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Hissing noises - Tinnitus


ai_guardian

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Ok, this is weird and I'd be interested in knowing whether anyone else is experiencing what I am. Read entire post before you reply please.

We all know about the hissing/wooshing noises that people report to have sometimes occasionally, sometimes frequently and sometimes like me 24/7. The medical establishment has given it a term 'Tinnitus' and it has been discussed here on these forums a number of times (me included). Doctors recognise it as a condition (not a disease) that may result from damaged hearing - it can be suppressed with medication AFAIK. Furthermore, studies have found that severing the auditory nerve the condition persists!

It has never bothered me so I live with it BUT about 6 months ago the hiss has changed into a high pitched frequency! It is no longer a 'static' type noise but it is clearly a frequency I am hearing and every now and then it flips to a lower pitch instantly. That is all fine, I can live with that BUT about 2 months ago while lying in bed I listened to it more intently and recognised an underlying oscillation also. I've found that there are a number (up to 4 I think) of low frequencies (1 - 10 hertz ie. 1 - 10 oscillations/second) superimposed together and on this very high frequency! Now that is what is weird IMO. Researching brain waves it seems to correlate with the frequencies that are output by the brain. Could it be that I am somehow 'hearing' my brain waves? And given that this condition seems to be on the rise - is the human evolving a kind of SIXTH sense? Could this sense, over time, get so precise & sensitive that we could tap into others' brain waves? *gets shivers down the spine*

Is anyone else hearing frequencies rather than just 'static' or wooshing (this could be blood rushing past your auditory nerves) or hissing noises? Am I alone? Could it be some sort of a feedback loop?

I really don't believe in any telepathic, esp etc. etc. powers because quite frankly there is an enormous lack of evidence but hearing these frequencies makes me wonder.

BTW, I've thought of a test that I could have done ie. have brain waves monitored and I at the same time record on a separate 'timeline' sheet any changes that I hear and estimate the frequencies - then see if they correlate to the readout. hmmm *goes off to get a phone book*

Please let me know what you think. Much appreciated. No medical advice thanks - I already know what doctors know, I just don't know WHAT I'm hearing.

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Great idea on the experiment; be sure to let us all know if you get it conducted and what the results are :tu:

My tinnitus has never been the same noise, what I mean by this is I get lots of effects all of them different. I've heard ringing, ocean, white noise, and also that oscillating tone you mention, it reminds me of someone fine tuning a radio. Quite often I'll use my tinnitus while drifting off to sleep and try to hear tunes in it, similar to actively searching for images in clouds.

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Hmmm, this kind of reminds me of the Taos Hum. I used to hear the hum until I moved to a different part of town. It was sometimes pretty loud but the sound would oscillate for that, too. It was like a deep rumble but what is interesting is that the government did studies on the hum about 10 years ago and came up with no explanation and no evidence of nerve problem. Here's a site about it, complete with "hum" sound files. The hum sound from Anders Heerfordt is probably the closest to what I used to hear.

http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/hum/hum.html

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Thank you very much Bebi & battleangel :tu:

I am glad I'm not alone. :)

Yes Bebi, I know what you mean with the tunes. A few times I've actually fallen asleep to it. I used to get a lot of different effects but now it's just superimposed frequencies *ditches the radio*

With regards to the test. I really don't know how to go about it because if I see a doctor I get a feeling they will not permit such a test - they'll just give me the meds and tell me to stop wasting their time. However parapsychology institutions may have more interest in it but I'm not sure if they'll be very interested in a 'listening to brain waves' type phenomenon - although perhaps not.

I'll check out your link battleangel when I have some more time.

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I'd second parapsychology departments over hospitals for this sort of thing.

Edit: I don't know where abouts in Oz you are, or if you've already found it, but check out this site...

http://www.aiprinc.org/who_are_we.asp

About Us

The Australian Institute of Parapsychological Research, Inc. (Parapsychology Institute or AIPR, for short) is a non-profit scientific and community society founded in 1977.

