In 1984, a woman in her 40s was sitting at home reading when she heard a voice that was not her own. It was polite about it. “Please don’t be afraid,” it said. “I know it must be shocking for you to hear me speaking to you like this, but this is the easiest way I could think of. My friend and I used to work at the Children’s Hospital, Great Ormond Street, and we would like to help you.”

The case was documented in the British Medical Journal in 1997 by Ikechukwu Obialo Azuonye, the consultant psychiatrist who treated the woman, under the title “A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices.” He referred to the patient only as AB.

Azuonye examined her, found nothing physically wrong, and diagnosed her with functional hallucinatory psychosis. He prescribed thioridazine, an antipsychotic, along with counseling. It worked. Within two weeks the voices stopped, and AB went on vacation abroad.

Then the voices came back, and this time they were specific. They told AB to return to England immediately........

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