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Hearing Conversations In My Head Just Before Sleep

D

dinski

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Dec 16, 2005
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Hi, I just wondered if anybody else has experienced this kind of thing. Occasionally, (normally when I am very tired) just as I am falling asleep I hear conversations in my mind. The voices are very random and say things that don't make any sense to me. It's like tuning into a radio channel where I can hear people talking or their thoughts or conversations. The voices I hear are a cross-spectrum from old ladies to black peoples voices to voices with strong accents. It's not like they are talking directly to me, more like my mind has intercepted them when in a certain state. It is quite weird and amusing and some of the things that are said are so random and ordinary. I asked my partner if he ever has anything like this on the verge of sleep and he said no. Incidentally, over the last month I have also started getting tinnitus in both ears and this happens at least once a day for a few seconds. Don't know if this is related. Maybe I am going mad? ;)
 
ProfessorF said:
Time to roll these threads together?

:)
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Done.

Although not quite related when I am reading a book and really tired (just before calling it a night) sometimes I "hear" a woman's voice reading the words to me (rather than them going directly into my head).
 
Don't think you are going mad. I can remember hearing voices just before going to sleep when I was a child. Sometimes I still do although very rarely these day's, usually a man and a woman talking, sometimes laughing or engaged in a heated argument.

Try not to worry about them sometimes we pick up on things beyond our normal senses.

Its a strange world.


8)
 
I often "hear" the phone ringing just as I'm about to drop off. Very annoying as I usually jump out of bed and head for the living room only to realise I've been "had" yet again.
 
bigphoot1 said:
I often "hear" the phone ringing just as I'm about to drop off. Very annoying as I usually jump out of bed and head for the living room only to realise I've been "had" yet again.
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Oh don't this is killing me at the moment. When dropping off or waking up I think I hear the front door bell ring so I rush to the door only to feel a bit daft. It usually happens in my dreams (i.e. just before waking) but when dropping off I can think about it and hear the ringing - it might sound odd but it appears to originate from the base of my skull round the back.

It has slacked off recently but for a few weeks its was at least once (possibly twice a day).
 
Mighty_Emperor said:
- it might sound odd but it appears to originate from the base of my skull round the back.

It has slacked off recently but for a few weeks its was at least once (possibly twice a day).
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Same with me! I seem to hear all sorts of sounds - including machine gun fire from that area as I'm about to fall asleep.
 
I was in the bath recently and as I topped up the water (one of them instant hot water boilers - laverleeee!) I could hear a man and a woman talking animatedly. Puzzled, I turned the tap off, to silence. When I started to run the water again, more arguing.

Haunted plumbing. ;)
 
I often hear conversations when falling asleep too, people's voices that I've never heard before saying disjointed things like "It never happens on a saturday". I used to see people's faces, strangers, completely realistic (I wonder if they were people I made up or perhaps people I'd seen at some time in my life who had stuck in my subconscious for some reason), but that's finished and now it's the voices. I quite enjoy them. I also hear music sometimes, very complex classical compositions, or like the other night, beautiful african style songs with multiple voices and harmonies. Again, I wonder if I've made these tunes up or if I've heard them at some time in my life and they've stuck in my head. Makes you wonder if everything we see/hear isn't stored in the subconscious. I wish more was known about it. I love sleeping just for interest's sake, to see what bizarre stuff is going to happen.
 
escargot1 said:
I was in the bath recently and as I topped up the water (one of them instant hot water boilers - laverleeee!) I could hear a man and a woman talking animatedly. Puzzled, I turned the tap off, to silence. When I started to run the water again, more arguing.

Haunted plumbing. ;)
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I have experienced something like this myself, although it was not distinct. I figured that running water and other such loud random noises can have multiple frequencies and strange harmonics, giving the occasional impression of voices. The noise overload can fool the senses into misinterpreting the sounds.
 
Mythopoeika said:
escargot1 said:
I was in the bath recently and as I topped up the water (one of them instant hot water boilers - laverleeee!) I could hear a man and a woman talking animatedly. Puzzled, I turned the tap off, to silence. When I started to run the water again, more arguing.

Haunted plumbing. ;)
Click to expand...

I have experienced something like this myself, although it was not distinct. I figured that running water and other such loud random noises can have multiple frequencies and strange harmonics, giving the occasional impression of voices. The noise overload can fool the senses into misinterpreting the sounds.
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The source of EVP and messages on records played backwards? We clearly have the ability to reconstruct speech from incomplete data so I suppose it needn't actually be speech just sound that has speech-like modulation.
 
