# Sleep and Dreams > Sleep and Health >  >  Silence DOES have a sound...

## Uniq0ne

One night for the first time in about 4 months I had turned off my fan and all there was, was silence. So I thought hmm I wonder if silence actually has a sound.

Ok for about 10 minutes I started hearing this weird sound its hard to explain, Then when I focused on the sound my ears actually started throbbing EXTREMLEY LOUD! It was so weird its like after I started focusing on it my room went from dead silence to this LOUD throbbing noise in my ear... Gah its hard to explain does anyone know what I'm talking about?

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## LucidDreamGod

I get the same thing which is why I always sleep with a fan, for me it happens almost instantly after there is no sound, it's very annoying too, sounds like it's coming from inside of you, but at the same time it sounds like somethings bzzzzzzzzzzzzing in your ear, and yeah the more I focus on it the louder it gets.

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## illusions

I've had this too - I think it's because once there's nothing outside to hear, you start to become aware of the noise inside you - the blood pumping in your ears (?) - I don't know for sure, but that's what I figured it was.  ::D:

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## ninja9578

It's your blood, you're hearing your heartbeat.  I can prove it, increase your heartbeat and listen to the rhythm increase, slow it back down and the rhythm decreases.

Along that track, you are hearing it because you are listening to it.  Your mind can filter that out if you ignore it.

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## LucidDreamGod

It's not your heart beat it's not a beat it's a bzzzzzzzing type noise thats really high pitched and is constent unlike a heart beat it could be flowing blood though, but I have no clue why blood flowing would make a sound like that.

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## Howard

I hate that "Sound Of Silence." I can never sleep when it's totaly quiet. I always open my window when i go to bed.

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## Ailos

It isn''t blood flow. The ringing/bzzzzzing is called tinitis. Almost everyone has it to some degree, and it gets louder as you get older/recieve more hearing damage.

Most people don't notice it because its too soft to notice in most circumstances (when there's external noise blocking it out), but when there's silence, its easy to hear and the brain becomes fixated on it, making it louder (much like how the pupil dilates to let more light in when in darkness).

It's basically the little nerves connected to the cochlear hairs misfiring, sending a signal to the brain that the certain frequency that particular nerve picks up is being heard (when in fact it isnt).

This can happen if the nerve becomes damaged due to excessively loud noises or repeated exposure to certain frequencies/sounds that exceed the recommend decibel/time interval.

There's not much you can do about except put white noise on to distract you.

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## polmc

It couldn't be silence due to its own definition. If silence has sound then silence doesn't exist. Unless it's not really silence but just something that seems like 'lack of the usual sounds we hear'.

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## Uniq0ne

Yeah but the only time I can hear this ringing sound is when I actually make an attempt to listen for "something" in the silence. Then I hear a feint throb, then more I focus it just gets  louder, then after that it gets so loud it starts hurting my ears and I have to stop lol

So I don't think I have tinitis, unless I have a very mild case because I did used to listen to my mp3 in high school at max volume.

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## Barns

Silence is one of the strangest sounds ever. I have only heard it about 3 times in my life.

It just gets louder and louder and louder with a strange ringing and buzzing, and yet makes no sound at all.

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## Burned up

> Silence is one of the strangest sounds ever. I have only heard it about 3 times in my life.
> 
> It just gets louder and louder and louder with a strange ringing and buzzing, and yet makes no sound at all.



In one philosophy I was once involved with, silence was described as "the silence behind the noise".  Like everything that makes a sound arises out of the silence (like islands out of the sea).  We can transcend our ego by listening to the "silence behind the noise" and let sounds just drift over us, including the sounds from within our ears.

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## A Humble Sinner

> One night for the first time in about 4 months I had turned off my fan and all there was, was silence. So I thought hmm I wonder if silence actually has a sound.
> 
> Ok for about 10 minutes I started hearing this weird sound its hard to explain, Then when I focused on the sound my ears actually started throbbing EXTREMLEY LOUD! It was so weird its like after I started focusing on it my room went from dead silence to this LOUD throbbing noise in my ear... Gah its hard to explain does anyone know what I'm talking about?



This is called tinnitus. It's a natuarl sound everyone gets.

Here's the wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus

Oh, and here it is, if you want to read it here:

*Tinnitus (pronounced /tɪˈnaɪtəs/ or /ˈtɪnɪtəs/,[1] from the Latin word for "ringing"[2]) is the perception of sound in the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound(s).

