Which symptom category encompasses the experience of hearing voices that are not the person’s own thoughts?

• A. Hallucinations
• B. Auditory Hallucinations
• C. Hypnagogic Hallucinations
• D. Hypnopompic Hallucinations

Answer: (B)

The key idea is recognizing hallucinations by the sense involved. Hearing voices that aren’t your own thoughts means it’s an auditory perception without an external sound source—so it’s an auditory hallucination. This label is specific to the sensory modality, which is helpful because it differentiates from other sleep-related experiences.

Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are not general categories of the symptom; they’re specific to hallucinations that occur at particular times—on falling asleep or waking up. Those are distinct phenomena tied to sleep transitions, not the usual wakeful experience of hearing voices. The broader term “hallucinations” includes all senses, but when the experience is hearing voices, the precise and most informative category is auditory hallucinations.