So many people are worried when they start to hear voices. And at the same time, so many people ignore what hearing voices really means. No, it doesn't necessarily means schizophrenia. No, it doesn't mean someone is dangerous.
I'll try to list as many reasons as possible of why someone would start to hear voices.
1) "Before sleep" voices
These are special, because they're absolutely normal and literally everyone can get them. These are the voices you can hear just before and/or after going to sleep.
When your brain leaves its "awake" state to go into its sleep state, some "errors" (like hearing voices or sleep paralysis) can happen. It's perfectly normal, healthy and you shouldn't worry about it.
2) Stress
When someone is put under stress, they can start to hear voices. These voices are the sign of the person's stress, and they mean that the person is overwhelmed. They kinda act like "SOS" signs from the brain.
3) Trauma
Some people revive trauma through hearing voices, sometimes without even realizing it. They hear voices, they find it scary, but it's only later that they realize that it's their abuser's voice, or at the opposite their deceased loved ones' voices.
4) Lack of sleep
Sleep is the basis of everything. If you don't sleep, your body and brain will HATE it. If you have any kind of problems (mental or physical) and don't sleep a good amount of time, please consider sleeping more because it may radically change your life.
5) Extreme hunger
This can obviously be linked to the "stress" reason (I suppose that when you're extremely hungry, you're under a lot of stress).
6) Recreational or prescripted drugs
Both recreational and prescripted drugs can mess up your brain (a bit) and make you start hearing voices.
7) Mental disorders
I voluntarily put it in last place, because while this is the first thing everybody thinks about when you tell them "hearing voices", it is not the most common reason people start to hear voices. In fact, one of the most common one is stress.
When you have schizophrenia (including schizophrenia related) or bipolar disorders, you can hear voices. However, hearing voices is one of the possible criterias of these mental illnesses, which means hearing voices doesn't necessarily mean you have schizophrenia. Chances are your brain wants to tell you something important, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you have any mental disorder at all.
I thought this post was necessary, so I wrote it. Hope you learned something !
reason 8: someone is talking to you