Hallucinatory voices correctly informed a woman that she had a brain tumor and needed immediate treatment

Hallucinatory voices informed a woman who was in her early 40s that she had a tumor in her brain and needed immediate treatment.

One day, she heard a distinct voice inside her head say the following: “Please don't be afraid. 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.” Obviously this frightened her. The voices then said "“to help you see that we are sincere, we would like you to check out the following”—and the voice gave her three separate pieces of information, which she did not possess at the time. She checked them out, and they were true, but this did not help because she had already come to the conclusion that she had “gone mad.”"

Thinking that she had gone mad, she went to her doctor, and was referred to a psychiatric outpatient clinic. She was prescribed thioridazine and was relieved when the voices went away. However, the voices soon came back and continued to warn her that something was wrong with her, and that she needed immediate treatment. She stated that the voices even gave her an address to go to. Her husband agreed to take her there to ease her fears and reassure her that this was not real. When they arrived there, they found a computerized tomography department of a large London hospital. The voices then directed her to "go in and ask to have a brain scan for two reasons—she had a tumor in her brain and her brain stem was inflamed".

Her initial request for a brain scan was denied because she did not have any other symptoms besides the auditory hallucinations. However, eventually someone agreed to give her a brain scan and she was informed that she did in fact have a brain tumor. When they decided to go ahead with the surgery to remove it, the voices told her that they were fully in agreement with the decision to do so. After the surgery, she reported hearing the voices for a final time. They stated “we are pleased to have helped you. Goodbye.”

This strange case was published to BMJ Clinical Research in 1997 by her doctor, Ikechukwu Obialo Azuonye. What do you think was going on in this case? Were the voices a symptom of her brain tumor or was something else going on?