Via theguardian.com: ‘Children will often have imaginary friends, the recently bereaved sometimes hear their loved ones and for some people voices in their head can be a horrible, destabilising ordeal.

The full gamut of experiences are to be explored in detail at this years Edinburgh International Book Festival, in a project investigating why and how people hear voices when no one is speaking.

Researchers from Durham Universitys Hearing the Voice project will be at the festival asking both readers and writers what their experiences are. There will also be interviews, panel discussions and workshops delving into what is still a little-talked-about subject.

The projects director, Charles Fernyhough, said: “It is usually considered a troubling symptom of a severe mental illness but is more and more being recognised as something that happens to a lot of people and there are a lot of different contexts.

…”There’s a terrible stigma about it,” he said. “It is something many people who have the experience feel very uncomfortable talking about because they fear the reaction of society, for good reason.

“Having the opportunity to talk to a “captive audience” of writers will be invaluable, said Fernyhough. “They often have to hear the voices of their characters before they can write.”Similarly, for readers, hearing the voices of the people they are reading about is an important part of the process.’