1explore the fi rst-person experience of auditory hallucinations (also known as voices) in a community sample using a qualitative survey approach. Auditory hallucinations are common in psychiatric disorders, especially schizophrenia. During the past 10 years, researchers have learned that auditory hallucinations also occur in a small but notable proportion of the general population without the need for clinical care. However, very little is known about these individuals, and even less is known about their experience of hallucinations. Woods and colleagues’ study 1 gives a unique insight into the raw phenomenology of auditory hallucinations, undistorted by the clinical symptoms (eg, delusional interpretations) and cognitive compromise (eg, language disorders) that often accompany schizophrenia. Importantly, the fi ndings of the study show new and surprising themes that direct attention beyond the immediate scope and remit of speech, and towards a more global and integrated experience. In the past 30 years, studies have been constructed with preconceived ideas about auditory hallucinations being composed of abnormal language processes or misattributed inner speech, such that language and speech have become common constitutive elements of any investigations. This language-centric approach has shaped interrogative questions about these experiences, and clinicians often ask questions such as “Do you hear voices in your head? What do they say?” Thus, verbal and lexical characteristics have become the norm in descriptions of the dimensional forms and features of auditory hallucinations (eg, verbalisation, speech content, replays of conversations, and complexity of utterances), and as targets in dialogue-based forms of clinical interventions. Language and speech are important in some hallucinations, especially those related to schizophrenia. However, the fact that non-verbal auditory hallucinations are also common is often forgotten; for example, they occur in roughly 40% of individuals with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders 2 and a substantial