Aims

The organisation promotes research and public education into Parapsychological phenomena.

Philosophy

The AIPR advocates use of the scientific method. Psychic experiences should be studied in the same way as other human experiences.

Evidence should be evaluated accurately and compassionately.

The AIPR wishes to place psychic phenomena into the broader context of experience, health and illness.

The AIPR does not hold any specific corporate or religious beliefs.

People and place

The focus of the AIPR is on Australia and nearby countries.

Professionals and nonprofessionals can join.

Contacts are located in most states.

See the link for the various contacts around Australia, and of course the rest of the website :tu:

Edited by Bebi
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Thank you very much for that Bebi :tu: Great info!

Monash University (the Victorian representative) is just up the road from here. In fact I completed my degree there just 4 years ago :) It's a small world.

I'll contact the representative when I get some time up my sleeve & the courage :blush:

I'm afraid of sounding silly.

Thank you very much though, you've been great help.

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No problem :tu:

I'm sure they'll jump at the chance of conducting this experiment. Don't worry about sounding silly; I'm willing to bet your theories are no way as outlandish as some they've been approached with already ^_^

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Yes, I have Tinitus. I hear this high pitched squeal 24/7. When there is complete silence, that's the worst times. It gets so bad I start talking and making noise just so the squeal won't drive me nuts. And it also changes in pitch from time to time. I also hear this click when I walk. It's two click so close together that they almost seam as one. And they keep in time with my steps. But it's probably the product of listening to music too loud for my health.

Edited by analog_warrior
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Guardian I have tinnitus but its from working on jet aiplanes for years. Mine flucuate in frequency at different times of the day and I never thought much about what would cause the frequency change. I can tell you this they are the loudest in the late evening. When I wake up in the morning they are quite muted, they are still there but hardly noticable. I know thats its different because I had severe damage to my left ear drum and moderate damage to the scilia in my right ear from an accident at the trim pad with an aircraft in full afterburner. My headset got stuck on a strake and came off. As much as I hear the high pitched tone though it would be interesting to track it. How did you go about figuring out the 10 hertz thing? You never cesae to amaze me Guardian.

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It is possible that what I hear is also part of 'ear' (any part thereof) damage. What tends to discount it though is the fact that I have very good hearing. I can hear the minutest noises even with this apparent loud pitch. The loudness of the pitch for me does not change much at all between night/day morning/night but it does change if I concentrate on it. The other thing that tends to discount hearing damage is that, as mentioned, the frequencies came only about 6 months ago (changed from just hissing) with nothing that could have made any apparent damage worse ie. no loud concerts etc. etc. It just happened. What I hear is a high pitch. The high pitch stays the same for most part every now and then instantly flipping to a lower frequency & then back some seconds later. However this is hard to explain but the high pitch oscillates and what's more there is a number of these oscillations all slightly different superimposed on each other. I can isolate them by concentrating and singling one out - when I do this I can estimate by counting (not with numbers but ticks) how many there are per second. This is a very rough estimate though as there really is no measuring device I can use :( This is the puzzling part though, I have listened to 'brain wave' generators and what I hear from the generators, although very rough, is similar to the frequencies I hear. The frequencies I hear seem to be much smoother and at times soothing. Go figure.

I just thought of a less 'silly sounding' test and that is to get an MRI and see if the MRI actually impacts these frequencies. That way I don't have to let on that I am testing this effect but rather just say that I want to ensure I don't have any tumors etc. If the MRI does affect these frequencies then I can go and contact the parapsychologist I suppose.

