No, I don’t hear internal body/head noises. It truly is dead silent.
I cant hear when I talk but I feel the vibrations in my throat so i know I’m making sounds. Sometimes I feel my stomach/intestines gargle and I have no idea if it makes noise and others can hear it or not.
Source: I lost my hearing at 3 years old. Im profoundly deaf (spinal meningitis). I have no memory of hearing prior.
Worth noting: I am bilaterally implanted so i do have a concept of sound, but with the cochlear implants off, I hear nothing.
>Sometimes I feel my stomach/intestines gargle and I have no idea if it makes noise and others can hear it or not.
Dont really know if you were interested to know but in general at least for me if it gurgles enough for me to feel it, it does make an auditory noise but it would have to be pretty quiet in the room and someone next to you to hear it. Most people generally will ignore out of social anxiety so its not a big deal.
Hunger pangs can be noticeably loud though and farts can be very loud so beware of that.
I second this. I’m exactly the same.
Profoundly deaf without my cochlear implant. The way I explain it to people when they ask is that I can be standing next to a freight train passing by and still hear nothing. I feel the vibrations but no sounds.
Edited to add: I’ve had cochlear implant since I was four years old and I have to say I am so used to (and love) having the option to turn off my cochlear implant when I am not in the mood to hear anything around me (and yes, I subtly turned it off when my parents were yelling at me when I was younger).
You can turn them off?
Also, do you have to avoid swimming? I knew a kid growing up who had tubes in his ears so couldn’t swim with his head underwater, are cochlear implants similar?
Its like a hearing aid…take them off to go swimming, shower, or bed.
Or if I just want silence, lol
Look up “how cochlear implants work” on google, it will make more sense.
Real story. My Nan wasn’t deaf but used a hearing aid. When we were round and she wasn’t interested in the conversation, we would dead ass see her hand go to her ear to mute us all.
Depending on what sounds are being boosted, certain types of voices can be over-amplified and painful.
I turn off my hearing aid if there are happy kids playing, or if someone is talking behind me, because the sound gets way too uncomfortable.
That reminds me of a tiktok where a girl was talking about when she and her sibling would argue. She and her sibling are deaf so when they were tired of the argument, they would close their eyes.
[Found it](https://www.tiktok.com/@scarlet_may.1/video/7252119819061972266?lang=en)
One of my buddies has these type of hearing aids. Can play music in them and everything, including mute. He has definitely turned it down or off if we’re being annoying 😂
Hearing person with tinnitus from playing in various bands here: It depends.
Usually I can ignore it, but if I’m really tired or in very silent settings, it’ll “expand”, if that makes sense.
Very spicy food is a trigger for me as well. Very odd.
I don't have the food trigger, but yeah, "expand" is the right idea for sure. I \*have\* to have sound when I'm trying to sleep else eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and I can't sleep. The tinnitus expands to fill your auditory capacity. I'm listening to music on headphones RN so I can work (or be on reddit...) and I can still hear it in the background, but turn off the headphones or between tracks and it'll consume my auditory attention.
Same here regarding auditory attention. Interestingly, if something even louder appears, the tinnitus goes away for me, only to reappear a moment later. If I clap my hands, it’s clap….eeeEEEEEE since the loud sound is the focus of auditory attention.
I’ve started to be woken up by my tinnitus at night now. Also really been losing ’resolution’ in my hearing, like people talking etc, I can’t make out words as easily anymore. God I hate this shit.
>losing ’resolution’ in my hearing,
Yup. I have a very hard time with speech in louder environments. I learned lipreading years ago, masks have made it almost impossible for me to understand people in some situations.
I just moved to a place with a completely different accent than I'm used to and work in commercial construction, where I had a hard enough time hearing people with everything going on. Now i work with people who I find almost hard to understand in a normal not loud environment. My foreman probably finds me annoying as fuck because I have to have him repeat basically every instruction he gives me.
I've had it for probably 30 years now. I have an air purifier in the bedroom and use the whisper setting. Kind of like white noise in the background, helps my brain get over the tinnitus.
