Do intelligent people have voices in their head? Do the voices help or hurt the person?

Well, all intelligent people are seriously messed up in the head, but not all of them specifically have schizophrenia. :)

And, the voices can be (and for me are) both hurtful and helpful, but if the voices aren’t hurtful, medically it’s not Schizophrenia. Typically for me the hurt outweighs the help, but the facts are that it’s something to do, it’s interesting, and I’m pretty lonely. So I don’t take my medication.

Do intelligent people have voices in their head? Do the voices help or hurt the person?

There are a number of possible answers to your question depending on the person. First some definitions for this answer.

Hearing voices in your head is perceiving sounds without auditory stimulus.

Thoughts may be an idea or opinion produced by thinking or occurring suddenly in the mind two ways with or without hearing voices.

Number 1: A person that never ever hears voices but has thoughts all the time. I am what is know as total aphantasia, meaning that I am totally unable to create any images, sounds, tastes, smells or touch within my mind. But, I am able to recognize real faces, therefore this information is stored somewhere, I just can not create an image of a face or any image.

Number 2: A person that never hears voices or has thoughts. Maybe some people in a coma are like this.

Number 3: A person hears voices that are their thoughts. Most people would fall into this category.

Number 4: A person hearing one or more voices arguing. Many people are able to do this.

Number 5: A person hearing a voice narrating their own actions. I may do this on occasion when I say “OK Ron what do you do next?”

Number 6: A person hearing voices or auditory hallucinations attributed to an external source, rather than internal, with a wide variety of DSM-5 diagnoses such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, psychosis, and many more.

Number 7: A person talking to themselves with voices or thoughts. I do this on occasion when I make a mistake, I will say “Ron why did you do that?”

Number 8: A person hears voices but does not have agency of the voices. Agency: The sense of agency, or sense of control, is the subjective awareness of initiating, executing, and controlling one's own volitional actions in the world. A brain damaged person, is surprised when his arm moves. He says I am not author of the arm movement. He has ownership of arm but has no sense of agency for the arm movement. They also may have no sense of agency of their own voice or thoughts.

To your question: “Do intelligent people have voices in their head?” Everyone has voices or thoughts at some time in their head and does not depend on their intelligence.

To your question: “Do the voices help or hurt the person?” It depends on the person. If you are one of the people diagnosed with a problem in the DSM-5, then it is a problem. If I did not have thoughts, I could not communicate with my subconscious, therefore it helps. If your voices or thoughts are overly negative all the time, then in the long run this is not very helpful.

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