Caffeine is the most commonly used psychoactive drug. Image: Shutterstock.
If you’re hearing things that aren’t there, you might be drinking too much coffee.
If consumed in large quantities, coffee and other caffeinated drinks can make you hear things that aren’t really there. In a recent experiment at La Trobe University, volunteers who had consumed high levels of caffeine thought they were hearing Bing Crosby singing White Christmas- but it was just white noise.
According to Professor Simon Crowe, five cups of coffee or more per day is enough to increase your tendency to hallucinate. “High caffeine levels in association with high levels of stressful life events interacted to produce higher levels of “˜hallucination’ in non-clinical participants,” he said in the press release.
During the experiment, Professor Crowe and his colleagues measured the effects of stress and caffeine on 92 volunteers. The volunteers were assigned to a high or low caffeine condition and to a high or low stress condition (determined by the level of stressful life events they had experienced over the last year).
They were then asked to listen to white noise, which they were told contained parts of Bing Crosby’s song ‘White Christmas’, and asked to press a button every time they heard it. But the song was never actually played.
The volunteers who consumed high levels of caffeine and were very stressed were more likely to believe they could actually hear the song. Professor Crowe explains “There is a link between high levels of stress and psychosis, and caffeine was found to correlate with hallucination proneness.
“The combination of caffeine and stress affect the likelihood of an individual experiencing a psychosis-like symptom.”
The results also supported the theory that stress plays a role in the symptoms of schizophrenia. Professor Crowe said that everyone can experience these symptoms to some degree. “This was demonstrated by a significant effect of stress on the occurrence of hallucinatory experiences, or hearing the song.”
Caffeine not only increases the level of stress, it also increases how prone we are to hallucinations. “It is apparent that the health risks of excessive caffeine use must be addressed and caution should be raised with regards to the exacerbating use of this stimulant.”
