I’m trying to figure out what’s happening to me and I’m not sure where to look.
For the last several years, whenever I listen to silence-filling noise (white, brown, pink, etc.) I tend to hear additional sounds. It’s like having your radio tuned to a MHz that’s just off a tiny bit, so you hear static but there’s just a slight edge of voices or something that you can’t quite make out but is definitely there. Sometimes, instead of voices, it’s also patterns in the noise or various pitches.
It happens in a variety of situations, like Youtube videos, audio tracks from meditation apps and noise generators, and even devices that have no audio input or antenna and are specifically for noise as you’d find in the waiting room of a massage clinic. It even happens when it’s a completely benign source like an air fan. And the sounds I hear match the volume of the source.
Do I have superpowers? A brain tumor? Am I just sensitive to imperfect wave form generation? Am I part-dog? Have I done damage to myself from listening to Metallica way too loud for too many years?
Where do I start looking into this? Does anyone have any possible explanations for what I’m experiencing that might lead me in the right direction?
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See a doctor. Do it now. Not later. Nobody here will give you accurate medical advice. The underlying causes are diverse. You will not receive worthwhile medical advice without a proper diagnosis.
You should go see a psychiatrist if you can. This definitely sounds like early schizophrenia and a lot of people ignore the early signs before it’s too late. With medications a normal life is possible so don’t worry. But let a psychiatrist make the actual diagnosis
This was my first thought, too.
Every medical question on social media ever:
American: I have this problem
Response: Have you seen a doctor?
American: No.
Response: Why not?
American: I can’t afford it.
It’s impossible to tell if that’s an indictment of the people’s attitude or the “healthcare” system. Probably both. This country sucks rotten ass sometimes.
It’s an indictment of of the health system.
You need to be an idiot to avoid the doctor in a country with socialized healthcare. In a country without, you just need to be cautious.
Hey there. I experience the same thing. The voices, the music, in the white noises around me.
I’m not schizophrenic (or at least I hope not). It is a weird phenomenon that some of us experience that seems to be our brains trying to match important patterns, like speech, out of noise.
Heck, Devin Townsend even wrote a song about it “Voices in the Fan.”
If it’s really bothering you or scaring you then, yeah, you could seek help, but if you’re not experiencing auditory hallucinations outside of this context then my completely unqualified opinion is you’re probably fine.
Hevy Devy +1
If it’s changing, you might want to get a brain-scan, immediately.
No, it isn’t normal ( not for me, anyhow ), to the guy who said it is normal.
It’s not an ear thing, it is an auditory-processing thing, so it’s your brain that’s doing it.
The question is why it is doing it.
Perhaps it’s just fuzzy wiring, as most such cases likely are.
( synaesthesia is a case of weird wiring, and I’ve got that, but not in the normal way, not senses blurring into each-other, but rather my non-visual cognition being a kind of “blur” to those senses, so they mesh oddly )
But if it begins changing in either intensity or character, get a scan.
( I’m a braindamage survivor, and it takes decades to adapt to braindamage: prevention/avoidance is better than hating one’s life for decades, while being bullied by all who reject that it could still validly be a problem, and hold that one ought either force oneself into being an “acceptable” drugged psychiatric-zombie, and not “pretend” to be getting better, or one ought be able to be acceptable-pretence, just like Valid People™ are. )
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Ignore any advice here except “go to a doctor”
This is not something for Lemmy to solve. This is something for a psychiatrist to solve.
See a GP
See a doctor.
As we get older, our bodies start to wear down. If something starts to fray, it’s generally not a problem unless you completely ignore it until the little problem becomes a big problem.
Don’t get freaked out by some of the words thrown around in these responses. You should probably invest in an annual medical checkup, this is a great thing to ask them.
It’s pretty normal, brains try to meaning or something in its senses. Sometimes if you hear tapping you may start believing it’s the beat to a certain song. There is also of course that viral video that makes you hear “brainstorm” or “green needle” depending on which option you are mentally choosing.
If you expect to hear something you will hear it. There have been funny moments where I removed my earbuds, put them down, and I kept listening to the faintly playing music. I put them back in 30 seconds later and I realized they were muted the whole time
Because it can’t be said enough…
See a doctor. Make an appointment today, now. Not tomorrow.
Do not try to self diagnose. It will only go poorly.
As said by others; see a physician, then a psychiatrist (in that order).
Auditory pseudo-hallucinations may be completely benign, especially if you’ve partaken in psychedelic substances recent or long since past, but they may also be an early warning sign of (like you said) potential pressure on the brain or abnormality in brain functioning.
And even that might be fine.
Either way, why gamble? Go see a doctor.
Repeating what everyone else has said, and strongly recommending that you see your doctor.
But if it eases your mind a little, I had a similar experience that was ultimately diagnosed as tinnitus, and treated effectively with behavioral therapy. It’s scary thinking something is wrong with you, but getting diagnosed is great because you get to know more than you did before about what is wrong.
Wow, lots of comments.
Before having read any replies, I’d already scheduled a doctor visit. Tinnitus being my first guess. Still, it’s limited to specific circumstances, and I have near-perfect pitch, so I thought maybe my mind was simply consuming/interpreting additional data. Still, it will be investigated.
I found the Schizophrenia comments… interesting, because it does run in the family. I will make sure the physician is thorough and considers all possibilities.