Cheers

Edited by ai_guardian
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Just scanning, when this thread jumped out at me. About 20 years ago I jumped out of the shower with that "water in your ear" sort of noise in my left ear. Unfortunately it has not left me for a second since, and has evolved into exactly the sort of sound you are talking about. While the pitch is generally steady, it is slowly increasing in shrillness and sometimes reaches the point where it is painful. It is loud enough to drown out a lot of low level sound, which has its advantages and disadvantages. I must admit i deliberately never think about it, but rather tactically ignore it , otherwise it could drive you mad. I put the cause to one of three things and possibly a combination. a. Riding motorbikes for many years. b. getting hit on the back of the neck by a student when strepping in to break up a fight. This certainly did some muscle damage and caused headaches for a number of years. c. root canal treatment where the x-rays showed surgery went very close to the hearing mechanism/nerves or whatever. The tinnitus started soon after this . Anyway, very interested in your theory. As i said, I have studiously avoided analysing/reflecting on the noise, but may tentatively experiment with the connection. The specialists i have talked to say that, as yet, there is no solution, although if it is driving you crazy there are a couple of things they may try, like establishing feedback loops, where harmonic frequencies may cancel out the noise. PS. My hearing is also excellent, particularly in the spoken range, which is fortunate for me but not so lucky for my students. however there is hearing loss in the higher frequencies, about where the squealing sound is.

Edited by Mr Walker
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That's very interesting, thank you Mr. Walker. :tu:

I do get a feeling that the frequency (the high pitch other than the other oscillations) would make it hard to distinguish/hear a real sound with that frequency. But I think it would have to be very close if not exact as I have a computer tower that, when running for long periods of time, gives off a high frequency that I CAN distinctly hear and pinpoint.

With regards to the superimposed oscillations, I had a nice quiet opportunity last night prior to dropping off to listen more intently and without fail I can willingly isolate them. What's more I dropped off quite quickly into slumber :D That's not bad for someone who used to be an insomniac. I will get an MRI just to satisfy my curiosity and hey, it will have dual purpose. I will keep you posted :tu:

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dude... do you have any dental filings or crowns briges etc,...braces this could act as conducter and like listening in a shell on the beach it is the distance of space between whatever sound waves could bounce back off of . im guessing here also what do you eat

iron levels you know blood has copper in it and iron thezse are metals and sometimes fish in time if eaten throughout a lifetime can develop a level of mercury in our body what chemicals do you have around you at the time? there is all kinds of ways to break into tjhjis one computer near earing? water wax in the cholliea could be moving around there the little hairs

magnets or metals can produce all kinds of weird bounce backs as well as and i have to ask? have you cleaned your ears out good lately ,...could be so many things lol

seriously send me more info

by the way i blew my eardrum out at three and then again at four yrs old and lost 40 percent and i hear bees humming , and other weird stuff i found that my toxicity is pretty bad so i take that into consideration expecialy if my computer goes on by me just sitting down in front of it without touching a thing. interesting post

Edited by abecrombi
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Some very good points you bring up abecrombi. I have looked into each before :)

Here's my analysis...

I have one or two fillings that may be responsible but no dental changes in the last 6-8 years yet the tinnitus has changed :( Could be a 'leaking' filling slowly poisoning the system but I would strongly doubt that - pretty much nothing different to the average person.

No bridges or braces - never had.

My diet is varied and pretty much I would say average. I'm not obsessive with red meat (iron) or fish (1-2 times per week sometimes not at all) or any other food. No chemicals in the environment that would be any different from anyone else & I'm not sitting in any high em fields IMO ie. no overhead powerlines, I have an LCD screen, tower is about 2 metres away from my head etc.

No earrings, ditched them about 14 years ago :)

I clean my ears REGULARLY - I'm a bit obsessive about that, well not more than anyone else who'd want to have crisp clear hearing IMO.

I know quite a bit about science & anatomy and have heard about all the things you mention, I discounted them pretty much before I started any conjectures. I personally don't believe one bit about the sixth sense but being of a scientific mind I can see a mechanism by which the neurons in the auditory 'pathway' could be perturbed by an em field that everyone has internally in their brain ie. brain waves. A feedback loop of sorts. The other thing of course is middle/inner ear damage but as I said no events have occured recently that could account in changes to the tinnitus effect. Unless of course my hearing is deteriorating but there is no hearing loss whatsoever that I can detect - my hearing is just as good if not better - just ask my kids (they probably wish it would get worse so thay could get away with more :devil: ). The MRI for now is my first avenue I will take.

