complex link-up of specialised subsystems. Our five senses are examples of such systems. But some people suffer from (or enjoy) synesthesia, where the stimulation that produces e.g. sounds for most people might, for a few, produce colours instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

I suggest the woman AB had symptoms that in most people would be experienced as discomfort or pain, but for her it triggered an auditory hallucination. So in a sense her body was speaking to her almost literally!

But somewhere in her 'specialised subsystems' the medical knowledge to diagnose the problem must have existed (did she have any medical training?) And such knowledge might well go with knowing where the brain scan department was.

I wonder if anyone thought to test her for any other manifestations of synesthesia?
 
I think it's more likely to be regarded as a case of crypto-amnesia, which is evoked in cases of past lives and spirit writing. I'm impressed that her subconscious memory could direct her to the right premises: I was once sent by an Education Authority to an abandoned infirmary for an X-Ray!

She was also fortunate that her auditory hallucinations were both wishing her well; these alarming voices occur in crisis situations and often articulate conflicts the patient may usually evade. :oops:
 
Loquaciousness said:
The full article in the British Medical Journal can be found here, you can get free access to the site for 14 days. http://www.bmj.com/content/315/7123/1685.
The summary is taken from Top 15 Bizarre True Stories compiled by one of FT's very own editors in 2007. This can be found here http://listverse.com/2007/07/06/top-15-bizarre-true-stories/.

" While on holiday a woman, referred to by the British Medical Journal (1997) as AB, heard two voices in her head telling her to return home immediately. Back in London the voices gave her an address that turned out to be a hospital’s brain scan department. The voices told her to ask for a scan as she had a brain tumour and her brain stem was inflamed. Though she had no symptoms, a scan was eventually arranged and she did indeed have a tumour. After an operation, AB heard the voices again: ‘We are pleased to have helped you,’ they said ‘Good-bye.’ AB made a full recovery."

Were the voices caused by her condition and her body's way of telling her something was wrong, or something else?
Click to expand...
Friendly aliens, of course. Beaming thoughts into her head with microwaves. Possibly causing the cancer too, but what the hey... :cool:
 
It was also covered in a recent Mr Ballen episode.
 
bugmum said:
Philip K Dick used to receive medical advice from his voices - diagnosed his son's hernia, I believe?
Click to expand...
He even thought the voices were coming from an AI in space, called VALIS. He wrote a novel of the same name, featuring himself as a character (using the cover name 'Horselover Fat').
 
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