WordNet
n. illusory auditory perception of strange nonverbal sounds [syn: acousma]
Wikipedia
A paracusia, or auditory hallucination, is a form of hallucination that involves perceiving sounds without auditory stimulus. Auditory hallucinations need to be distinguished from endaural phenomena in which sounds are heard without any external acoustic stimulation but arise from disorders of the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, language processing system, ear or auditory system.
A common form of auditory hallucination involves hearing one or more talking voices. This may be associated with psychotic disorders, and holds special significance in diagnosing these conditions. However, individuals without any psychiatric disease whatsoever may hear voices.
There are three main categories into which the hearing of talking voices often fall: a person hearing a voice speak one's thoughts, a person hearing one or more voices arguing, or a person hearing a voice narrating his/her own actions. These three categories do not account for all types of auditory hallucinations.
Other types of auditory hallucination include exploding head syndrome and musical ear syndrome. In the latter, people will hear music playing in their mind, usually songs they are familiar with. This can be caused by: lesions on the brain stem (often resulting from a stroke); also, sleep disorders such as narcolepsy, tumors, encephalitis, or abscesses. This should be distinguished from the commonly experienced phenomenon of getting a song stuck in one's head. Reports have also mentioned that it is also possible to get musical hallucinations from listening to music for long periods of time. Other reasons include hearing loss and epileptic activity.
Usage examples of "auditory hallucination".
This command, this urging, had come to him as a kind of auditory hallucination in the midst of his sermon, and the congregation had had to tolerate a queer lapse in his delivery until he could sort out the matter.
Yet it was ringing, she could hear it, and it was no auditory hallucination, the thing was giving one shrill pulse after another!
The cumulative effect was a whisper of such insidious subtlety that it almost seemed to arise within her head, less like a real sound than like an auditory hallucination.
It was an auditory hallucination, and the experience led Jaynes to study the subject.
The voice was either an auditory hallucination or someone's imitation.
I had two partners and, working off Jaynes's theory, through surgery and the implanting of pig arteries and chimpanzee neurons we widened and filled the anterior commisure in a test subject's brain in order to increase the volume of the auditory hallucination.
That ridiculous voice, a dead salmon's voice no less (obviously some kind of auditory hallucination brought about by stress and fatigue), echoed in his head.
Orlando wasn't fooled or confused for a moment--it was an auditory hallucination, a product of stress--but he grabbed the words like a lifeline.
Although he was somewhat emaciated, medical examination revealed no organic abnormality, nor was there evidence of formal thought disorder, aphasia, or auditory hallucination, and he presented a near-normal affect.