Along the same lines (i think)
when i really need to wake up like for eg.
a few days ago my brother called early in the morning (he has his own key to my gaff).
My brain does some crazy stuff to the point where i wake up and say to myself WTF? was that all about,
as he opened my front door i was dreaming i had a maggot farm and was "airing" the maggots with what looked like a womans hair volumator
attached to a bloody drill!!!!!
Yeah i know totaly messed up buts thats my point i woke up saying "WTF?"
to myself as he came in. :eek:
 
I was in the bath recently and as I topped up the water (one of them instant hot water boilers - laverleeee!) I could hear a man and a woman talking animatedly. Puzzled, I turned the tap off, to silence. When I started to run the water again, more arguing.
Click to expand...

I often hear muffled voices in the bath. Since kids are required by international law to urgently demand their parents' attention the second we relax into a soak, I used to assume that it was my childrens voices, coming from the floor below. Now I'm that I'm an older and less reactive parent I ignore all the voices, including the bona fide screams for help. "Are you bleeding? No? Any bones sticking through the flesh? No? Can you walk on it? Yes? Then grab an ice pack, lie down and LET ME FINISH MY BATH IN PEACE."

Strange how water travelling through pipes sounds like voices--steam radiators also "talk" to me. The voices seem a bit tinny, like old time radio voices--as a kid I imagined the voices were transmissions of the conversations of past occupants.
 
Yup, it is the brain 'filling in' the missing bits to help it understand what's going on. I reckon a lot of supernatural occurences can be explained in a similar way. ;)
 
We had a bit of a thread a couple of months back where a lot of people told how they heard the phone ringing when they were taking a shower.
I'm sure if I could be bothered to find it, it wouldn't be too hard.

IIRC, there was something of a consensus that the sound of water tinkling against a bath or shower, combined with water in the ears, created a sound which we interpreted into something familiar.

Oh dear, I've made a quite fascinating topic sound unutterably dull! Sorry!
 
Yep, I've had the voices exactly as the original poster. Always as I was lying in bed relaxed but still wide awake.
They lasted eighteen months or so (twelve years back) and I don't recall them being associated with a time of more than usual stress or anxiety. Sometimes they'd be every night for a week, at others maybe once or twice a month. It got so they were stopping me from sleeping in the same way that a TV would and equally annoying. The radio tuning analogy is good, but mine starting with a vague whispering before morphing into full blooded conversations.
I doubt whether it was the brain embroidering the noise of blood rushing in the ear or background sounds, my voices were far too precise once they got going. The reason I never freaked was that I don't recall them addressing me directly, it really was like an open switchboard or overhearing waiting room conversations. I didn't feel at any stage that it was anything to do with me but that I'd tuned into certain frequency somehow.
I've had hypnogogic episodes which were quite different and all together more alarming and suffer from sleep paralysis on a fairly regular basis which I associate with slight asthma.
At first the paralysis was frightening too but I know that if I can will my fingers to scratch or pinch myself (normally after a minute or two) I'll be bodily awake in a few moments.
One hypnogogic event was at a friends house early in the morning and had a lot in common with a haunting, drawers being slammed shut and muttering outside the door. It was light being summer and I could hear the first buses running outside in the background but in hindsight I think it may have been a mental state that could explain/be responsible for some ghostly episodes. Unlike the voices, these noises were scary and I slept with the light on for a week afterwards.
None of the events made me feel I was going mad and still retain a pragmatic distance from them, odd as they were. Fascinating that somebody has had an identical experience.
 
i will often hear what seems like an entire theater full of people. hundreds of voices mixed together. ocassionally a few lines will jump out from the hum.
 
My mother complained of this phenomena for years. Always ordinary people talking about ordinary friends. For example: she once told me about hearing a conversation between two men about putting up a fence. The voices would actually wake her up, which annoyed her greatly. It seems to have tapered off in recent years.
 
Phew, I'm glad someone brought this up, practically all of the above happen to me when I push it with the late night reading, I had at times been quite worried about maddness approaching, but with all you folk having the same experiences I feel alot safer.
 
I had at times been quite worried about maddness approaching, but with all you folk having the same experiences I feel alot safer.
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Actually we're all mad too.
 
In my clubbing days, I'm behind the decks now, And under the influence, er, well, you know what I mean, I used to constantly here people shouting my name from behind. I just thought I was popular. Now I know different.