Cheers & Thanks

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  • 7 months later...

I am 30 and i have suffered from tinitus for 10 years. It started with a slight ringing noise, which got louder and louder. My ears ring and sometimes make a humming noise. Its ok in the day when there is noise around. Its at night, thats when its so annoying. I have had two ear tests and they came back fine. I got really down about it because i did not know what was causing it and i dont think i ever will. At one point i thought i was going deaf, and that scared me. I used to play in bands and see alot of live music when i was younger, so i guess i should put it down to that. My hearing is good, i have no probs there. I just wish i could have one night where i can lie in bed and hear nothing, just silence. Their are many things that can cause tinitus. Loud music, stress, diet is just a few things, but i have been told there is no cure, esp if its ear damage. I have heard also that maybe it could have something to do with your wisdom teeth,,who knows. Anyone who has tinitus, i know how bad it can be. I feel mine will get worse as i get older. Im just hoping they find some sort of cure in my lifetime.

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"Ai Gaurdian" Ive suffered with tinnitus aswell i allways thought it was common place in society...anyway yes i agree there certaintly more to the puzzle than we already have pieced together..do you always find aswell that if you walk into a room that the frequency of a television is also aparent...to me a similar pitch can be heard..yes mine also changes aswell, especially if you concentrate hard onto the frequency...mine will happen most of the time if im in a quiet room/state, but also triggers at other times for no reason but it certaintly captures my attention.. :)

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Anyone who has tinitus, i know how bad it can be. I feel mine will get worse as i get older. Im just hoping they find some sort of cure in my lifetime.
Personally, I don't find it disturbing at all, I've grown up with it and am quite used to it. I believe I'd be lost without it but if it is a problem for anyone I'd suggest visiting your local GP/doc because IF it is tinnitus then there is meds they can prescribe to lessen the problem. :tu:

do you always find aswell that if you walk into a room that the frequency of a television is also aparent
I've heard this from others too but I don't get this or at least I may not be noticing it :( Maybe because I'm around a TV that's on almost all day (not the pc monitor - mine is an LCD flat screen) and because I'm, more often than not in deep thought and not paying attention to the frequencies.

BTW, haven't tried the MRI thing yet - haven't been to the doctor for anything since I started this thread. *knocks on wood*

Thanks for the input :tu:

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I have kind of left it aloe now. I am not trying to find out what is causing it now. When i sleep i have to listen to music though. I have been thinking about buying one of those cds with just the sound of the sea:) i like the sound of that. Mind you, living in the centre of beijing is noisy 24/7. so i guess i have moved to the right place:)

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Man if you want to have a lot of fun just focus on that sound, that um, "condition," you have lol. I started having it 24/7 as soon as I started meditating. You can change the frequency of it too. The higher the frequency the "funner" it will get hehe... I stopped smoking the green stuff when I found out I could give my self an insane body high by using a little focus and that little buzzing in my head, ah the money saved. :)

It does not start in your ears either. It is in the middle of my brain somewhere. I have a bad left ear and it rings pretty frequently, about to have a $15,000 surgery without insurance (cholesteatoma) :(. I have a CAT scan on monday. the ringing in my ear and the buzzing sound are seperate. it is also not a whoshing sound(blood flowing) like the one I get if I have an ear infection.

YES TVs!! those things have a simmilar (yet insanely anoying) sound as the buzzing in my head. some people act like they can't hear it while it is driving me insane. I stopped watching tv, except to see important things. I think it has to be a CRT and not LCD, I have never heard an LCD make any sound...

you can also "hear" other peoples buzzing if you know how to alter your consciousness a little. Again focus on the buzzing and make it higher pitched. You can then sense where other people are in the room with your eyes closed or in the dark. They all buzz pretty loudly when you are facing them.

oh and don't focus on the buzz while standing unless you know how it will affect you. I fell down some stairs on my way to the kitchen because I was focusing on it. I like the sound; it comforts me. I instantly tranced, lost my balance, and took a nose dive down three steps.

