How do you meditate with all the noise in your head? Would you clarify your last sentence?
It's really only been since I've had tinnitus to the degree that I do, that I've put any time/effort into learning how to meditate at all. So, I can't compare the before and after very well... in fact, tinnitus distress was the big motivator that got me to make the effort. I do very typical mindfulness meditation, but lately, instead of focusing on my breath, I've been trying to use the tinnitus signal itself as the object of meditation (a technique mentioned on this page, among other places:
http://www.mindovermenieres.com/a-new-approach-for-treating-tinnitus/).
The thing is, if you're distracted by tinnitus while you're trying to meditate... it's much the same as anyone else trying to meditate. You focus on your breath (or on the sound, whatever), and then a split second later you realize you're distracted, so you re-focus. If you're really stressed out about your tinnitus, then that distress might be the main distraction. For someone who doesn't have tinnitus, the distraction will be something different, but the principle is exactly the same: focus the mind on one thing, and re-focus it over and over as soon as you realize that you've started thinking about something else.
My last sentence just meant that I have had some significant internal insights as a direct result of the sounds in my head. For one thing, I have come to realize that I have many different sounds which must originate from different sources. Some, I have identified: certain low-frequency sounds relate to my circulatory system, and can be reliably provoked by increasing bloodflow. Certain high-frequency sounds relate to the muscles around my TM joint, and I can reliably provoke them by flexing those muscles. (To a lesser degree, I can reduce those sounds through specific massage and relaxation techniques). Some sounds
seem to correspond directly to a left-sided hearing deficit that I have in the high frequencies, and these are much harder to interact with consciously, but I have moments of being able to do just that while in particular mind-states (immediately following meditation, and when I am in the process of falling asleep, notably).
Additionally, I have had some very interesting experiences with tinnitus in dreams, that have given me some degree of self-insight. This is a little bit hard to quantify in text, but I am happy to describe two of them. Note that I have somewhat extensive experiences with lucid dreaming, and I had both of these dreams while in a period of trying to do some dream work using a book about traditional buddhist dream meditations as a guide:
* I am in a vast house. I realize I am dreaming. I believe that the house is a visual representation of parts of my subconscious. I am awed by huge, towering wooden walls and finely curated furniture. Suddenly, a high pitched noise occurs, and at this same instant, before I have even processed the noise, there is an unbelievable sense of urgency and fear bordering on panic which was not present in the dream before. I realize that the sound is tinnitus. I become afraid. The room that I am in suddenly shuts and locks, and I realize it's a torture chamber. I'm literally locked in my own head with the sound. From somewhere, figures start to approach me. I realize that they are evil, and here to torture me. However, when they reach me, they flail almost comically, their arms are pathetic and useless. I strike back and them, and easily dispatch all of them. The dream has gone from being a nightmare into being an action movie with me as the hero. Once I have defeated them all, I become curious as to the "source" of the tinnitus sound... if this house I am in is an internal representation of my mind, where is the tinnitus signal originating, and what might that tell me about the sound? Unfortunately, as I start to explore deeper into the house's sublevels, I wake up.
* I am in a different house, in a different dream. It is brightly lit from large windows. I hear crickets everywhere. I look outside and suddenly it begins to snow heavily. I realize that if it is snowing, then I should not hear summer sounds like crickets, and because I am, I realize I am dreaming. Because of this realization, I immediately understand that the cricket noise is actually my tinnitus. Instantly, it goes from being a background sound which I am completely neutral towards (or may even have been enjoying), to a sound that I have a negative, aversive reaction to. For the first time in the dream, I am afraid. A thought comes to the surface of my mind: "A moment ago, the sound was crickets, and I did not mind it. Now I know that the sound is tinnitus, and I dislike it. Why can't I just let the sound be crickets, and not mind it?"
Why not, indeed? What is aversion? To what degree is aversion a hard-wired genetic reaction versus a learned cultural or experiential reaction? To what degree can that aversion be modulated through contemplative practices?
These questions do not have easy answers; perhaps they do not really have answers at all. However, an obvious counter-argument to what I am saying is "high frequency sound, like pain, is something which we have an evolutionary aversion to". I'm not sure if that's really true, or not, but
if it is, a less obvious counter-argument is the widespread practice of extremely painful rites in various traditional societies (walking on coals, scarification, etc). In the modern world, it is easy to
assume that people in those cultures had the same aversion which we do to pain, and it was just something which they endured because the dirty savages didn't know any better. Again, I am not necessarily convinced of that. Our modern world places a huge emphasis on comfort and convenience, and avoiding discomfort and pain at all cost. I am completely a product of that world, and so it is not possible for me to understand how someone with a completely different understanding of the world would process pain. I have certainly read accounts of traditional societies which regarded "tinnitus" as a good and positive thing because they interpreted it as a sign that their gods were communicating with them.
I am not suggesting that adopting an unscientific worldview is a reasonable way to counteract tinnitus distress, but I also do not believe that there's anything inherently scientific about having an aversive reaction to sounds which are being generated by the nervous system as a result of normal homeostasis. And, to play devil's advocate on this a little bit, if you could just snap your fingers and suddenly regard your tinnitus as a sign that God loves you, and become happier as a result, what would the harm be?
This got very long-winded, and I apologize for that.
Member
