True story:
An otherwise healthy woman, identified only as AB, suddenly started hearing voices in her head.
The year was 1984. The place was England.
The voices reassured AB they were medical professionals trying to help her. They even gave AB some convincing secret info to prove their claims.
But AB concluded she was going insane. She went to a psychiatrist and was prescribed an antipsychotic medication.
The voices stopped. AB, relieved and happy, went on holiday.
But then the voices returned. They told her to head home. They sent AB to an unknown address. It turned out to be a medical center specializing in brain scans. The voices told AB to get one of those brain scans on her own noggin.
AB’s doctor was initially reluctant — brain scans are expensive and the woman was crazy — but in the end, AB got her brain scan. And then another.
It turned out that, even though she showed no symptoms, she had a large tumor inside her skull.
One brain surgery later, and the tumor was removed.
After AB regained consciousness following surgery, the voices told her, “We are pleased to have helped you. Goodbye.” AB never heard from them again, and she continued to live a normal and healthy life.
AB’s psychiatrist, who wrote up this report, said that his colleagues fell into two camps:
Group one thought this was proof positive of benevolent telepathic communication.
Group two thought AB was a big ole grifter, and that she was inventing this story as a way of getting free access to the UK’s health services (AB wasn’t born in the UK, but she had lived there for 15 years before this case).
The psychiatrist offered a third explanation. Even though AB wasn’t manifesting any symptoms, it’s likely that the large tumor in her head made her feel somehow off. It’s possible that her unconscious started slyly gathering relevant information and making its own diagnosis. Eventually, this erupted in AB’s head as hallucinations.
I find this third explanation plausible. And I bring it up for two reasons.
First, it meshes well with how I imagine my sense of self. And that’s a flimsy wooden raft, floating on the surface of a dark and deep loch.
Reason two is that this might help reduce your workload.
Because writing is work. But you know what’s not work? Having ideas pop up in your head without any effort.
For example, I sometimes just “visit” what I want to write. I look over the topic and any research I might have collected. I then go do other stuff and allow the monsters under the surface to digest that information.
For me, there’s no work. I don’t have to do it. All I have to do is simply write it down.
Maybe you can try the same. Just put a lump of an idea into your head. Then go about your day. When you start hearing voices, calmly reach for a writing apparatus and take dictation. And when the voices finish, don’t forget to say thank you, and invite them to visit you again.
“Sign up,” a voice in your head is saying right now. “Sign up to this guy’s email newsletter. He has interesting and valuable things to say.”
What’s that? You say you want to sign up to my email newsletter? Well, I don’t usually do this, but all right. Here’s how you can get in.