Hallucination

Shortly after a 74 year old man started taking tramadol he began hearing two voices singing songs by Irish performer Josef Locke, accompanied by an accordion and a banjo.1 According to Locke’s obituary in The Stage, “with his glorious tenor voice he . . . had an almost ecstatic following largely made up of female admirers.” The patient was not ecstatic, but rather found the hallucinations frightening, and feared he was going mad. Auditory hallucinations occur more commonly in patients with impaired hearing—a 70 year old woman with otosclerosis was cured of her auditory hallucinations by halving her dose of aspirin.2

Many drug induced psychological experiences are disturbing. Neurologist and …