What Does Silence Sound Like?

[Renee W]

I'm wondering what silence sounded like before I got tinnitus. Do any of you ever remember hearing any form of ear noise and/or head noise? What do you think is considered "normal" auditory noise in a quiet room?

 

[Orions Pain]

I never heard any sort of noises. Maybe rain outside, or a car passing, or a roommate walking down the hall, but no phantom noise.

The best way I can describe it is just... not even giving my ears or noise a second thought.

Kinda how we don't think about our head at all until we get a migraine.

 

[ASilverLight]

I remember having absolutely no tinnitus whatsoever until this year, ever. It's literally just the absence of any bodily noises and only external noises. Describing what silence sounds like exactly is hard but when nothing external is making sound... there is just little for the brain to interpret as noise thus you hear silence.

Best I can describe it is as a feeling, calm and peaceful.

 

[HeavyMantra]

In a quiet enough environment I always had some degree of tinnitus as a child. Like a completely silent winter night without any wind, far out in the forest.

 

[Tybs]

I occasionally have it when waking up: not often, but it does happen. @ASilverLight is right though, quite hard to describe... like explaining color to a blind person. I'd say it equals absence of anything distracting in your life.

 

[all to gain]

Bliss.

 

[Kriszti]

I never heard any sort of noises. Maybe rain outside, or a car passing, or a roommate walking down the hall, but no phantom noise.

The best way I can describe it is just... not even giving my ears or noise a second thought.

Kinda how we don't think about our head at all until we get a migraine.

Yes, before tinnitus I only thought about silence when I woke up in the middle of the night to a dreading, uncomfortable silence or when I walked home in the countryside at night. That was soothing and peaceful. I used to wear earplugs a lot, so I'm absolutely sure that before getting the tinnitus silence was the complete lack of sounds.

 

[Laurie1961]

A day of silence sounds like - well, to be honest it wasn't the lack of screeching in my head that i noticed most. It was eye focus, having energy, thinking like I used to, without effort and quickly, feeling happy, appreciating so much, not feeling dead, useless and in perpetual torture. During this shutdown, until today, my tinnitus has been so horrible- increased, many symptoms. This morning I didn't hear it. It came back slightly later on but almost not distracting. I noticed I was cold, like almost hyperthermia or something and no matter what couldn't get warm. I noticed I had an appetite, actually hungry and thought aw, that was the reason for cold. Well, it wasn't. Tinnitus started ramping up again. Just a little while ago, I noticed I was warming up finally and my tinnitus is back. Go figure.

My theory is tinnitus is an infection of some unknown type (hence the heating sensations or it is resulting from some type of electromagnetic, sonic, telemetry or some other far flung frequency (hence the accompanying abnormal static shocks and heating from perhaps something like induction.)

My hypothesis is since doctors have never been able to diagnose so many people with tinnitus as a medical problem, then either they are refusing medical diagnosis and testing, hence treatment or they are fully aware this is not a medical problem or they were not trained properly to conduct ear nose and throat issues.