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What I should do about auditory "hallucinations" (lemm.ee)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

This is normal, I hear it too sometimes. Particularly when I'm laying with one ear covered so I'm hearing white noise while trying to fall asleep. Something about the mix of frequencies, part of them traveling through/bouncing off the walls and the pillow, and just getting older sometimes creates an illusion that a TV is on in the other room or someone is talking outside. Sometimes I'll think my phone alarm is going off (I use internet radio for the alarm, so I never know specifically how it will sound), but then lift my head and my brain has enough info to determine it's just noise.

Mild hallucinations are normal. It's impossible for your brain to gather 100% accurate data, let alone process everything it is handed, so it hallucinates all the time in ways you don't notice to fill in the gaps (ex. the large blind spot in your vision that your brain has learned to ignore). It's only if it's starting to cause you distress or cognitive dissonance that you should seek help. Ex. it's one thing to hear a TV in the other room that's not there, it's another to conclude that your long-deceased grandfather must be watching TV and think that's normal.