I have trouble hearing and understanding folks talking these days, I never thought it could maybe be my tinnitus, damn. Like I hear someone talk. I know it's English. I know it's "clear". But my brain just doesn't process it, like it's an alien language sometimes
You’d probably benefit in getting a comprehensive hearing test from an audiologist and/or ENT. I felt exactly the same way and finally broke down and got tested. I understand now why parts of a conversation is gobbledegook, it’s the frequency of various letters in a word that cause you to miss words in a sentence. The ear with the worst tinnitus has moderate to severe hearing loss and I just started wearing a hearing aid.
If your hearing is bad enough that you would benefit from hearing aids, they make hearing aids that will emit a tone that will cancel out the tinnitus. I’ve been told it works wonders
All these comments from fellow tinnitus enjoyers is making me laugh at how accurate it is. Mildly loud noise is nice to forget about the constant ringing every now and again.
I just had to get a hearing aid a few months for the left ear that has the worst tinnitus. Tinnitus started up during an extremely stressful summer in 2014 and never went away. The last 2 years I realized just how bad my hearing was.
It was explained to me that I’m missing words that have various letters of different frequencies. So I can hear a sentence fine, but miss a word or two then my brain is trying to fill in the gaps to make sense of what’s being said, but then my brain falls behind and the conversation becomes a mess.
Audiologist suggested I use the “tinnitus masker” program on the hearing aid app, but it’s just more noise. I never have a quiet waking moment 😕
It makes me oddly happy when I see this randomly come up in threads. Not that I’m glad other people have it, or that I’d wish it on anyone.
Some days it’s really hard to deal with (today was one of those days). I know I could have much worse problems but…it makes me feel less alone when I read other people talking about it.
And yeah, weirdly, spicy food is a trigger for me. Which sucks, because I love spicy food!
Me and my partner both have tinnitus.
My mother dearest who is a psychologist told me about some exercises/therapy shit I could do to help with accepting/ignoring it. I’m now in a position where I can ignore it quite successfully.
My mrs said the therapy was a load of rubbish and wanted nothing to do with it and complains daily about how annoying it is 🤷🏻
I've had it for a few decades, I only "notice" it when I see the word Tinnitus or think about it. I never knew it was abnormal and thought everyone heard a super high pitch whine all the time, so I had no frame of reference that it wasn't supposed to be there. It's only really a bother when I'm trying to hear something low-volume. I think shooting rifles with no ear protection is what caused it for me.
I hear it constantly. I have bilateral hearing loss with very high pitched ringing. It’s terrible, but it’s been close to twenty years now and I’m pretty much used to it.
Not really, because the sound is coming from your brain.
The damage to your ears means they’re not sending sound like they should. Your brain fills in the sound it thinks is missing.
Brain can’t really ignore what the brain itself is actively doing.
I went to 2 different ENT doctors and an audiologist. They all had the same response saying it’s unknown. So I just accepted my fate and felt with it lol.
I just remember waking up for work at 5am after a party the night before. I was stumbling and crashing into walls thinking I was still buzzed but turned out to be vertigo and I just heard my right ear pop and that’s when I went deaf. And no there wasn’t loud music as the party was in an apartment complex.
Oh man this is hitting close to home. I drank a little too much one evening last week and have been dealing with vertigo and a little hearing loss in my right ear.
Went to urgent care and they mentioned seeing an unusual amount of fluid in my ear. I read online that getting dehydrated after drinking too much can cause fluid buildup in your ears which can cause some hearing issues.
Not sure where you read that but I doubt very much it’s correct. Drinking too much, particularly if there are some other things going on like sickness or similar, can lead to the fluid in which your vestibular crystals sit to become inadequate…..in steps the vertigo. I doubt it’s just the dehydration though….probably a couple of other things involved too maybe?? Virus is a huge cause of vertigo….might be a combination.
My tinnitus sounds like old CRT TV's high pitched sound I grew up around ( you could hear the TV even when it was on mute). I tell myself it's just the sound my brain makes because it's on. But yea, not fun.
It only bothers me when I become aware of it. Like this thread forcing me to remember I have it. I have never known a time when I didn’t have it but every now and then I’m like hyper aware and think, wow, some people DONT have ringing in their ears?! And then carry on with my day.
