Coffee lovers beware: drinking too much coffee can make you hallucinate. A recent study by scholars at Australia's La Trobe University has showed a link between too much caffeine intake and auditory hallucinations. If you're hearing things it might be time to cut back to decaf.

The study set up participants with headphones and asked to buzz in if they heard audio from Bing Crosby's classic "White Christmas". The only sound playing was white noise but participants who have been drinking at least 400 milliliters of coffee per day were more likely to hear the song than those who haven't been guzzling coffee.

Professor Simon Crowe concluded that there is a link between high levels of stress and psychosis, and caffeine was found to correlate with hallucination proneness. The combination of caffeine and stress affect the likelihood of an individual experiencing a psychosis-like symptom. The team found that drinking more than five cups of coffee a day could trigger this symptom.

The study doesn't directly link the excessive coffee intake to the auditory hallucinations; it merely suggests a correlation between the two. A combination of caffeine and stress could likely cause a psychosis like symptom. This is hardly reassuring to those addicted to their daily cup of Joe. There have been many contradictory researches about the effects of caffeine to the body. Coffee could be good for your heart, it's bad for your health, it stains your teeth but for most coffee drinkers they simply find it hard to give up this vice.

Professor Crowe added helpfully that 'Caution needs to be exercised with the use of this overtly "safe" drug.'