Hearing voices. Auditory ghosts and sound sets

Abstract

This article tries to investigate what kind of listening is that of the one who “hears voices”. It aims to show the effects that the analysis of certain auditory hallucinations and sound spectra would have, if it is carried out from the point of view of the listening, not of the content of what is heard. For this, the article connects the study of certain “auditory ghosts” with the analysis – from the territory of fiction, specifically a novel by Robert Silverberg – of the loss of the power of a telepath. It is thus intended to show a possible way of understanding how the listener listens to himself as if he were another, or, conversely, how he listens to another as if he were not surrounded by exteriority, but remained in the innermost part of oneself.