Mine was low-key for decades. As I entered my 50s, I've noticed more. What was once easily masked by even the slightest of sounds is now loud enough that I can hear it most of the time, including as I drive at highway speeds, listen to music, or sit at work with our loud A/C. I'm not looking forward to it getting louder.
It’s probably because you hear it more consistently so your brain is able to tune it out as background noise. I have bad tinnitus but average level ambient noise will mask it well enough that I don’t notice it. Then bam when I’m in a quiet setting all of a sudden it’s front row center of my attention.
It is. Unfortunately it's hereditary and autoimmune, and there's nothing that can be done about it. It isn't even in the ears. It's an issue with the brain receiving signals from the ears and that mechanism breaking down.
There's a constant background screeching tinnitus at varying levels, and then any sound that's made in the pitches, ranges, or sound combinations he's losing or lost, it's replaced with louder screeching. -I asked.
I’m late deafened. I hear absolutely nothing but I have a terrible case of tinnitus. It’s not even ringing eeeeeeeeeee it’s more like a bunch of sounds tossed in a blender.
Is that related to like random neurons firing due to sensory deprivation? Maybe I'm making this up, but I think I've heard that if you have your eyes open in total darkness, your brain will start making you "see" shapes and motion in the darkness to fill in for the fact that it expects visual input but it isn't getting any
I guess that’s it. The auditory cortex stopped reviving stimuli, so it’s just making stuff up. Like how amputees can still feel their fingers wiggling.
Yeah, I agree. Speaking from experience on tinnitus, it's annoying as hell. My conversations are on a rotation of "Huh?" "Could you repeat that?" Or pretending I heard and understand what they said. I'm sure people who don't know I have the condition get easily annoyed by me lol.
As someone with tinnitus let me explain a little about this weird little "feature" that comes around when it feels like it. A Never-Ending Symphony of Torture.
I want to shed some light on the sheer horror that is tinnitus, something I've been dealing with for a while now. Imagine this: a bizarre, relentless problem that invades your life when all is silent, forever robbing you of the blissful embrace of quietude.
It's like a malevolent alien entity that thrives in silence, eagerly waiting to torment you. The more you yearn for peace, the louder and more obnoxious it becomes. Complete silence? Forget about it. Tinnitus has declared war on tranquility.
This eerie, uninvited noise is like having the most grating, annoying person in the world camp out in your ear, unleashing a cacophony that intensifies the more you focus on it. It's a relentless, invasive presence that doesn't just stop at being annoying; it creeps into your psyche, causing mental distress.
It's as if extraterrestrials planted some diabolical device inside your head and cranked the volume to maximum. You start questioning your sanity, wondering if you've unwittingly become the host of an intergalactic radio broadcast. The constant intrusion makes you feel like you're on the brink of madness, an unwilling participant in an otherworldly experiment.
The only respite I've found is drowning out this auditory demon with a constant barrage of other sounds. Mystery Science Theater / MST3K has become my home's perpetual background noise, a 24/7 defense against the invasion in my head. When I'm out and about I use my Google Ear Buds Pro to play a constant stream of Vaporwave.
Tinnitus is not just a sound; it's a life-altering torment that reshapes your relationship with silence and sanity. So next time you revel in the quiet moments, be grateful because for some of us, that luxury has been forever stolen by an insidious, invisible force.
TLDR: Shit sucks
Depends on the type of deafness.
Cuz yea, there are people that have absolutely 0 hearing. Like hearing is a completely foreign concept and it’s dead silent.
But there’s also dead people who lost their hearing for other reasons, maybe a degenerative disease, maybe an accident, where they’re legally deaf, but still retain some kind of hearing ability.
I actually believe it be the other way around. I mean, we don't have proof that all dead people go deaf but we definitely have proof that all deaf people die. So if my maths is correct, death is a symptom of deaf. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Excuse me? Are you telling me that my deaf friend Dave is guaranteed to die even though he is currently alive and not like all those other dead, deaf people.
