Phantom hearing is a symptom of mental abnormality, and phantom hearing can be caused by a variety of diseases. In addition to the common schizophrenia, long-term mental stress, systemic diseases or local organic lesions of the brain affecting the auditory center may also cause phantom hearing, so phantom hearing is not equivalent to schizophrenia.
Healthy people sometimes have hallucinations, but they occur mainly in the transitional state between waking and sleeping, and are usually transient and simple, such as hearing a bell or a person’s name, and have no diagnostic significance. The speech of a deceased loved one can also be heard when a loved one is intensely missed by illness, also without diagnostic significance.