Strange voice while meditating?

[StrawHatPro]

Early last year I had been meditating everyday and trying to astral project. While I was meditating I was fully relaxed and couldn't hear much. (There was a T.V on in the other room that I could faintly hear but I wasn't focusing m attention on it) after a little while I heard this 'voice' I can't remember what it said, but I do recall it being quite short. Obviously this was not normal for me so I accidentally focused on the voice and then I wasn't relaxed because of all my excitement. I was never scared of the voice and I went to sleep fine after sitting up and trying to think about what happened. I know the voice was not the T.V because the voice was in my right ear, which is right next to the wall. The room with the T.V was on my left and my bed was quite far away from the wall separating my room and the T.V. The voice was close too. As if right up to my ear, but again my wall is super close to my right ear, a human wouldn't be able to fit in it. I've asked around but I have never gotten any answers on this so I've stayed curious. Was it in my head? Or was it something else?

[CFTraveler]

It was in your head, or at least it usually is. We call it astral noise, and it's one of the symptoms of deep trance. It can be any noise you've ever heard before, or featureless screeches or bangs. Usually these are categorized as auditory hypnagogics, and there's a good chance they actually happen in the hearing part of the brain. Some people have reported feeling vibration behind the mastoid process behind the ear, and popular (folklore) tell of MRIs picking up stimulus in that area of the ear, purely internal, but physical, as if the brain were 'retelling' it.
I don't know what the answer is in your case, but highly probably in your head.

On edit- I did a bit of looking up to see if my memory of this was correct, and learned a few things.
There's increased activity in Broca's area in schizophrenic patients, and increased activity in the temporal lobe in epileptics that hear voices.
So you see there is some basis in what I was saying.
It doesn't mean we're schizophrenics or epileptics, since the hypnagogic phase (the part of the sleep phase when you're going to sleep) and the hypnopompic state (when you're waking up) can cause auditory hallucinations in anyone who can manage to not go to sleep or wake up too fast.

[StrawHatPro]

Wow thanks for the quick response!
That information was very informative, thanks for cleaning this up for me. I appreciate it!

[Honeybadger400]

I'm very new to this whole thing and don't have a lot of experience as others on this board, but I can offer what I've observed from my personal experiences

Was the voice you heard saying random voice "fragments" or was this a voice speaking directly to you? I've experienced both.

If its the former, then it's random remote astral hearing (my theory anyway). You're hearing random fragments of voices probably from somewhere in the neighborhood. I've heard these at times when I'm really tired. These are normally gibberish or scatterrings of parts of a conversation being said to someone else. It could also be just part of your mind shutting down for the night.

if the voice was speaking to you then it could be your higher self or your guardian angel. Depends on the type of voice you heard. Angels speak in a quiet sparkly happy "all is well" type voice (even if what they tell you sounds disturbing / disheartening). More on that later.

in in a number of my dreams and in my one OBE I've also experienced a headless "voice directly to the right of my ear". It sounds human (not like an angel), offers facts and suggestions in the context of what you are doing. I've assumed it's my higher self. It's said things to me like "you're missing your window to get back in your body" when I was looking at my physical body laying on the bed turn over and start to fall asleep

A funny story about angels telling you a disturbing message in their happy voice. On one instance, my guardian angel, "Adral", once whispered to me the message: "blood will be spilt on Saturday" in the quietist, happiest ringing bell type voice at about 4am at the end of a deep meditative session. It freaked me out because it was a very generic message and He didn't say if it involved me or my family in any way (so I assumed the worst). Needless to say I was extra cautious on Saturday, which happened to be a day my wife had crammed with lots of public events that day, lol)

As it turns out, that Saturday was the day of a skinhead March / protest in LA which resulted in mass stabbings and violence. It seemed like the message I received was a good description of the event as I saw the reports on the news. It's the first future event I've been told and it was an odd event to be told to me since I had no relationship to the event, the people or groups in the event, or its location. I suspect it was a test to see if I was listening and he chose a memorable near future event to test me with that I'd be able to easily match it to.

anyway I hope my experience helps to figure out your scenario.

[Honeybadger400]

I've also heard random spirits passing by. In those situations when I've experienced it, it wasn't right to the right of my ear and they werent spoken in this confident voice like my assumed higher self voice.

for example once while I was doing deep meditation/ energy work, I heard a quiet voice in my head that said he was a Vietnam vet. I responded by telling him that he needed to go find the light (I really didn't know what else to tell him).

(it's amazing what you hear when you quiet your mind)

[StrawHatPro]

I've also heard random spirits passing by. In those situations when I've experienced it, it wasn't right to the right of my ear and they werent spoken in this confident voice like my assumed higher self voice.

for example once while I was doing deep meditation/ energy work, I heard a quiet voice in my head that said he was a Vietnam vet. I responded by telling him that he needed to go find the light (I really didn't know what else to tell him).

(it's amazing what you hear when you quiet your mind)
Sadly I can't remember what it sounded like exactly but I do remember it being quite soft and gentle. It was calm as well but that's all I can remember of it. I also have this feeling that it sounded like a female but I can't 100% confirm that with myself.

[ButterflyWoman]

I used to listen to that sort of stuff, thinking it might be important. I eventually learned that it pretty much never is. I have had auditory "messages" that turned out to be profound and meaningful, but those have a different quality to them. For example, they're always very clear, and they "stick with me" in a way that random noise type things don't (for me, the same is true of dreams; the significant ones stay with me, and the others just slip away). It took some years of working with trance and dream analysis and so on to get to where I could easily tell the difference, but my advice is to just ignore most of it, just let it pass, let it be whatever it is and don't pursue it or worry about it. If it IS important, it will become evident that this is the case. Most of the time, though, it's going to be just random bits of thoughts or chatter or other such things. Think of it as birdsong and wind noises and rustling leaves. :)

[StrawHatPro]

I used to listen to that sort of stuff, thinking it might be important. I eventually learned that it pretty much never is. I have had auditory "messages" that turned out to be profound and meaningful, but those have a different quality to them. For example, they're always very clear, and they "stick with me" in a way that random noise type things don't (for me, the same is true of dreams; the significant ones stay with me, and the others just slip away). It took some years of working with trance and dream analysis and so on to get to where I could easily tell the difference, but my advice is to just ignore most of it, just let it pass, let it be whatever it is and don't pursue it or worry about it. If it IS important, it will become evident that this is the case. Most of the time, though, it's going to be just random bits of thoughts or chatter or other such things. Think of it as birdsong and wind noises and rustling leaves. :) thank you for the knowladge and I'll take the advice :p