I’m trying to figure out what’s happening to me and I’m not sure where to look.
For the last several years, whenever I listen to silence-filling noise (white, brown, pink, etc.) I tend to hear additional sounds. It’s like having your radio tuned to a MHz that’s just off a tiny bit, so you hear static but there’s just a slight edge of voices or something that you can’t quite make out but is definitely there. Sometimes, instead of voices, it’s also patterns in the noise or various pitches.
It happens in a variety of situations, like Youtube videos, audio tracks from meditation apps and noise generators, and even devices that have no audio input or antenna and are specifically for noise as you’d find in the waiting room of a massage clinic. It even happens when it’s a completely benign source like an air fan. And the sounds I hear match the volume of the source.
Do I have superpowers? A brain tumor? Am I just sensitive to imperfect wave form generation? Am I part-dog? Have I done damage to myself from listening to Metallica way too loud for too many years?
Where do I start looking into this? Does anyone have any possible explanations for what I’m experiencing that might lead me in the right direction?
That’s a referral to a series of specialists and probably an MRI or two at minimum. Cancer is a deeply shitty way to die, go talk to your doctor ASAP.
Very unlikely any of those things happen, unlikelier that they need to.
Because it can’t be said enough…
See a doctor. Make an appointment today, now. Not tomorrow.
Do not try to self diagnose. It will only go poorly.
Probably just a minor processing error in your sound driver and nothing to worry about. I think I have had a similar experience with a particular white noise machine with hearing some slightly patterned sound when there wasn’t really a pattern. If it’s bothering you or increasing can’t hurt to go see a doctor (well can’t hurt too bad as long as you’re insured…) and get their input.
Brain can put its spin on perception, especially when tired or agitated, like, when anticipating something out of worry/fear (which can be somewhat subconscious).
But yeah having talk with a doctor is not a bad idea.
You should go see a psychiatrist if you can. This definitely sounds like early schizophrenia and a lot of people ignore the early signs before it’s too late. With medications a normal life is possible so don’t worry. But let a psychiatrist make the actual diagnosis
This is not schizophrenia. It is a common occurrence and a type of tinnitus.
https://hearinglosshelp.com/blog/apophenia-audio-pareidolia-and-musical-ear-syndrome/
Yeah this is why a real psychiatrist should diagnose it to make sure, better to see a doc and not lemmy
zeroth of all, don’t ask randos on internet for medical advice. ask a doc about it if it’s distressing for you. this might be something as benign as normal reaction to sensory deprivation
It’s a type of tinnitus. Learn about it.
https://hearinglosshelp.com/blog/apophenia-audio-pareidolia-and-musical-ear-syndrome/
I disagree. I think humans are supposed to talk to each other, share experiences, and figure things out.
Yes, but we tend to suggest going to a professional when lives or health are at stake. This is why we use engineers to design bridges and not groups of well-meaning laypeople.
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Brother you must check with a psychiatrist. They can confirm whether these are just harmless pattern matching or symptoms of schizophrenia. Nobody here is qualified, and this is way too risky to leave unchecked.
As many said before here, if you’re concerned go see a professional. But overall this sounds like your brain is just very keen on doing its pattern matching thing.
I think the most important aspect is whether you’re “suffering” from this or whether you just notice it from time to time and can shrug it off. If it’s the later, I’d keep an eye (or ear?) on it, but not worry about it too much.
Seriously, it’s never a bad idea to have a check-in with your doctor, but this is totally normal. Our brains are pattern-matching machines that try to make coherent sense of our sensory input, and do so overzealously. After all, we evolved this way because it’s better for survival to mistakenly hear a lion in the brush than to ignore the sounds of a lion that’s really there. That’s why we see a face in the moon, and Jesus on slices of toast.
It’s also the phenomenon behind those ghost-hunting shows. They put a recording device in an empty building, and our brains pick out “voices” from random static that it records.