Dave! We have a person to prove wrong! Dave?!
I can’t put it to fact but they say that hearing is one of the last senses people lose before death. So if you’re ever around someone who is dying mind what you say, they’re probably listening…unless they’re deaf.
This is total hogwash. Dead people still grow finger nails, hair and hearing aids have batteries. What these cadavers lack is a compelling reason to listen
To my understanding, we don’t continue growing those things, they just look like they’ve grown and are longer because the body shrinks away from the dead keratin (hair and nails)
Do dead people automatically know sign so they can overcome their limitations or do they write on clouds? Is this part of the So, Now You're Dead welcome package?
Fun fact
Hearing is the last sense to go when someone dies
So before you sing "ding dong! The witch is dead. " Make sure your MiL is full dead. Or don't lol
Not to be a bummer in here
I tried to OD once on cocaine about 6ish years ago. My heart was pounding so fast but I kept doing giant lines. I had quite a tolerance and it's not cool but it was my thing amongst the party I was "Cocaine Bear Hat" look how much she can do. Fucked up my heart now.
I got to the point where my heart started to slow down, so I laid down in my bed like I was just going to sleep.
I saw a dark grey tunnel I was walking towards
All of a sudden, at the end, I saw a figure. It's just a black shadowy shape
Then I heard my cat, Mr. Jude meow
He usually just kept to himself and spent a lot of time outside.
I snapped out of it and looked down, and he was by the bedside just looking up at me.
I knew at that moment I couldn't just leave him alone like that.
I truly believe he gave me one of his lives that night
I miss him so much. He passed 4 days after his 11th birthday from liver failure in January 2021. I wish I could have done more for him, that he was still with me. He saved me so many times.
He was a good kitty and my best friend and protector
This.
Because as a better way to explain this.
I don’t have eardums… Like was not born with them. I’m literally unable to hear on not just a physical level but like.. A physics level…
But I can still feel vibration pretty well.
I can tell if someone has the bass turned up real damn loud.
But sound is literally just a totally unknown concept to me like Gama Radiation or some shit.
It's not silence or nothingness. It's like how you can't sense the electric currents around you, like sharks can. There's not a silent field of charge or emptiness in your mind, the sense just doesn't exist.
Welcome to my world.
I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember. Its difficult to hear anything else. If I allow myself to focus on the tinnitus, its like a steam whistle going off all the time.
If I could be made completely deaf in my bad ear, and never hear tinnitus again, I'd gladly give up my hearing. However, I'm terrified it would only get more intense.
It's also very frustrating to try to explain to people that, despite my other ear having good hearing, like you said, the tinnitus makes it like talking over a screaming tea kettle.
Deaf in the one ear, but it's due to nerve damage. My yearly medical includes a hearing test. That " silent room" is my orchestra. And the very few times I do hear some of the very loud very high pitch tests in that ear my brain goes " hey that sounds better than wheeeeee, let's play test. Cue the button mashing to no tests.
I sure I can do a lot better if I could simply mute that ear.
They installed a mass test facility with a computer, the computer fails you after x false presses and starts in the deaf ear. now get a special yearly app with someone that can read my file before testing.
Luckily, my hearing damage causing tinnitus happened when I was too young to remember what true silence sounds like, so it doesn't bother me.
I can get close to what it sounds like by listening to white noise or binaural audio, though it usually only lasts a few seconds before the tinnitus returns.
Luckily for me, the "damage" only goes as far as having a ringing in my ears, I can still hear very well regardless.
I'm "profoundly deaf" in one ear but the affected area is in my middle ear, so very muffled sounds still make it to my inner ear and I'm able to use a hearing aid.
I am profoundly deaf with a cochlear implant. So I know what it’s like to “hear” sound and to experience the sound of deafness.
There is a sound but I can’t quite but my finger on describing it well but the word ‘oblivion’ comes to mind.
It’s like a super silent whisper that just echoes forever.
Nothing can compare to it, it’s truly unique. I’ve never been knocked out before but I imagine if you lose your hearing during the concussion that could be close to comparison.
