Quietest place on Earth

[bryan_kilco]

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/unplugged/quietest-place-earth-mutes-sounds-messes-head-212556719.html

 

[SocialNumb]

I can imagine I'd fucking loose it in there. Pretty cool, thanks for posting.

 

[DanLights]

awesome...ly weird

 

[updog]

interesting, especially that bit about prolonged exposure to absolute silence causing hallucinations.

 

[bryan_kilco]

interesting, especially that bit about prolonged exposure to absolute silence causing hallucinations.

I remember being a kid and being outside in winter looking at the sky through a telescope. It was so silent out (this happened more than once) that the silence seemed to create a ringing/feedback effect in my ears until I made a noise. Maybe something is wrong with me, or maybe it just WAS that quiet that it started to drive me insane!

 

[updog]

I remember being a kid and being outside in winter looking at the sky through a telescope. It was so silent out (this happened more than once) that the silence seemed to create a ringing/feedback effect in my ears until I made a noise. Maybe something is wrong with me, or maybe it just WAS that quiet that it started to drive me insane!

i don't think there's anything wrong with you, actually now that you said it i've had that same ringing sensation due to silence myself. i was at our summerhouse during winter outside, there didn't seem to be any wind, everything was covered in snow which probably worked to dampen the environment a lot, so i took a minute and listened to the silence.

for a while it felt great but after some time my ears started ringing/humming in similar way of what you described and eventually it became unsettling. maybe it's caused by the ears trying to find something to listen to, as mentioned in that article.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Its called Tinnitus. Everyone has it to some degree, its the brains way of making up sound in response to a lack of sound, and coincidentally as a result, becomes worse if you have hearing damage.

 

[AceFireForce117]

Wow amazing !

 

[Manifesto]

years ago i used to hear that ringing so frecuently that i eventually became able to pitch shift it and develop some melodies. It was awesome, at some point it felt like a whole orchestra in my ears. I can't do that anymore (due to lack of sleep mainly), now that i have some free time i will work on that.

 

[NoSoup4you22]

Wow, that's like half an hour away from me. Wonder if I could check it out.

I had the tinnitus thing for a long time, only when I was lying in bed, though I'm pretty sure it lessened when I moved to another house. Whether it's just a subconscious reason or what, I don't know. It was always the same pitch IIRC.

 

[AD Chaos]

Me too. I had it bad at night, or even on holidays without urban noise. But since I stopped going to concerts and started using cans more responsibly, the ringing is mostly gone.



Actually as I'm writing this, all of a sudden some ringing is back (sounds like an ultra-high pitched G).. Damn it!

 

[Perishh]

Did anyone else wonder about people who are completely deaf when reading this? Sure we would find it hard to cope with because we are all used to hearing at least some sound at all times. But what about people who are either born completely deaf or lose it at some stage in their life... by the studies in that article, shouldn't it send them loopy as well?

 

[LeSedna]

I suppose you're right if it's out of the blue...

Damn, only 45mn, that's impressive how harsh it can be to stay in such a state. I'd love to try just for the experiment !

 

[hurdy]

If someone is born completely deaf, they would b incapable of going loopy this way bcos the brain hasnt developed the hearing skill.
Therefore, unable to find something to listen to (such as generating tinnitus tones or listening to the heartbeat)

"What they've found is that when all outside noise is removed from an enclosure, human hearing will do its best to find something to listen to. In a room where almost 100% of sound is muted, people begin to hear things like their own heartbeat at a greatly amplified volume. As the minutes tick by in absolute quiet, the human mind begins to lose its grip, causing test subjects to hallucinate." Quoted from the article

 

[Josh M.]

A book I'm reading for my uni degree talks about anechoic chambers. The author recalls going into one and hearing two noises, one was low in pitch and the other high. Turns out the low noise is the sound of your blood pumping through your body and the high noise is the sound of your nervous system working. I'd love to experience it but it seems pretty creepy; I can imagine why you'd go insane.