That wasn't an easy thing to explain to my parents. They thought I got into their alcohol :angry2:

no one believes these things about me, but mabey ai guardian can since he seems to have observed the sound in detail.

The only time that it has ever given me trouble was when I was trying to do the hearing test for the ARMY. They put you in a sound proof room with pretty sound proof head phones. As soon as I got into this space my buzzing soud got way way too loud and I couldn't hear any of the beeps in my left ear which is my bad ear. my right ear could still hear the beeps over this buzz.

I have had problems with my left ear ever since I can remember, but the buzzing sound only came about 1 1/2 years ago, when I started meditating as I already said.

I am going to try and see If I can seperate this sound into different parts like you did ai guardian. Should I up the pitch/volume or should I just use the base sound. If I focus on it at all reguardless of intent I suspect it will get higher pitched and definately higher volume. I'll see what I can do.

-Muddy

Edited by muddyfrog
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I am going to try and see If I can seperate this sound into different parts like you did ai guardian. Should I up the pitch/volume or should I just use the base sound. If I focus on it at all reguardless of intent I suspect it will get higher pitched and definately higher volume. I'll see what I can do.

-Muddy

It works best with the base sound. I too can make the sound louder at will but by doing this it is harder to concentrate and isolate the different frequencies. The frequencies I 'hear' are also coming from inside ie. not from either ear. What I have done and subsequently noticed though and this may be interesting to others also, is that when I do it in a very relaxed state (bordering on meditative) just before I fall asleep this 'sound' morphs into hypnagogic auditory hallucinations and more intriguing is that very often when I do this I get a sleep paralysis episode on the said night :blink: I have had plenty of these so it is almost second nature to me and I no longer get frightened (well, most of the time) when I get sleep paralysis. So in light of what I just said, the best time is to try and focus just as you're lying in bed trying to go to sleep.

Hope that helps - unless you get an SP episode and you don't like them, sry

Cheers

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Well I tried for mabey 2 hours last night, but I couldn't split the sound. And I already get SP all the time. SP seems to be related to deep meditation and Astral Projection. I use the buzz as a meditation aid to go into trances.

Oh and I will take SP over split consciousness anyday:

One time I kept getting pulled back into sleep land. I woke up and got up and I was walking towards my door, but then I layed back down(not in my control) and I was instantly paralyzed again, and a few moments later my dream started again. Then I fought back awake and then pulled back and then I tried to pull myself up off the bed and got into a crawling postion only to lay back down again.

Then I was aleep again and I forced my eyes open, still paralyzed. Then slipped back into the dream "ha ha ha you can't get away stop trying." said the evil ghost thing. Then I woke again and my body was even heavier this time. I got my arms under me and pushed with all my strength. I got almost crawing, then got my head off the bed. I then got my legs under me. This whole time I feel either insanely weak, or like I weigh 2000 pounds.

Anyway then I got up onto my knee(kneeling) and sort of kneel crawed to my door. I got my hand on the doorknob and as I was turning it my legs crumbled under me and I then gave in. My body then moved back over to the bed and layed down. ANd here goes the dream again.

Forced myself awake one last time and to my luck I was paralyzed. good old SP. I was so glad which is funny because I usually hate it.

And then I got out of it. This lasted for 30 Minutes!

I dare you to meditate focusing on that sound and get it to the highest pitch/volume that you can... :P

I did once... After about 2 minutes I started vibrating visibly like I was having a minor siezure or something, then my body decided that it didn't need me... my body put it's arms into a welcoming stance and my mouth said "hi god." (I didn't believe in god at the time) that is when I had a huge surge or energy flow through me.

I saw the clock about 1 minute before losing control and it was 2:37am or something like that and when I was in control again, still sitting in my meditation position it was 3:46am or about then. I just sat there staring at the clock for 5 minutes wondering how this lasted so long. It felt like I was meditating 5 minutes total. I felt heavy with energy, If that makes sense, for the rest of the night.