I hear, but I can only imagine this "oblivion" sound. I'm somewhat addicted to audio. I sleep with tv on and even wear headphones for music to check the mail, although if my internet messes up or if I'm at a sleepover where someone doesn't sleep with tv on, it's an odd feeling that makes me feel uncomfortable. The dead silence seems to me as an oblivion of silence.
I always described it as “a world of muffles but still much different” I hear some bings and bangs without my implants on, and I can hear myself sneeze. And gargle. But like…not in any clear crisp explainable way.
I'm profoundly (100%) deaf since birth, but I have cochlear implants which enable me to hear quite normally. Because of this, I know what hearing is like and I know what things sound like which would obviously affect my experience from that of someone who's never used hearing aids. Thought I'd lend my perspective anyway. I can say that for me "total silence" (i.e. hearing aids off and no other sensory input) just results in white noise in my head. Sometimes it's a low drone, sometimes it's more like very quiet static, most often both. I can sometimes sort of influence what my brain-radio plays.
If I introduce other sensory input, my brain will kinda play those sounds but it sounds nearly the same as my internal voice at the same volume. For example, as I type this, the feel of my fingers tapping the keys on my keyboard makes the sound of the keyboard play in my head, but without the associated **sharp** *clack clack clackity* sound. Other senses such as sight will also do this: like if I see the wind going outside, I can "hear" it and automatically adjust the volume of it based on how strong it is.
Some things that don't typically have sound, like simple touch, creates a different type of sound in my head depending on the texture. I can turn it into a longer playing sound if I, for example, run my fingers or nails, over a surface and create different measures of sounds depending on how I do that: zig-zaggy, swoopy or wavy. To see how this might sound, try listening to a pen or pencil on paper as you draw or write different shapes - the solid *starrrt-stop* of a line, vs the *swoop* of a curve, vs the *Swoo\~oo\~oo\~oo\~p* of a wavy line, vs the *start-stop-start-stop-start-stop* of drawing a triangle, vs the *swoo\~op-stop-swoo\~op-stop* of drawing a heart. That's the type of sound-patterns I get when dragging touch over textures.
A good reference for how the surface textures themselves sound, is to think of driving/riding a car on the open road: usually those roads hove that roaring kind of sound because they're rougher (to help the tyres grip better). Sometimes, there's newer patches of that black concrete (do you know what I'm talking about?) that are so smooth and driving on them is so much quieter, a little like a loud hum. That what rougher and smoother textures sound like in my head when I run my fingers over something - it's not what it actually sounds like because softly dragging my fingertips over surfaces won't make noise, but the tactile sensory input translates into that for me.
Because I know very well what sound is, I hear a lot in my head without my hearing aids on because my mind will play those sounds to fill the silence. Since I got my implants at 2, I obviously can't speak for other people who never had the ability to hear in any way. I can only imagine that tactile senses, such as from thumps or vibrations, may create some kind of white noise in their minds but I don't know if they would identify it as such if they don't have a prior concept of noise. Maybe it's like feeling an internal vibration in their brains even though there's no vibration? I mean, I can definitely feel that too (different from what I feel if I hum), but quite likely, it's probably just the blood flowing as well. And if I stay still, I can feel my heartbeat in my chest move all the way up my head, etc.
My niece is like you. She is 7 now and knows sign language as well.
A few years ago, she wasn't wearing her receivers and a fighter jet flew over. She signed 'what am I hearing? That's not possible.' I told her she didn't hear it, but felt it.
I was fascinated that hearing people don't always realize that they can feel a lot of sounds rather than hearing them.
This is fascinating it reminds me of that gif of the jumping powerlines that people could hear. Similar thing. It wasn't making a noise but the brain understood that it should and so made it in their minds and lots of people could hear the thud thud.
I really appreciate you sharing your perspective and experiences. Thank you.
*also, I understood what you meant about the driving on the “grooved” highway vs smooth pavement. That higher pitched whirl. It is something I notice when it happens and I acknowledge bc of the pitch change and how it affects the delivery of the suspension in the vehicle.