It’s called auditory pareidolia, and here’s an article about it.
it’s never a bad idea to have a check-in with your doctor
Assuming medical visits are free and your doctor cannot make mistakes.
I knew a woman who went in for a colonoscopy, and then had a cascade of complications resulting from poor skill and bad decisions. She never left the hospital. She died in there, because the medical staff sucked at their jobs.
Well, if a neurologist orders a colonoscopy, the OP has big problems! Joking aside, sorry about your acquaintance, that stinks. In any case, “never hurts to” is a figure of speech, at least in my part of the world, which roughly implies, “you could do that, but in my estimation, it won’t help.”
As we get older, our bodies start to wear down. If something starts to fray, it’s generally not a problem unless you completely ignore it until the little problem becomes a big problem.
Don’t get freaked out by some of the words thrown around in these responses. You should probably invest in an annual medical checkup, this is a great thing to ask them.
It is called Auditory Pareidoilia.
Everyone is telling you that you are schizophrenic and it is very sad because they are absolutely wrong.
It is normal and common to hear additional sounds that don’t exist in white noise.
Read about it here:
https://www.tmsoft.com/blog/why-you-may-be-hearing-phantom-sounds/amp/
https://thedebrief.org/auditory-pareidolia-the-voices-in-your-head-may-have-a-rational-explanation/
https://hearinglosshelp.com/blog/apophenia-audio-pareidolia-and-musical-ear-syndrome/
Never forget that we’re doing incredibly complex audio signal processing with meat.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/7tScAyNaRdQ?si=ER4w1rLaRploMSgq
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It’s fatty jello that we electrified and tricked into believing in itself!
Yeah. Still see a doctor, because it’s new, but I’m guessing the doctor will just say “huh, keep an eye on that”.
Schizophrenia can have early warning signs, but going there right away has “it’s always cancer” energy.
If you read the first sentence of OP’s second paragraph, you’ll see that they say they have had this for several years.
Sure. I meant new in the sense of it hasn’t always been this way, it changed in adulthood. I don’t know, I’d mention it to my doc.
It is a totally normal function of a totally normal brain. What is NOT normal is for it to drastically change in adulthood. That could suggest a change to the part of the brain responsible which should be checked out.
If you read the post carefully you’d see that OP says they have had this for several years. It is in the first sentence of the second paragraph.
Every medical question on social media ever:
American: I have this problem
Response: Have you seen a doctor?
American: No.
Response: Why not?
American: I can’t afford it.
I tried to make an appointment with a PCP in my area yesterday. The next open slot they had was March…of 2025.
It’s impossible to tell if that’s an indictment of the people’s attitude or the “healthcare” system. Probably both. This country sucks rotten ass sometimes.
It’s an indictment of of the health system.
You need to be an idiot to avoid the doctor in a country with socialized healthcare. In a country without, you just need to be cautious.
It’s pretty normal, brains try to meaning or something in its senses. Sometimes if you hear tapping you may start believing it’s the beat to a certain song. There is also of course that viral video that makes you hear “brainstorm” or “green needle” depending on which option you are mentally choosing.
If you expect to hear something you will hear it. There have been funny moments where I removed my earbuds, put them down, and I kept listening to the faintly playing music. I put them back in 30 seconds later and I realized they were muted the whole time
What about when wearing (really good) noise cancelling head phones? Everything you’ve mentioned is when there is some sort of noise going on, but it’s it also happening with everything cancelled out? A few people have pointed out Auditory Pareidoilia which is your brain trying to find words/pattern/meaning in the noise it is hearing, but is it also doing that when the only sound it can hear is it’s own blood whooshing though your veins, which it should be used to? What about in a sensory deprivation tank?
There’s Hearing - which is what the all the tiny bits of your ears connected to the nerves do, then there’s Perception - which is how your brain interprets the information it receives from the nerves connected to your ears and puts it back together. Basically, your brain is working overtime to try to figure out why you are listening to the noise you are listening to. As long as it’s only happening in those situations described and, as others have said, it’s not voices telling to do anything.
