Hearing things?

My caree, having spent quite a long time this evening suffering from the noise (vibration?) of downstairs' bathroom extractor fan (we think it must travel along the joists, or something), swore blind she could still hear it, or something similar, way after it had been switched off.

Does anyone else find things like that happen?

 

I’ve had auditory hallucinations. I was hearing voices when there was nobody in the house. My doctor explained to me that it was my brain producing sound.

 

Yes I get things like this. Most recently it sounds like there’s a tap running somewhere in the house at night when all is quiet. I get tinnitus and it’s definitely connected to it. I have also had proper auditory hallucinations like hearing my ringtone when it wasn’t going off. I had set it to a music track and had to change it as I was falsely hearing it so often and it was distressing.

It’s definitely worse when I am in worse shape, physically. It comes and goes for me. I hope they are not getting too distressed by it.

 

I get auditory hallucinations too. For instance, every time I run a tap, I hear and feel the vibrations from our old dial phone that used to shake the thin panel wall it was mounted on. (I haven't had a landline for more than 10 years! )

If a noise has previously been annoying you, I guess you're even more likely to hallucinate about it because your brain has focused on it so much?

 

After 2 years of staying over half the year in this caravan I still can't get accustomed to the noises here, especially when it's windy, and it sure is today! I think I hear cars coming into the field, and jets going over. While both these things do happen, I imagine it a lot more when it's windy.

The rain on the ventilator covers is particularly scary as it sounds like something frying - have to keep checking that OH hasn't left the frying pan on a lit burner - something he has a habit of doing as in "Oh I only went for a quick wee and I didn't think it'd get too hot". (it frequently does get too hot)

I also get the hearing voices thing, though more often at home than here. It's nearly always OH has gone out and left the radio on in the kitchen. Or sometimes the TV in the living room.

You're right @Dechi about the brain producing sound - or rather misreading sounds as something different to what they really are?

 

Yes. I've had similar problems. It got really bad after a very noisy neighbour incident. After that stopped I still had periods where thought I could hear very low level noise.

Annoyingly/confusingly sometimes IM couldn't hear it, sometimes because there was no noise there, sometimes simply because he was focusing on something else.

Even wearing earplugs, at times I could still "hear it". Nearly drove me up the wall.

So difficult when you're sound sensitive as you can't just play some music to distract yourself!

 

Thanks for the confirmation, everyone. Yes, she does have tinnitus, too, which may be related, and she is having a particularly bad crash at the moment.

If anyone's found a way of dealing with it, please do post! It's getting her very stressed at the moment.

 

I heard voices for about a year after coming off addictive drugs, in the late 1970s or early 1980s. They then stopped quite suddenly. I called them 'my aliens'. I didn't mind them at all! (They seemed friendly and informative.) It was before getting ME.

 

I have had tinnitus for 40+ years. About 10 years ago there was a massive, very complicated infrastructure project going on about a mile from where I lived. It went on for several years but the work moved around and the types of noises and the noise levels varied quite a bit. For a chunk of the time the contractors involved had to work at night and it drove me bonkers! I could feel vibrations and hear noises while I was in bed. I couldn't differentiate between my tinnitus and what was going on a mile away. Sometimes I could open the window in my bedroom and hear nothing and yet I would be convinced I could hear and feel things when I was in bed. Other times I could hear things when I opened the window so the sounds and vibrations were real.

The vibration issues have now long gone and the work has been finished for some years. But if I was foolish enough to concentrate on the sounds I think I hear in bed I could probably resurrect the issue. Not letting the sound really get a grip on one's consciousness is the best way of dealing with it, and distraction is (in my experience) an essential.

In the end what put things to rest for me was one of these in conjunction with pillow speakers :

https://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/shop/tinnitus-products/tinnitus-relaxers/

https://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/shop/tinnitus-products/pillow-speakers/

I don't use the gadget I bought any longer because I'm too deaf to use it, which is ironic, but luckily it lasted long enough for me to learn to ignore the sounds I was hearing, both inside my head and coming from outside.

 

yes when playing some console games with soundtracks that are often repeated on loop I have continued to hear the sounds for hours after turning every thing of . I think it works just like an earworm you know that irritating song that stays in your head for along time after you first hear it . I agree that distraction with some competing more relaxing sound would help. I am sorry to hear that caree is having such a bad time .

 

When I had moved into my new flat I ever heard accident cars. Maybe a completely exaggerated pass through, as there is an hospital indeed some distance away. But it might also have been an interpretation without anything, as I knew about the hospital. It eventually stopped.

Much later, when I was very bad, I used to hear one time a day the phone ringing or the door bell. It stopped after I had figured out the reason for my worsening.

 

There is a thing where, if there is a source of "white noise" present, like a fan, or wind, or rain or a radio tuned to static, the brain can perceive the white noise as indistinct music or voices. I've experienced this on a few rare occasions in the presence of white noise, but the vast majority of time I just hear the white noise. It is pretty creepy when it does happen, so I don't like to let it go on too long.

It may have something to do with being "tired," in which case it might be more common in people with ME - but I don't know.

This kind of thing seems to be known as an "auditory pareidolia."

 

I agree with the distraction technique, if some noise can be tolerated.

I find some noise more bearable than others- I love the sound of waves on the beach or wind in the trees and cope best with that "type" of noise. Possibly because it gives me a rest from tinnitus. Although I've had tinnitus since childhood & long before ME and usually can ignore it. White noise machines is a fair substitute.

I didn't realise this was an actual thing, other than me being weird. Yes, this nearly drove me around the bend at one point.

Yep. This was going on when I was really struggling with my noise issues. It was a bit further away than a mile, but a lot of work went on overnight and I found earplugs don't block really heavy machinery - where the noise isn't constant, but there is a regularity to it.

As earplugs also allow human voice ranges through, it's very easy to think it's the sound of voices at very low volume.

I tried a range of different sleeping meds, none of which I could tolerate. Distraction was the only thing to give me any temporary relief.

 

I find my earplugs block the sound of the ensuite extractor fan completely. I reckon it's mounting is slightly loose and so it vibrates a little - it's on IM's to do list.

I use Moldex spark plugs soft foam 35db ear plugs. I have quite small ear canals/openings, but these are quite comfortable. You can buy them in small amounts on ebay.

The big drawback - if you're struggling to cope with tinnitus, wearing earplugs can make it worse as it seems more noticeable.

 

I've experienced this too. Creepy is right!

 

I used to sometimes hear loud sounds at night that woke me up. These did not continue after I woke up. Rather scary.

I find I am more sensitive to sounds in the morning - I need the volume on the TV and radio at quieter settings, than I do at night. The a.m. and p.m. volumes differ a fair bit.

 

Funnily enough, I had to download the Moldex catalogue the other day for work-related reasons, and was having a look at those ear plugs. I thought they looked good.

 

Before I was diagnosed and when we were young and desperate for money, I took a job as a waitress in a busy pub that had a cabaret and dancing (I lasted 2 days then collapsed for 4 weeks!)

To my surprise, when I came home I could still hear the music for hours, like a radio playing in the next room.

Since then I have noticed that if I am in a noisy or crowded place, it does not have to be loud just a lot of it, my brain gets stuck in the on position like an afterimage on your eyelids.

Most processes in the body are active and I have wondered if I just don't have the energy to switch off the neurons which respond to sound.

 

Yep. .Drives me up the wall. I simply cannot switch it off.