Tinnitus can be perceived in one or both ears or in the head. It is usually described as a ringing noise, but in some patients it takes the form of a high pitched whining, buzzing, hissing, humming, or whistling sound, or as ticking, clicking, roaring, "crickets" or "tree frogs" or "locusts", tunes, songs, or beeping.[3] It has also been described as a "whooshing" sound, as of wind or waves.[4]

Tinnitus is not itself a disease but a symptom resulting from a range of underlying causes, including ear infections, foreign objects or wax in the ear, and injury from loud noises. Tinnitus is also a side-effect of some oral medications, such as aspirin, and may also result from an abnormally low level of serotonin activity.

The sound perceived may range from a quiet background noise to one that can be heard even over loud external sounds. The term "tinnitus" usually refers to more severe cases. Heller and Bergman (1953) conducted a study of 80 tinnitus-free university students placed in an anechoic chamber and found that 93% reported hearing a buzzing, pulsing or whistling sound. Cohort studies have demonstrated that damage to hearing (among other health effects) from unnatural levels of noise exposure is very widespread in industrialized countries.[5]

Because tinnitus is often defined as a subjective phenomenon, it is difficult to measure using objective tests, such as by comparison to noise of known frequency and intensity, as in an audiometric test. The condition is often rated clinically on a simple scale from "slight" to "catastrophic" according to the practical difficulties it imposes, such as interference with sleep, quiet activities, or normal daily activities.[6] For research purposes, the more elaborate Tinnitus Handicap Inventory is often used.[2][7]


Books on tinnitusContents [hide]
1 Objective tinnitus 
2 Measuring tinnitus 
3 Mechanisms of subjective tinnitus 
4 Prevention 
5 Causes of subjective tinnitus 
6 Treatment 
7 Notable individuals with tinnitus 
8 See also 
9 Books 
10 References 
11 External links 



[edit] Objective tinnitus
In a minority of cases, a clinician can perceive an actual sound (e.g., a bruit) emanating from the patient's ears. This is called objective tinnitus. Objective tinnitus can arise from muscle spasms that cause clicks or crackling around the middle ear.[8] Some people experience a sound that beats in time with the pulse (pulsatile tinnitus[9]). Pulsatile tinnitus is usually objective in nature, resulting from altered blood flow or increased blood turbulence near the ear (such as from atherosclerosis or venous hum[10]), but it can also arise as a subjective phenomenon from an increased awareness of blood flow in the ear.[9] Rarely, pulsatile tinnitus may be a symptom of potentially life-threatening conditions such as carotid artery aneurysm[11] or carotid artery dissection.[12]


[edit] Measuring tinnitus
The basis of quantitative measurement of tinnitus relies on the brains tendency to select out only the loudest sounds heard. Based on this tendency, the amplitude of a patient's tinnitus can be measured by playing sample sounds of known amplitude and asking the patient which he or she hears. The tinnitus will always be equal to or less than sample noises heard by the patient. This method works very well to gauge objective tinnitus (see above.) For example: if a patient has a pulsatile paraganglioma in his ear, he will not be able to hear the blood flow through the tumor when the sample noise is 5 decibels louder than the noise produced by the blood. As sound amplitude is gradually decreased, the tinnitus will become audible, and the level at which it does so provides an estimate of the amplitude of the objective tinnitus.

Objective tinnitus, however, is quite uncommon. Often patients with pulsatile tumors will report other coexistent sounds, distinct from the pulsatile noise, that will persist even after their tumor has been removed. This is generally subjective tinnitus, which, unlike the objective form, cannot be tested by comparative methods.

If a subject is focused on a sample noise, they can often detect it to levels below 5 decibels, which would indicate that their tinnitus would be almost impossible to hear. Conversely, if the same test subject is told to focus only on their tinnitus, they will report hearing the sound even when test noises exceed 70 decibels, making the tinnitus louder than a ringing phone. This quantification method suggests that subjective tinnitus relates only to what the patient is attempting to hear. Patients actively complaining about tinnitus could thus be assumed to be people who have become obsessed with the noise. This is only partially true. The problem is involuntary; generally complaining patients simply cannot override or ignore their tinnitus. The noise is often present in both quiet and noisy environments, and can become quite intrusive to their daily lives.

