Schizophrenia
November 26, 2025
Ben Alderson-Day, Peter Moseley, Angela Woods et al.
Felt presence (FP) - sensing another person without clear sensory evidence - has been described in psychosis for over a century but rarely studied due to challenges in recognition and assessment. Recently FP has been identified as a transdiagnostic phenomenon and highlighted by people with lived experience of psychosis as a clinical priority. Here we describe FP presentation in a first-episode...
Schizophrenia Bulletin
October 1, 2025
Bryony Sheaves, Vanessa Cropley, Peter Moseley et al.
5 citations
BACKGROUND: Sleep dysfunction shares a bidirectional relationship with hallucinatory experiences, with the strongest path from sleep dysfunction to the occurrence of hallucinatory experiences. This review aimed to identify potential mechanisms through which sleep dysfunction leads to hallucinations. STUDY DESIGN: A narrative review was conducted across 4 levels of explanation: phenomenology...
Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany)
September 29, 2025
Wei Lin Toh, Sophie Richards, Charles Fernyhough et al.
4 citations
While voice-hearing in psychosis has received much attention, perceptual experiences in other sensory modalities and psychiatric conditions have remained relatively overlooked. The present review aimed to address this gap by providing an overview of voices/altered perceptual experiences (APE) across psychotic, mood and anxiety disorders in terms of phenomenological characteristics,...
Psychological Medicine
June 1, 2023
Ben Alderson-Day, Peter Moseley, Kaja Mitrenga et al.
19 citations
Experiences of felt presence (FP) are well documented in neurology, neuropsychology and bereavement research, but systematic research in relation to psychopathology is limited. FP is a feature of sensorimotor disruption in psychosis, hypnagogic experiences, solo pursuits and spiritual encounters, but research comparing these phenomena remains rare. A comparative approach to the phenomenology of...
Schizophr Bull
February 1, 2023
Tanya M Luhrmann, Ben Alderson-Day, Ann Chen et al.
AbstractThere are communities in which hearing voices frequently is common and expected, and in which participants are not expected to have a need for care. This paper compares the ideas and practices of these communities. We observe that these communities utilize cultural models to identify and to explain voice-like events—and that there are some common features to these models across...
Schizophrenia Bulletin
September 1, 2022
Peter Moseley, Adam Powell, Angela Woods et al.
15 citations
Voice-hearing in clinical and nonclinical groups has previously been compared using standardized assessments of psychotic experiences. Findings from several studies suggest that nonclinical voice-hearing is distinguished by reduced distress and increased control. However, symptom-rating scales developed for clinical populations may be limited in their ability to elucidate subtle aspects of...
October 8, 2021
Ben Alderson-Day, Peter Moseley, Kaja Mitrenga et al.
2 citations
preprint
Experiences of felt presence (FP) are well documented in neurology, neuropsychology, and bereavement research, but systematic research in psychiatry is limited. Reports of FP are a feature of body disruption in psychosis, hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences, solo pursuits, and spiritual encounters, yet systematic research comparing these phenomena is rare. Here we present a mixed-methods...
Schizophrenia Bulletin
June 19, 2020
Ben Alderson-Day, Angela Woods, Peter Moseley et al.
59 citations
Recent therapeutic approaches to auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) exploit the person-like qualities of voices. Little is known, however, about how, why, and when AVH become personified. We aimed to investigate personification in individuals' early voice-hearing experiences. We invited Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) service users aged 16-65 to participate in a semistructured interview...
Schizophrenia Bulletin
August 8, 2018
Tanya M Luhrmann, Ben Alderson-Day, Vaughan Bell et al.
74 citations
That trauma can play a significant role in the onset and maintenance of voice-hearing is one of the most striking and important developments in the recent study of psychosis. Yet the finding that trauma increases the risk for hallucination and for psychosis is quite different from the claim that trauma is necessary for either to occur. Trauma is often but not always associated with...
October 1, 2011
Simon McCarthy-Jones, Laura Barnes, G. Hill et al.
Hypnagogic and hypnopompic (H&H) hallucinations are those experienced on the borders of sleep and waking. Intrusive thoughts have been proposed to relate to the occurrence of such experiences. In a sample of students (N = 299), the present study investigated the relation between auditory and felt-presence H&H experiences, and specific modalities of intrusive thought (auditory and visual) whilst...