Episode Details

Most people picture a psychiatric ward when they hear the word "hallucination." The epidemiological literature says that picture is wrong. In a meta-analysis pooling nineteen population studies, median prevalence of psychotic symptoms was 17% in children aged 9–12 and 7.5% in adolescents — meaning these experiences are most common in childhood and decline with age, exactly the opposite of what you'd expect if they were an early sign of illness. This episode walks through the numbers, the "you can't tickle yourself" predictive-coding account of why a developing brain might mislabel its own internal signals, and the specific dimensions that actually distinguish benign experiences from concerning ones: emotional valence, frequency, and controllability — not loudness, location, or whether the voice seems to have a personality. Episode #298219 — open it directly at myweirdprompts.com/298219