This article reports on the Third Biennial Meeting of the International Consortium on
Hallucinations Research, held in Melbourne, Australia, in October 2015. Following a public conference in which research findings were considered in relation to subjective experience and practice, 9 multidisciplinary working groups examined key current issues in progressing the conceptualization and research of
hallucinations. Work group topics included: multicenter validation of the transdiagnostic and multimodal Questionnaire for Psychotic Experiences; development of an improved outcome measure for psychological
therapies; the relationship between inhibition and
hallucinations across multiple levels of explanation;
hallucinations in relation to sleep phenomena; emotion and
hallucinations; multiple interactions between the experience of self and
hallucinations; interactions between language, auditory and memory networks; resting state networks including the default mode; and analyses arising from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data-sharing. Major themes in
hallucinations research identified during the meeting included (1) progression beyond the auditory verbal modality in
schizophrenia to consider
hallucinations across modalities and different populations; (2) development of new measures; (3) the central role of multisite collaboration through shared data collection and data pooling; (4) study of time-based and interactive models of
hallucination; and (5) the need to increase the accessibility and availability of "real-life" interventions for people with persisting and distressing
hallucinations.