Fortean Times – September 2019

FT383 29

Prankster bus purchasedby
Ken Kesey. During the last of
Kesey’s acid tests atWinterland
on Hallowe’en in 1966,
electronic sounds, possibly
from the Buchla, appeared to
interrupt an interview ofKesey.
Buchlawas friends with Owsley
Stanley (‘Bear’), the genius
behind the Grateful Dead’s
sound system,famousfor
making the purest acidever to
hit the street.
After his strange trip, Curtis

• wearing gloves – fi nished
  repairing the vintage Buchla.
  The instrument is now back at
  Cal State East Bay andready
  for music students toexplore.
  The device has nokeyboard and
  is played by turning knobs and
  patching cords.[CBS] 21 May

HEAR HEAR
A 69-year-oldwoman who has
enduredmusical hallucinations
for over a decade participated
in an academic study into the
little-understood condition.
It began after Sylvia, a maths
teacher andkeen amateur
keyboard player, developed
severe tinnitus and loss of
hearing.Atfi rst she heard a
simplerepetition of two notes
as if played on a piano.This
increased in complexity to
become fragmentary tunes,
“always in a minorkey and
therefore a bit depressing”.
She was able to transcribe
the melodies usingmusical
notation.The condition
progressed and Sylvia began to
recognise phrases from Gilbert
& Sullivan’sHMS Pinafore
and music by Bach. She then
noticed that she could alter
the pattern of these aural
hallucinationsby playingmusic
herself.The 2014 study used
magnetoencephalography
(MEG) toexamine brain
activity andfound that areas of
the brain normally involved in
the processing of melodies and
retrieval of musical memories
were particularly active
when the hallucinationswere
heard. Sylvia has no history
of verbal hallucinations, nor
any neurological or psychiatric
disorder.
A more frequentlyrecorded
condition of auditory
hallucination is that of hearing

voices, typically thought of as

an indication of schizophrenia.

Studies have found that as many

as one in 20 peopleregularly

hear voices, many of whom have

never been diagnosed with any

psychiatric disorder and do not

require any treatment.

Peter Bullimore, 52, a trustee

of the HearingVoices Network

(the coordinating bodyfor over

180 supportgroupsworldw ide)

has been hearingvoices for over

30 years.Atfi rst, he recalled, it

was a frighteningexperience;

he was prescribed anti-

psychotic medication which had

no effect. Gradually he came

to accept hisvoices, and says:

“I wouldn’twant to be without

[them] because I think they are

guides in theirown way”.

‘Hearing theVoice’, a

research project conducted

by Durham University, aims

to better understand the

condition.“Many people think

that voice hearing is just a

symptom of severe mental

illness like schizophrenia

or psychosis, but what they

don’t know is that hearing

voices is also an important

part of many ordinary

people’s lives,” said project

director Professor Charles

Fernyhough. Co-director Dr

AngelaWoods argues that

while public perception

regards hallucinatoryvoices

only asabusive, threatening,

or commanding, somevoices

“can be kind and encouraging,

providing a person with an

important source of comfort

and support”.

Why some people hearvoices

is still unclear. One theory

proposedby the project is

that inner speech or dialogue

may sometimes be mistakenly

attributed to anexternal

source. Most participants

described theirvoices as having

an ‘alien’ quality, as if not

emanating from the self. If the

statements are derogatory, the

person may say, “I would never

think that”.

Somefamous persons said

to ha ve beenvoice hearers

include Socrates,Joan of Arc,

Charles Dickens, Sigmund

Freud and Mahatma Gandhi,

suggesting a potential link with

creativity and original thought.

Dr Julian Jaynes’s controversial

Origin of Consciousness in the

Breakdown of the Bicameral

Mind(Boston: Houghton

Mifflin, 1977) argued that as

recently as 3,000years ago, the

human brainwas split, so that

the experiences and memories

of the right hemisphere

were transmitted to the left

hemisphere andexperienced

as auditory hallucinations.

Metro, 12 Nov 2013; (Dundee)

Courier and Advertiser, 27 Jan

2014; SKumar, W Sedley, GR

Barnes, STeki, KJFirston,TD

Griffiths (2014): ‘A brain basis for

musical hallucinations’Cortex

vol.52, pp86-97: http://dx.doi.

org/10.1016/j.cortex.2013.12.002

Christopher Josiffe

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM

STRANGEDAYS

ABOVE:Joan of Arc is one of numerous historicalfi gures said to have heard voices, represented asfl oatingfi gures of Saints

Michael, Margaret, and Catherine in this 1879 painting by Jules Bastien-Lepage.