~pyewackett~
Fresh Blood
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2019
- Messages
- 23
I have always had very good hearing and very sensitive ears. Loud noises cause pain and a ticking watch in a drawer in the next room disturbs my sleep.
Recently I’ve developed tinnitus. It has been constant now for the past three months, causing crippling insomnia and exhaustion. I was previously very ignorant about the condition but have since learned that it caused by the brain and not an outside source....and this made me consider some previous odd experiences I’ve had regarding sounds.
The best example I can give is when I had just moved into my previous home in June 2002. It was a large house with a big garden backing into fields in a quiet area of rural Dorset, close to the Wilshire border.
My partner was on his first shift of a four-on four-off pattern working nights.
I was used to being alone and in no way worried.
At around 05:00am that a huge crash shook me awake. It was an almighty noise and felt the whole house shaking. I was almost thrown out of bed by the force of the (what I thought was an) explosion.
I quickly grabbed my robe and ran out of the bedroom and onto the landing, not knowing what to expect.
The house was silent. The light fittings were still. There was no sign of any disturbance at all.
Puzzled, I went down stairs and searched the entire house, then the garden. It was a light summer morning with the birds singing. No sign of structural damage, no sign of any damage to the neighbours. Nothing.
This deafening crash seemed to have been an auditory hallucination.
I never had the experience again at the house and had largely forgotten about. That was until June this year. I was at work (I work in a castle) and was closing up for the night. As I reached the steep stairs that climb up through the Keep to the roof I wasn’t thinking of anything other than getting home after a long day. I was under the stairs when I thought I heard what sounded like a huge number of people running down the wooden staircase above me....then it hit me that it was the sound of rubble - and the entire tower started to shake. I was terrified thinking that tonnes of medieval stonework was about to crash down and crush me. I crouched down as the floor was moving as what sounded like masonry crashed down around my ears.
It stopped and I opened my eyes expecting to see utter devastation. There was nothing. I assumed that the damage would be visible at the foot of the staircase and braced myself as I came out from under the stairs. Nothing. No dust, no rubble, no masonry. Complete silence. I then crept up the stairs and ventured into every room to check for damage. No sign. Even the birds that live on the upper most parts of the battlements were undisturbed.
I checked everywhere, locked up, and went into the office across the inner bailey to ask my colleague if there’d been an earthquake. There hadn’t. I told her what happened and we then both went back into the tower to check. Nothing was out of place.
So my question is - do we ‘hear’ phantom noises (voices, footsteps, crashes) with the same part of the brain that causes tinnitus?
Recently I’ve developed tinnitus. It has been constant now for the past three months, causing crippling insomnia and exhaustion. I was previously very ignorant about the condition but have since learned that it caused by the brain and not an outside source....and this made me consider some previous odd experiences I’ve had regarding sounds.
The best example I can give is when I had just moved into my previous home in June 2002. It was a large house with a big garden backing into fields in a quiet area of rural Dorset, close to the Wilshire border.
My partner was on his first shift of a four-on four-off pattern working nights.
I was used to being alone and in no way worried.
At around 05:00am that a huge crash shook me awake. It was an almighty noise and felt the whole house shaking. I was almost thrown out of bed by the force of the (what I thought was an) explosion.
I quickly grabbed my robe and ran out of the bedroom and onto the landing, not knowing what to expect.
The house was silent. The light fittings were still. There was no sign of any disturbance at all.
Puzzled, I went down stairs and searched the entire house, then the garden. It was a light summer morning with the birds singing. No sign of structural damage, no sign of any damage to the neighbours. Nothing.
This deafening crash seemed to have been an auditory hallucination.
I never had the experience again at the house and had largely forgotten about. That was until June this year. I was at work (I work in a castle) and was closing up for the night. As I reached the steep stairs that climb up through the Keep to the roof I wasn’t thinking of anything other than getting home after a long day. I was under the stairs when I thought I heard what sounded like a huge number of people running down the wooden staircase above me....then it hit me that it was the sound of rubble - and the entire tower started to shake. I was terrified thinking that tonnes of medieval stonework was about to crash down and crush me. I crouched down as the floor was moving as what sounded like masonry crashed down around my ears.
It stopped and I opened my eyes expecting to see utter devastation. There was nothing. I assumed that the damage would be visible at the foot of the staircase and braced myself as I came out from under the stairs. Nothing. No dust, no rubble, no masonry. Complete silence. I then crept up the stairs and ventured into every room to check for damage. No sign. Even the birds that live on the upper most parts of the battlements were undisturbed.
I checked everywhere, locked up, and went into the office across the inner bailey to ask my colleague if there’d been an earthquake. There hadn’t. I told her what happened and we then both went back into the tower to check. Nothing was out of place.
So my question is - do we ‘hear’ phantom noises (voices, footsteps, crashes) with the same part of the brain that causes tinnitus?