Ballistic - I was actually thinkin the same thing last night after seeing another trailer for the John Lennon assasination programe on tonight. I wonder what sound these voices take and why the people in question don't understand that we all have an inner voice and that its just us. So if we hear something telling us to do something bad we just don't do it. I've heard a voice ever since I was a child when I walk downstairs and it says over and over "You are going to fall, you are going to fall". I don't fall, I just hold onto the bannister and take more care.
maybe the problem is those with mental illness don't know how to ignore the bad impulses and the voice isn't literal or they don't interpret that its not a literal separate entity telling them to do stuff.
I have good voices too and I kick myself when I don't have the courage to follow them. They tell me to go and be kind to someone I see upset on a train, to smile at strangers, to stop and chat to disabled people in the street.