From: janice@mailinator.com   
      
   On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 09:27:52 +0100, David Mitchell wrote:   
      
   > "Psychiatrists believe that these auditory hallucinations are caused   
   > when the brain spontaneously activates, creating a false perception   
   > of a voice," says Professor Hunter of the university's psychiatry department.   
      
   I agree with that part.   
      
   > Such imaginary voices are typically likely to be middle-aged and   
   > carry "derogatory" messages.   
      
   The derogatory nature pertains primarily to the voices of the mentally   
   ill, though.  If they are only looking at the mentally ill, they should   
   cross-compare with voices heard by people who are not mentally ill, such   
   as hypnagogic voices.  The schizophrenic's brain obviously doesn't work   
   quite the same way as other people's, and there may be psychological   
   factors at work as well.  If the patient had a problem with derisive   
   middle-aged male authority figures, for instance, or happened to   
   experience a lot of teasing by male peers upon a time, then it would   
   seem natural to produce a male-sounding derogatory voice.  It would be   
   interesting to see if there's any obvious trend in the content or nature   
   of the male voices versus the female voices in those individuals who do   
   hear both.   
      
   > "The female voice is more complex than the male voice, due to   
   > differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx   
   > between women and men, and also due to women having greater natural   
   > 'melody' in their voices.   
   >   
   > "This causes a more complex range of sound frequencies than in a male   
   > voice," says Professor Hunter.   
      
   I'm not convinced. If this were an issue one would expect the vast   
   majority of speaking dream characters to be male as well.   
      
   --   
      
   For the alt.out-of-body group website and my other sites, visit:   
   http://www.hopkinsfan.net   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)