I'll try and split the sound some more, I am better at night time after everyone else is done anoying me. ;)

-Muddy

Edited by muddyfrog
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I dare you to meditate focusing on that sound and get it to the highest pitch/volume that you can... :P I did once... After about 2 minutes I started vibrating visibly like I was having a minor siezure or something,
As I lie in bed (tried for the last two nights) I cannot make the volume go past a certain point BUT this morning, after I got woken up by my noisy kids and tried to drop off back into slumber, being in an already very relaxed state I was thinking of what you said and voila! - it did happen!!! Now I don't know if it was just my mind playing on the memory of reading your prior response here but I did get the vibrations/surging and altough in blackness, had the moving rising sensations. Thanks for the tip, yet another way I can explore the 'OBE' state. I've had hundreds of them but have been now in a lull for over 2 months - I'm back in it yay. BTW, jury's still out on whether OBEs are anything paranormal but I have another technique to investigate this rather perplexing state of mind now. :tu: My biggest problem is keeping focused once I supposedly 'separate', the state usually deteriorates into an ordinary dream soon thereafter. Must focus...

Cheers

Edited by ai_guardian
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Yes exactly, that is what I use it for, although I Still have not made it out. I've been trying for about a month now, and I can get the vibrations and I can lose feeling of my body. I feel like I am floating around and expanding/contracting. I just can't seem to get out.

I was so tired during my CAT scan and I could feel the vibrations coming on strong, but I didn't try and get out, because I wanted to make sure I kept my head still.

I don't care if OBE is inside or outside of me I just want it to happen, either way it sounds like fun.

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wow, very similar for me. Dirt bikes when I was young, like a lot of dirt biking. Then landscaping for the last 23 years has really damaged my hearing. I have operated equipment on a daily basis for a living and 2 years ago had a pretty bad ear infection. The doctor said it was the worse "hole in your ear drum" he has seen, with lots of infection. Anyway, ever since a bout with anti-biotics and beating the infection I have had this high pitch frequency, in fact since I'm a guitar player I can tell you it has an exact pitch. This note is G but seems to encompass several octives instead of one single note. When the room is quiet I can strike these notes on my guitar and hear both, the noise in my ear and the guitar note together :no: Its a virtual concert lol, luckily outer noises do drown out the noise in my ear but it drives me nuts trying to get to sleep sometimes, it dominates an otherwise quiet moment. I sleep with the television on to drown it out. <_<

Just scanning, when this thread jumped out at me. About 20 years ago I jumped out of the shower with that "water in your ear" sort of noise in my left ear. Unfortunately it has not left me for a second since, and has evolved into exactly the sort of sound you are talking about. While the pitch is generally steady, it is slowly increasing in shrillness and sometimes reaches the point where it is painful. It is loud enough to drown out a lot of low level sound, which has its advantages and disadvantages. I must admit i deliberately never think about it, but rather tactically ignore it , otherwise it could drive you mad. I put the cause to one of three things and possibly a combination. a. Riding motorbikes for many years. b. getting hit on the back of the neck by a student when strepping in to break up a fight. This certainly did some muscle damage and caused headaches for a number of years. c. root canal treatment where the x-rays showed surgery went very close to the hearing mechanism/nerves or whatever. The tinnitus started soon after this . Anyway, very interested in your theory. As i said, I have studiously avoided analysing/reflecting on the noise, but may tentatively experiment with the connection. The specialists i have talked to say that, as yet, there is no solution, although if it is driving you crazy there are a couple of things they may try, like establishing feedback loops, where harmonic frequencies may cancel out the noise. PS. My hearing is also excellent, particularly in the spoken range, which is fortunate for me but not so lucky for my students. however there is hearing loss in the higher frequencies, about where the squealing sound is.

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Did anyone ever see the old Unsolved Mysteries about this? I can't remember the details, but I think one of their theories was that it was being caused by military bases. Some technology...I guess their radio communication or radar or something along those lines. Maybe that could be what is bothering some of you?

Christina

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