I have searched on the web about this, to no avail, and it’s something I’ve wondered about for years.
Ever since I was a Little Astronomer, I have been able to hear an odd sound in my ears. If I flex the muscles near my jaw in just the right way, I hear a sound that is much like air rushing in my ears. I don’t think there is actual movement of air, but the sound itself is quite loud.
I cannot sustain it for long, due to the muscles getting tired. Sometimes, at the very end when I relax the muscles, I hear a faint sound like popping or crackling.
Someday I’ll ask an actual otologist, but I happened to be thinking of this now while browsing SDMB. Has anyone else experienced this, and do you know of an explanation?
From your description, it sounds as if the act of flexing the muscles near the jaw may be causing the eustachian tube to open, allowing air to enter the middle ear. I can easily imagine how keeping that eustachian tube open through muscular control would lead to the auditory perceptions that you report.
That second link is interesting. My hearing is not the best (I listen to a lot of loud classical music) but I have noticed in the past few years that I have difficulty picking out voices when background noise is loud. I wonder if that is connected with my ability to make these sounds in my ears, or if it’s just coincidence.
I’ve been able to do that from when I was a little geek too. I’ve noticed that doing what you describe helps to clear out the eustachian tubes when I happen to have an ear infection. It doesn’t do a great job of it, but it’s a little help at a time when nothing else seems to help.
My hearing isn’t perfect (too many years spent playing in rock and roll bands) but from your description I think mine is a lot better than yours. I’d have to say that my ability to do the same thing to my ears hasn’t damaged them any.
“While yawning, notice that rumbling sound right near the end of the yawn. You can control it consciously, and make a “boom” sound which only you can hear. Walk down the street while accompanying yourself on the Invisible Bass Drum. Launch thought-balls at irritating drivers and hear them explode. Burst out giggling while walking along at work, and nobody knows why!”
Hey, I thought it was just me! I was going to ask about this on the SDMB a while back, but thought people would think me weird… (surely not!)
Another private sound you can make to amuse yourself on those long journeys is by pressing in the corner of your eyes, on the tear duct… you can make some good squelchy type noises that way, but it doesn’t seem to work so often these days as when I was a kid.
This may be an auditory figure ground problem, which sometimes has nothing to do with hearing at all, but seems to have its roots in the way the brain processes the auditory information it’s receiving.
In other words, in a standard, limited hearing test, your hearing seems to be fine - you’re not showing any inability to detect soft tones, or to detect any particular frequencies. But being able to pick out what one person is saying, against a lot of background sounds, can still be difficult because your brain isn’t processing the incoming auditory signals properly. You can hear the voice perfectly, but your brain can’t focus your attention on it.
Children who have this problem may have trouble in a noisy classroom, and can often be misdiagnosed as suffering from some other kind of attention deficit disorder.
I’ve always had this problem, to a limited degree. My hearing is fine, but in a crowded, noisy restaurant, I have to concentrate to hear the person sitting across from me, and sometimes it’s impossible. It’s gotten slightly worse as I’ve gotten older. I’m convinced that there’s a hereditary element to it - my father had the same problem, as does my brother. Our sister, on the other hand, has no such difficulty, so maybe it’s gender-linked. Purely anecdotal evidence, of course.
About picking signal out of noise: maybe I need to install a Fourier transformer in my ears. Sigh. It makes going to bars and such difficult, even more so than my advancing age is in general.
