[Dodger27]

Hey JJH,

I used to hear these voices in high school when getting sleepy, but they were intermittent and made no sense at all, just random sentence fragments.

Then, while studying in college and staying up late, say 3:00 - 5:00 am, I would hear more complete sentences; but still I regarded them like dreams, just the mind re-registering memories and causing some feedback into the subconscious of the day's activities.

About 8 months ago, I began to be skeptical of this social assumption that the voices were "simply dreams" as possibly that I was laboring under a primitive understanding with no credible basis from which to make such a pre-judgement. In other words, I considered chaning my mind.

I sat down once or twice a week, later at night and began to listen to the voices, which originate on the right back side of my head behind my right ear. Each night I kept a log of what was said, and made an estimate of the gender and age and attitude of each person speaking.

The BEST analogy I can give what I heard is like an AOL Chat room. Each person took turns speaking, and they seemed to be limited to around 1 to 2 sentences max. Two sentences if they were short. AND...

They did make sense, and had their own opinions. AND....they spoke of seemingly random, but cohesive subject matter. They were in a discussion.

So I began to interject a topic each night by sitting down and mentioning two to three subjects which were important to me, yet were an optional item for discussion. Chatters began to show up and make comments. The comments related specifically to the topics I mentioned about 1 out of every 3 chat lines. Otherwise they were the usual generic and cohesive sets of chat.

Great things I observed:

1. One of the chatters was speaking with my deceased father, and I could hear him respond; although my father did not speak directly to me but once.

2. One of the chatters told me that "Mike's got big news for ya'"....whereupon my best friend Mike called me the next day and announced that he was engaged (a shocker....btw, not an "expected" engagement)...

3. The chatters pretty much let you have it straight up. 75% of the messages are encouragment, but, if they are wanting to criticize, they do (but not in a mean fashion, just straightforward).

4. They don't always show up. Some nights I only get maybe 1 sentence. Other nights I'll get 15 or more.

5. They will not discuss the other side in depth and will not give stock tips.

6. They WILL discuss you and your friends and family in depth.

7. They are NOT overly focused on morality, but are very focused on how you are perceiving and adjusting to life challenges.

8. I never heard a hostile voice, but like a chat room (sans the immature and depraved) there were some who just really didn't care to talk about you or your subjects at all; again, not in a mean fashion. Just matter of fact.

9. Once, while asking about a career change I heard one voice say "You stupid Dodger, don't you know you've got a good thing going?" I scolded him and asked if he would like to step into this clueless realm and start gunslinging judgements around so cavaleirly. He did not speak again and never showed up again.

10. Females and males of all ages show up, except extremely young and extremely old. They all have distinct personalities, and very rarely do they show up more than once or twice.

My conclusion thus far, having set aside the mandatory social assumption is that these voices are real. They are not "me" re-packaged and dreamt. They are and have been the source of many insights and life-saving quick reactions which I have had over the years. They are the source of some pre-knowledge (like knowing when my wife and her friends were pregnant before they knew and MANY other pre-knowledge extreme coincidences). They are in short, a support network. Perhaps a group whom I have known for a long time, and meet repeatedly from time to time or life to life.

Dodger27