Actually, I was in a club in Blackpool and at the end of the 'night' when the music goes off (before the final bit) and the MC credits the DJs it became apparent that all the fire alarms were sounding and flashing off.

Great to dance to.
 
I too have experienced apparent snippets of conversation just before sleep. It definately feels real, a fleeting glimpse of chat, like when you walk past two people talking in the street.

However, I never used to experience this when I was younger. At that time, I used to live in rural countryside. I have only ever experienced this phenomena since living in a town.

Therefore I would suggest that at least *some* of this is attributable to people talking in the street outside the bedroom. Obviously if your bedroom does not face the street, this becomes less likely. But I think it's worth considering.

On a more paranormal level, they could be snippets of conversation held in your bedroom at a previous point in time. It could be that in your sleepy state you are somehow able to 'tune in' to sounds that existed before.

Or maybe the overheard chats are in fact random memories of people talking, maybe on the bus, in the street, on television, wherever.
 
I used to get radio music playing as I'm going to sleep. Missus Prof uses an air filtering machine that makes a jolly hum, so I always figure that white noise plus my tired brain equals old time radio music. One memorable sometimes, one night it was 1920's style big band swing with a woman crooning tunes. Quite entertaining, though distracting. Now I take me meds so I don't thrash all night, and I'm out too quick for the music.
 
I often have aural hallucinations right as I'm nodding off to sleep. In fact, this is the closest thing to a Fortean experience I ever have. I'm sure it's nothing mysterious- I think of it as my dream world being a little too eager to take me in and jumping the gun by a few minutes. But it happens frequently, and it is sometimes bad enough to lead to me sitting up, heart racing and unable to get back to a relaxed enough state to fall asleep for quite a long time. My most common manifestations are:

1) A wordless shout, or a single word or name shouted.
2) Knocks, as if someone's at the door. No one ever is.
3) That "crowded theater" sensation that anne_of_28_days, described, the murmur of an audience before a show.
4) (most recently and oddest) A very crackly, electric conversation, as if I'm overhearing a walkie talkie.[/b]
 
I know this is a long time after this thread was 'alive'.

Did anybody ever figure out what was going on or if this phenomenon has a name or a medical explanation?

For me it happens for a minute or two after I wake up. It's like there's a fizzing hubbub of indistinct conversations, like what anne described, and then one phrase or statement or question will be much more pronounced. It's mundane stuff. It's not directed at me. It's not relevant to me - for instance, this morning the phrase that popped out was "Don't worry, they're not going to forclose." We don't tend to use the term 'forclosure' in the UK. So, an American term but I don't get the sense of an accent or gender or age.. The sentences usually seem astonishingly independent from me and my life.

The sentences have no relation to what I've been dreaming about. There are often several sentences, unrelated to each other, before my brain is fully back in the conscious world. The sentences can still be popping up in my head while I'm having a conscious conversation with somebody in the real world - but it eases off gradually after a couple of minutes.

I don't remember noticing this happening more than for a couple of years, now. I've been taking Sertraline (anxiety medication) for a couple of years. Is this a side effect? I'm a fitful sleeper (I have the gene for it - apparently) and I might be bordering on narcoleptic because sometimes I just go.
 
When I saw this thread, I had to sign up. Yes, I've often had this in the past. Hearing people have conversations, saying things which make no sense to me. It's hypnagogic hallucinations apparently. I'd rather it mean that I'm telepathic or something. :p
 
Thank you KerryStar! Hypnagogic hallucinations - I'll look it up. It's incredible to think that we're creating it.

Oh wow, KerryStar - that's absolutely it! I'm reading about it, now, and that's it! I fit so many of the other elements. I want to do a smiley face but it's talking about schizophrenia! Oh oh... Oh well.. :)
 
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The subject of hypnagogic / hypnopompic weirdness is discussed in a number of FTMB threads. The largest one addressing the hypnagogic phase and voices is:

Hypnagogic Voices
forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/hypnagogic-voices.3984/
Link is obsolete. The current link is:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/hypnagogic-voices.3984/
 
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Sorry to dig up an old thread, but just an observation from my own experience. Whenever I hear these 'conversations' it always sounds like the same group of three or four people. Often like they're meeting up to plan something. One I often hear seems to be a woman in her sixties: I remember her once exclaiming to a younger guy in the group "What are you doing here?!". Couple of days ago I heard a woman in her thirties trying to organise something with an older guy: "I need this for the hill..".
 
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