Subjective tinnitus may not always be correlated with ear malfunction or hearing loss. Even people with near-perfect hearing may still complain of it. Tinnitus may also have a connection to memory problems, anxiety, fatigue or a general state of poor health.


[edit] Mechanisms of subjective tinnitus
One of the possible mechanisms relies in the otoacoustic emissions. The inner ear contains thousands of minute hairs which vibrate in response to sound waves and cells which convert neural signals back into acoustical vibrations. The sensing cells are connected with the vibratory cells through a neural feedback loop, whose gain is regulated by the brain. This loop is normally adjusted just below onset of self-oscillation, which gains the ear spectacular sensitivity and selectivity. If something changes, it's easy for the delicate adjustment to cross the barrier of oscillation and tinnitus results. This can actually be measured by a very sensitive microphone outside the ear.

Other possible mechanisms of how things can change in the ear is damage to the receptor cells. Although receptor cells can be regenerated from the adjacent supporting Deiters cells after injury in birds, reptiles, and amphibians, in mammals it is believed that they can be produced only during embryogenesis. Although mammalian Deiters cells reproduce and position themselves appropriately for regeneration, they have not been observed to transdifferentiate into receptor cells except in tissue culture experiments.[13][14] Therefore, if these hairs become damaged, through prolonged exposure to excessive decibel levels, for instance, then deafness to certain frequencies occurs. In tinnitus, they may falsely relay information at a certain frequency that an externally audible sound is present, when it is not.

The mechanisms of subjective tinnitus are often obscure. While it is not surprising that direct trauma to the inner ear can cause tinnitus, other apparent causes (e.g., temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ) and dental disorders) are difficult to explain. Recent research has proposed that there are two distinct categories of subjective tinnitus: otic tinnitus, caused by disorders of the inner ear or the acoustic nerve, and somatic tinnitus, caused by disorders outside the ear and nerve but still within the head or neck. It is further hypothesized that somatic tinnitus may be due to "central crosstalk" within the brain, as certain head and neck nerves enter the brain near regions known to be involved in hearing.

While most discussions of tinnitus tend to stress physical mechanisms, there is strong evidence that the level of an individual's awareness of their tinnitus can be stress-related, and so should be addressed by improving the state of the nervous system generally, using gradual, unobtrusive, long-term treatments.[citation needed] [3]


[edit] Prevention
Tinnitus and hearing loss can be permanent conditions, thus, precautionary measures are advisable. If a ringing in the ears is audible after exposure to a loud environment, such as a rock concert or a work place, it means that damage has been done. Prolonged exposure to noise levels as low as 70 dB can result in damage to hearing (see noise health effects). For musicians and DJs, special musicians' earplugs can lower the volume of the music without distorting the sound and can prevent tinnitus from developing in later years.

It is also important to check medications for potential ototoxicity. Ototoxicity can be cumulative between medications, or can greatly increase the damage done by noise. If ototoxic medications must be administered, close attention by the physician to prescription details, such as dose and dosage interval, can reduce the damage done.[15]


[edit] Causes of subjective tinnitus
Tinnitus can have many different causes, but most commonly results from otologic disorders  the same conditions that cause hearing loss. The most common cause is noise-induced hearing loss, resulting from exposure to excessive or loud noises. Ototoxic drugs can cause tinnitus either secondary to hearing loss or without hearing loss, and may increase the damage done by exposure to loud noise, even at doses that are not in themselves ototoxic.[16]

Causes of tinnitus include:[17]

Otologic problems and hearing loss: 
conductive hearing loss 
external ear infection 
acoustic Shock 
cerumen (earwax) impaction 
middle ear effusion 
sensorineural hearing loss 
excessive or loud noise 
presbycusis (age-associated hearing loss) 
Ménière's disease 
acoustic neuroma 
mercury or lead poisoning 
ototoxic medications 
analgesics: 
aspirin 
nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs 
antibiotics: 
aminoglycosides e.g. gentamicin 
chloramphenicol 
erythromycin 
tetracycline 
vancomycin 
chemotherapy and antiviral drugs: 
bleomycin 
interferon 
pegylated interferon-alpha-2b 
cisplatin 
mechlorethamine 
methotrexate 
vincristine 
loop diuretics: 
bumetanide 
ethacrynic acid 
furosemide 
others: 
chloroquine 
quinine 
Psychedelic drugs: 
Diisopropyltryptamine (DiPT) 
5-Methoxy-diisopropyltryptamine 
neurologic disorders: 
chiari malformation 
multiple sclerosis 
head injury 
skull fracture 
closed head injury 
whiplash injury 
temporomandibular joint disorder 
metabolic disorders: 
thyroid disorder 
hyperlipidemia 
vitamin B12 deficiency 
psychiatric disorders: 
depression 
anxiety 
other causes: 
Tension Myositis Syndrome 
fibromyalgia 
hypertonia (Muscle Tension) 
thoracic outlet syndrome 
lyme disease 
hypnogogia 
sleep paralysis 