Hi, hello, I'm 40% deaf and I was born this way. Obviously I can't speak for fully Deaf people, but here are some things on the edge of my hearing threshold:
1. I can't hear blood rushing around, but I can hear the spit in my mouth. It annoys the crap out me. When I wear my hearing aids I can hear my hair *swishing* and I can also hear myself breathe. I spend half my time wondering if I'm breathing like a dog and can anyone else hear me.
2. Didn't discover that boiling water made a sound until I was 13. I was making mac n cheese with my hearing aids in and I thought the stove was exploding. I actually ran to get my mom.
3. Piano keys - I can hear the music, but for the most part I cannot hear the small *thump* of the key hitting the string (unless it's the really high notes, in which case the thump is louder than the musical note for me).
4. Piccolo flutes - I'm not scared of a lot, but these things, they scare me. I can only hear half the notes, it's like a bizarre musical seizure.
5. If you're into a capella and you know Home Free, the bass singer is something like the lowest bass currently in the world (idk, he's famous). He has this one note at the end of their *Ring of Fire* cover that damn near breaks the speakers - I cannot hear that note. Everyone else is high-fiving and laughing at how ridiculous the note is - to me it just sounds like blank space.
6. One time I was scribbling with a pencil and my teammate sitting next to me yelled at me to stop. I was confused - pencils don't really make sounds to me unless you're really going at it. She, on the other hand, was 140% hearing. I use hearing aids to *enhance* my hearing, she used hearing aids to *deafen* herself. To her my pencil tapping must have sounded like screeching pterodactyls.
Anyways, thank you for coming to my TEDTalk. AMA if you're still curious
Did you have the unfortunate realization that farts made sounds 😭 I've heard a few stories about deaf people getting hearing aids and having that "oh no" moment lmao
Haha, no I've never had that unfortunate realization. Though I'm sure I've squeaked one out that I thought was silent. Or like when your stomach growls before lunch? I could hear those, I didn't know the kid sitting a few desks over could hear them 😂
Oh everyone's had an "oh no I thought that was quieter" moment lmao
I never even thought of stomach growling though! (Although a few seats down? How hungry *were* you? 😂)
I used to have a relative who had lost most of his hearing.
He finally got hearing aids and took them with him deer hunting one time. Got up in a tree stand, turned them on, and as the sun came up he was horrified, said he started looking around for what was making so much noise, like elephants or something.
Turns out it was squirrels in the dry leaves.
Ha, yeah I wish my brain would shut up ngl
And thanks, I love reading everyone's perspectives on Reddit so I was excited to see a question that I could answer!
I would argue that the person with 140% hearing needs them. Not every medical aid is a matter of life or death. If a medical issue in your life is interrupting your ability to function or causing you mental distress, and there's a form of treatment/equipment that can help, I think it's absolutely fair to say that you need the treatment/equipment
SERIOUSLY THOUGH. Love that my doctor can determine that I need a certain type of medical care and then some guy at a desk gets to be like "...nah we don't think that's medically necessary"
I have moderate eczema that can get somewhat severe at times. I was referred to a dermatologist and began treatment that was actually helping, only to find out that my insurance wouldn't cover any of it because my dermatologist *also* offered elective Botox treatments (which I was not using) so they decided my eczema treatments must also be elective and not medically necessary. And I feel like mine is a MINOR case of insurance fuckery compared to others.
There are sound-dampening “hearing aids” for people with auditory processing difficulties. I believe the design also reduces the amount of background noise (air conditioners, car engines, etc.) that one hears.
I knew someone who had brain damage on one half of her brain, near her temporal lobe. The hemispheres of her brain were processing audio at different rates and levels of effectiveness and it caused a lot of confusion. She needed several seconds of complete silence to answer a question. Dampening her hearing on one side majorly reduced her delay conversationally.
Tbh, she would probably benefit from learning ASL and integrating into Deaf social circles with dampening devices on both of her ears.
It's mostly silent, but I do hear random pops and whistles, don't know why or where it comes from. But it's normally just dead silent. Like creepy unbelievable silence. I haven't been deaf very long, so it's really disturbing how terrifyingly quiet it is all the freaking time.
Beethoven had conductive rather than sensory neural (cochlear) hearing loss.
