I know it doesn’t have the same effect on everyone, but there’s something about dense powdery substances (such as cornstarch, or fresh dry snow) that makes me wince when it gets compressed.
It’s a little difficult to describe if it doesn’t happen to you, but it seems as if it’s a sound, like a crunch, but at an extremely low volume. And it causes a pain, almost directly inside my head. I don’t even have to be the one working with it; I practically don’t even need to do it – just thinking about it now causes a slight tinge. This makes me wonder if I actually do hear something, or am just imagining a sound. The feeling of pain is real, though.
The best guess I have is that it’s some sort of instinctual reaction – the ‘sound’ is close to, but not quite like, bones grinding together so I wonder if it makes me react the same way.
(Links I decided not to click on while doing a web search included the terms “anal sores” and “vagisil guide for women : teen years”)
No explanation, but I get the feeling that I think you’re describing when I just imagine someone rubbing two napkins together. I can induce the feeling at will via this method, and goosebumps show up on my skin when I do.
If someone actually rubs two napkins together in front of me, however, I don’t get the feeling. Weird.
I can’t explain it either, but I get the same sensation (as close to mental pain as one can get) when metal rubs against a nonmetal. It’s hard to explain it without feeling awful, and to feel like my back teeth are being scraped away (??? weird brain of mine), but say you have a pencil with no eraser, and you go to erase on a desk and the metal scrapes on the desk…that’s my worst noise.
Mayhaps related, I have very good hearing for low pitched noises and high pitched, such as thunder or electricity, yet midrange stuff, primarily human voices, I have a lot of trouble understanding. I can’t hear it, it slurs together. But maybe it’s not related. Only reason why I think it would is because that squeak of metal is very high pitched, and I’m phobic about low pitched noises, and high pitched noises can also hurt my brain, like a TV that’s almost shut off, but not quite, you know what I mean if you can hear it.
My thing is the scraping of metal utensils across stoneware or china dishes. When someone is trying to get the last of the sauce or gravy or pudding, or pick up those last few grains of rice, I cringe and get a cold chill up the back of my neck. It’s fairly intolerable to me. It’s to a point now where I rarely feel comfortable eating in restaurants, because I know that it’s inevitable.
Oddly, I have no trouble with metal on metal sounds.
Toaster, I’m also fairly sensitive to the sound of electricity. I cannot sleep near any electrical device, especially if it’s turned on. If my husband has on the light on his nightstand it will keep me awake not because it’s bright, but because I can hear it. It was three or four years into our marriage before he believed that when I showed him that the lamp still bothered me while I was wearing an eyeshade and had a washcloth folded across my face to boot.
I get this with just about any metal-on-metal sound, and as others have mentioned, the imagining it is often worse than the actual event. With me it’s kind of a whole-head elliptical shiver with my eardrums as the foci. The sound of silverware being put away to harshly and a shovel scraping the bottom of a wheelbarrow are the two that for some reason pop into my head from time to time.
I get that way touching rough, starched cotten. HORRIBLE. Also, if my fingernail accidently scratches the exterior of my car, it’s as bad as nails on a chalkboard.
You’re right, it’s like a mental pain. Good. I’m glad I’m not the only weirdo.
I have a friend who can’t stand the feel of cotton balls. He also can’t deal with the texture of whipped cream. This from an ex-Marine.
[slight hijack] panamajack, I think Foley artists use cornstarch to make the sound of crunching footsteps in the snow for TV, movies, and radio. Does that sound cause you the same problem?
[/slight hijack]
RR
neutron star, we’ll have to start a support group when we come up with a better name for can’t-stand-sound-of-paper-napkins-rubbing as I have that same malady. Styrofoam is bad too but paper towels are the worst.
I wonder if it’s the audio equivalent of being ticklish? TheLadyLion likes when I gently graze her skin with my fingertips, can’t get enough of it. I’m different as sometimes too light a touch becomes a tickle that makes me react the way paper towels do. She’s got long fingernails and likes to use them to good effect but not if there is too little pressure. I know it sounds inredibly petty for me to have to tell her to scratch harder but the the alternative is “don’t touch me” and that’s plain wrong. I suppose it’s better to say something than to bottle it up until it explodes in an eye bulging, Ren Hoek parody. “You make my flesh crawl when you do that.”
River Runner – yeah, sometimes the sound effects do get to me (especially since real snow gets me the same), though not always. The sound that bothers me isn’t the louder crunch that they usually go for in the movies, though. If the ‘low freq. theory’ is correct, it could be that producing a more audible crunch ends up with little of the low end sound. It would also explain why I called it a very quiet sound.
Interesting that so many people seem to have almost the same reaction set off by different objects. I find styrofoam rubbing & metal scraping annoying in a similar way, but not painful. Could be it’s essentially the same sound causing it.
I suddenly recalled a conjecture I saw once in a documentary on ghosts. They said that low frequency sounds can cause people to feel uncomfortable and uneasy. Their claim was that a certain barrow that was supposedly haunted resonated at a low frequency when the wind blew, causing people to feel weird and attribute it to a ghost.
Well, thank god there’s someone else. I hate the feel of cotton balls, cotton batting, cotton wool, and it’s worse if they’re still wrapped. The idea of “squeezing the Charmin” is enough to send chills up my spine, let alone actually doing it. Oh, I should clarify: Charmin while it’s still in its package. Once the cello’s gone, it’s much more tolerable.
Wrapped paper towel or napkin packages are not quite as bad, but still irritating.
And it’s a pure touch sensation. There’s no sound that’s equivalent - nails down a chalkboard don’t bug me at all.
Ah yes, Dow’s losing battle to keep people saying “STYROFOAM brand foam from Dow.”
The sound that gets it for me is fingers rubbing across nubbly fabric. We used to have a couch that had a corduroy-style fabric, in polyester, and with a very low nap, and oh my god I hated the sound it made when something ran across it.
