Whoa: Coffee May Cause Auditory Hallucinations, Says Science

Turn that imaginary racket down!

Just when we thought coffee was finally good for you, science comes and throws some freaky-sounding stuff our way: apparently, a high coffee intake may cause auditory hallucinations, which is kind of a neat party trick, but not really good news for everyday drinkers who don't want to be That Scary Guy on the train.

A group of Australian scientists found that drinking just five cups of coffee can be enough to make you hear things that are all inside your head, man. How did they do it? By asking participants to listen to three minutes of white noise, and asking them to hit a buzzer when they heard Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" start to play. The catch? It never plays! And yet, highly caffeinated people pounced all over that buzzer. Tricky, tricky scientists. The findings do match up to a 2009 study showing that people riding high on three cups of coffee were three times more likely to see or hear things that aren't there.

Good and paranoid yet? It's not the first time science has tricked us in the name of knowledge: it happens with wine and salt tastings, too. We look forward to tomorrow's Daily Mail story about the scary new trend of freaked-out American teenagers jumping out of windows with a head full of caffeine.

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By Jamie Feldmar in Food on June 9, 2011 5:10 PM

Comments [rss]

Peanut_Butter

Wait, I thought hallucinations were by definition visual?

Jabron

I'm not suprised at all. Speed up a person's head, spin them in our bogus society, and then feed them garbage and social media until they are ready to puke and auditory hallucinations are probably one of the lighter effects of living in our current situation.

It's only a problem when they don't hear their priest/boss/Barak Obama's voice in their heads assuring them that everything is okay and that they should just go to work and behave like good children.

I thought it was cannabis that caused psychosis because it made you question the people that were drinking coffee and calling you lazy and crazy. In the mean time they were hallucinating, in control, and aware of what they were doing. Paranoid? Nope, more like a realist.

America's favorite pass time - getting high on coffee and staring at each other facebook pages pretending to hear our friends in our heads. Coinsidence? I think not. Throw in a lot of effective advertising and we have an means in which to control a hallucinating population.

Is it too taboo to talk about pills, diet products, tobacco, steroids, alcohol and religous experience in this thread?

P.S. a hummer can get 100 miles per gallon running on gasoline vapors, so why aren't we using that technology and why are we paying $4.10+ to run to dunkin and then get to work? Because the voices in our heads tell us too and that there is no better way, so don't bother asking. Let your politicans, doctors and bosses do the thinking for you.

Joel Ceballos

This study is ludicrous, no sensible person drinks FIVE cups of joe a day and coffee black twice a day intake increases your level of antioxidants and in fact has more then even tea.

swag

More like "says BAD science"...
http://www.badscience.net/2009...

Let's not all jump to give ourselves gullibility high fives just because someone puts on a lab coat.