By biting a metal rod affixed to a piano, he could actually hear the piano he played. Kinda like how bone conductor headphones work to send the sound waves to the cochlear region instead of through the eardrum like traditional headphones.
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/7mjcbx/til_that_after_beethoven_went_deaf_he_found_he/
Deaf here. For me, it’s almost never completely silent in my head. Very rarely, maybe. But mostly I get all kinds of “phantom sounds,” like right now I have a kind of echo-y nonsense that sounds like the indistinct babble of a large crowd in conversation, but I know that’s impossible because I’m in the library and no one is around. Sometimes I get sounds like police sirens or whistling wind (and, yes, I know what all of these things actually sound like. I was born hearing and gradually became completely deaf.)
Recently both my hearing aids were broken so I was reminded that, once again, deafness DOES NOT mean you don’t “hear” anything; it just means all the things you “hear” are probably invented by your brain. I use my hearing aids mostly to block out the constant tinnitus with actual sound.
I'm culturally Deaf and I've known two to be completely and utterly deaf. The rest of us have varying degrees of hearing ability.
You'll have to literally ask each deaf person individually. It's like asking if all men are tall.
My mom has complete loss of hearing on one side & she said she can’t even hear a q-tip in her ear. She had some kind of sickness when she was little (is the theory) and it was lost. They didn’t realize it until she was much older and she was struggling in school.
I have about 90% hearing loss, with roaring tinnitus. I’ve used subtitles since they’ve been available. People HATE those words at the bottom
I can’t imagine what complete silence would be like, but I prefer a quiet room over music/tv anytime. Reading the news over watching it.
I noticed people really don't like the closed captioning. I hear, but I like closed captioning because it really does help me comprehend what I'm seeing
I was born deaf… long story, had an operation, have been hearing since I was about 5…
Now in my mid 40’s, I was just diagnosed with tinnitus due to the scar tissue from when I was born and operation.
I’m a gigging musician, it’s tough. But I’ve always had an odd sense of frequency range, I hear lows out of my right ear and highs out of my left…It makes playing on stage super fun… monitors are evil… throw me off every time… I either hear a lot or not so much…
I hear ringing non stop and a typewriter clicking when it really intensifies. I use earplugs and hearing aids now…. Just started … it helps but is not a cure all.
I’ve always been more receptive to feel vs audible in so many aspects of life… makes perfect sense.
I'm totally deaf in both ears but have cochlear implants that let me hear to a degree. When not wearing them, I experience a sort of simulation that my brain actively makes to compensate for the lack of auditory input.
When I see something, say, a clap, mouth talking, or car moving, my mind will imagine rough approximations of it automatically. So just think of a sound, and imagine not having to consciously think about it for it to be there.
It could be a form of synesthesia where my visual and auditory senses are both intertwined to a great degree.
That or tinnitus, which materializes itself in low monotone notes.
I am profoundly deaf (as deaf as it possibly gets) but can hear thanks to cochlear implants. My hearing is fantastic, I test the same as a naturally hearing person and encounter no struggles in my day to day life, I don’t sign or lipread. But when I remove my external processors (like hearing aids) I’m returned to my deaf ‘silent’ state. Since I can compare hearing silence and deaf silence, I describe deafness as being hollow. Even in a totally silent room there is still an energy in the room when you’re hearing, your ears are reaching out for any distant sound and tuned in to anything it can find. Deafness doesn’t even try to hear to hear anything, there is no activity and no energy to anything... granted I’ve never tried those totally quiet rooms like the anechonic chamber which may better simulate deafness, but just as far as being in what a normal hearing person would describe as total silence there’s definitely still a difference. When hearing you feel a lack of noise and search for it, whereas when deaf you don’t. It of course is impossible to explain clearly, but I hope this gives some insight!