[edit] Treatment
There are many treatments that are effective for objective tinnitus:

Objective tinnitus:

Gamma knife radiosurgery (glomus jugulare)[18] 
Shielding of cochlea by teflon implant[19] 
Botulinum toxin (palatal tremor)[20] 
Propranolol and clonazepam (arterial anatomic variation)[21] 
Subjective tinnitus:

Drugs and nutrients 
Lidocaine, injection into the inner ear found to suppress the tinnitus for 20 minutes, according to a Swedish study. [22] 
Benzodiazepines (xanax, ativan, klonopin) 
Avoidance of caffeine, nicotine, salt[23][24][25] 
Avoidance of or consumption of alcohol[26][25] 
Zinc supplementation (where serum zinc deficiency is present)[27][28][29] 
Acamprosate[30] 
Etidronate or sodium fluoride (otosclerosis)[31] 
Lignocaine or anticonvulsants (usually in patients responsive to white noise masking)[32] 
Carbemazepine[33] 
Melatonin (especially for those with sleep disturbance)[34] 
Sertraline[35] 
Vitamin combinations (Lipoflavonoid)[36] 
Electrical stimulation 
Transcranial magnetic stimulation or transcranial direct current stimulation[37][38] 
Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation[39] 
Direct stimulation of auditory cortex by implanted electrodes[40] 
Berthold Langguth, German neurologist would apply an electric or magnetic current for stimulation over the head of the patient to reduce ringing sound. Dirk De Ridder, Belgian neurosurgeon implanted electrodes to the brain of sufferers to normalise overactive neurons. Cambridge scientists also found that lidocaine, an anaesthetic reduces the sound in 2/3 of patients for 5 minutes, but it needs another drug to suppress its dangerous effects.[41] 
Surgery 
Repair of perilymph fistula[42] 
External sound 
Low-pitched sound treatment has shown some positive, encouraging results.(UC, Irvine press release) 
Tinnitus masking[43] (white noise) 
Tinnitus retraining therapy[44][45] 
Auditive stimulation therapy (music therapy)[46] 
Compensation for lost frequencies by use of a hearing aid.[47] 
Ultrasonic bone-conduction external acoustic stimulation[48][49] 
Avoidance of outside noise (exogenous tinnitus)[50] 
Psychological 
Cognitive behavior therapy[51] 
Light-based 
Photobiomodulation (a.k.a. Low Level Laser Therapy); efficacy is debated[52] 
Although there are no specific cures for tinnitus, anything that brings the person out of the "fight or flight" stress response helps symptoms recede over a period of time. Calming body-based therapies, counseling and psychotherapy help restore well-being, which in turn allows tinnitus to settle. Chronic tinnitus can be quite stressful psychologically, as it distracts the affected individual from mental tasks and interferes with sleep, particularly when there is no external sound. Additional steps in reducing the impact of tinnitus on adverse health consequences include: a review of medications that may have tinnitus as a side effect; a physical exam to reveal possible underlying health conditions that may aggravate tinnitus; receiving adequate rest each day; and seeking a physician's advice concerning a sleep aid to allow for a better sleep pattern.*

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## Barns

Wow thanks a lot for that.

So that means I haven't heard silence.

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## King K

Hearing silence is like seeing black light, by black, I mean *black*, not UV, and by light I mean color-subtracting, not color-addition like with ordinary paint, black light is basically the absence of light, black light practically does *not* exist (you may not agree with this if you play too many games or are mentally retarded  ::lol:: , so you better read some physics books before arguing), same as silence, it is basically the absence of sound, what you hear is _tinnitus_, which was thoroughly explained in one of the previous posts.

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## Sugarglider11

Thats why I keep my fan on. I dont realy like complete silence. I also think the sound could be hypnogogic because you were falling asleep.

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## ♥Mark

It's the sound of brain damage. It's why I can't sleep.

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