I can make a noise in my ears. What's going on?

Can you bend your thumb over the back of your hand until the leading edge is past the forefinger knuckle? I have evidence that people who can roll their tongue cannot do this. Admittedly, this is with a sample size of two.

Make that three. I can roll my tongue, but I can’t bend my thumb that way.

I can, however, bend it like this.

I can all this shit: I can (insert term we gotta come up with for the OP), yawn and make cracking sounds (cavitaions in the sinovial fluid in my mandible joint?), roll my tounge and bend my thumb perpendicular.

But what’s really cool: I can gleek

I’ve been able to do that since childhood. I always thought of it as sounding like a rolling boulder.

I make my ears roar, I can roll my tounge, I can gleek through my teeth on purpose. I can spray a high pressure stream of saliva from under my tounge when I yawn but not on purpose. I make my spine crack like poping candy by twisting side-to-side. My knuckles crack like old dry wood but I can not bend my thumb is any direction except where it’s meant to go.

I can do both. I can also fold my tongue or do a cloverleaf with it, and I can wiggle my ears.

I can do the rumbling for a while at a time. I can also roll my tongue.

BURN THE FREAK!

Huh. I can’t quite roll my tongue (I can sort of fold it, & I can cup the front, but it doesn’t roll, really) & I’m not sure whether I can do this either. I tend to breathe when pushing my eardrums around.

I’m trying to do this thing, & now I’m inducing yawning (I think because I’m doing something upper-respiratory) but I don’t notice any sea in my ears. Then again, I’m between two computers, which are competing with my tinnitus, & hard enough of hearing, who knows? :stuck_out_tongue:

I can open my eustacian tubes at will but I can’t make any pesistant sound in my ears. I’ve been wondering something though. While doing it, any sounds occuring at the time are softened. I’ve used it before to soften loud noises, although the muscles get tired within seconds. So does this actually take some load off those cilia in your ears, maybe by redirecting some of the sound away from them, or is it just mental or what?

Have a look at the link to eustachian tubes that’s up the page. If I’m understanding this right, your ear canals are a tube leading to your ear-drum. Your eustachian tubes are pipe that runs from that area to the back of your throat. So you’re either diverting some of the sound down the tubes and away from your eardrums, or your drowning out the sound with noises coming up from your throat. I’d vote for the first one.

For the pollsters, I can roll my tongue and click my ears and swallow without clicking but not the other things.

Question: are the clicking to relieve pressure (presumeably opening the Eustachian tubes), and getting a roaring sound, the same thing? Is the roaring sound just the sound of breathing (I do hear this when I breathe with my tubes open), and therefore it goes away while you hold your breath? Or are they different? My sense of the above conversation has it both ways.

I still get the roaring when I hold my breath.

I can do the ear rumble thing, too. I find it interesting, because I can’t tell what muscles I’m using to do it, or even how I do it. It’s completely different from, say, clenching your fist or raising your arm or tightening a muscle in your leg. But I can do it at will. With more intensity if I close my eyes at the same time. It’s like using something behind your jaw to push invisible particles out of your ears. It’s like the precurser to a yawn.

The ear click and roar are two different things. I can do both.

I found out why I’ve never told anyone about this. I asked three friends at the bar last week. They all looked at me like I were a leper. :dubious:

At least I know I’m not alone.

Wow, I thought the clicking (more like a swish to me though) and roaring were side-effects of my allergies. I can also roll my tongue.