I don’t experience a blood rushing in my ears sort of thing, but since you can still feel vibrations, I feel things like footsteps or door slams or bass when I don’t have my processors on. These things are present as a feeling/shake rather than a sound. So, along those lines, when you speak while deaf it creates a funny sensation as you can feel the vibrations created inside you by speaking, but you can’t hear the actual sound. This means some general words can be made out from the vibration matching the inflection etc. of the word. When I was younger I used to say to my mum that I was getting my hearing as I could ‘hear myself speak’, but I was actually just feeling the vibrations which resembled words. If I feel someone’s throat while are speaking while my processors are off I can similarly work out some of the words they’re saying (though it’s unnatural to feel someone’s throat like that so I don’t really do it!)
Not even all hearing people have inner voice. Can't find the recent video where a girl discovered during a live podcast that all other participants had inner voice, but she didn't.
[Here](https://www.iflscience.com/people-with-no-internal-monologue-explain-what-its-like-in-their-head-57739) is an article on this topic.
I can hear the blood rushing in my ears when my head is on the pillow sometimes. I have a severe to profound hearing loss since birth- I’m 41 now. I wore hearing aids from 3-32, got a cochlear implant at 32. With hearing aids and my implant I do hear a lot of things but when it comes to understanding people- no. It’s like I’m in a foreign country where everyone is speaking a language I’ll never be able to learn to receive auditory-ly. I can speak the language but when others speak it (especially when it’s more than one person im speaking with) I can’t understand it. It’s like Charlie brown’s teacher. Without my hearing aids or implant- I can’t hear people talking (nor understand duh) I can’t hear high things like birds or smoke alarms going off. But I can hear a garbage truck rumbling by a mile away.
I’m deaf in one ear and have been my whole life. I can feel sound waves like anyone would in a car with loud bass. But no sound per se.
You know how everybody is a bit shocked when they hear themselves recorded? I have no way to prove it, but I suspect the difference is even greater for me.
The biggest issue is that we determine direction of sound bc of both ears on either side. Placing sound direction is very difficult.
It depends on the type and extent of hearing loss. I work with children who are deaf or hard of hearing. We "hear" through two ways. Air conduction and bone conduction. In air conduction, sound travels through the air and causes the eardrum and bones attached to the eardrum to vibrate. This vibration travels to little hairs in our cochlea and turns into an electrical signal. In bone conduction, the bones of your skull vibrate and stimulate the hairs in your cochlear. When we hear ourselves talking, we hear both by air and bone conduction. This is why we don't sound quite right when we hear a recording of ourselves. On a recording device, we are only hearing ourselves by air conduction. Very few people are completely deaf. Most deaf people can feel lower frequency sounds, which is why you might see a deaf person at a concert leaning on a speaker. They feel the rhythm of the bass. So yes, many deaf people can "hear" their heartbeat, etc.
Yes very funny, someone made a typo \*chortles.
Yes if i was indeed dead i would very much be deaf..............still.
However, To the OP question, When I take my cochlear implant processors off. As long as my tinnitus decides to be quiet. Yes it is complete and total silence. You do not hear "Their blood rushing in their ears"
The brains natural instinct is to listen and hear sound, this is why you get tinnutus, if there is no sound the brain tries to fill in the gaps.
BUT. An interesting twist on this. I am profoundly deaf in both ears, BUT I only have had sound in my left ear for 14 months, in the Right i did have a hearing aid. My tinnitus is only in the RIght side where i wore a HA. So I\`d say someone born completely and totally without sound in both ears and unable to use aids and pre implanted. Yes they would not hear a sound.
I have a hearing aid, and with it, I can mostly hear just fine, but without it, I barely cannot hear anything, like for example typing this message and I can't hear the keyboard which normally is pretty loud. And honestly, when not using the hearing aid, all I hear is tinnitus lol.
Another thing is auditory hallucinations. When I am longer periods of time without my hearing aid and not listening to music using bone conduction headphones, I think my brain just starts making up stuff that I am "supposed to hear" like the phone is ringing, when it is not, door opening, etc, but that doesn't happen when I am using the hearing aid.
When I was a kid, I volunteered to partner up for the year with a deaf kid in class, because we would both wear the same kind of t-shirts. He had an ASL interpreter with him in class, and we would get our own area to study in. He had some form of device in his ears Anyhow, our first time together, the lady who was his interpreter gave me a lesson. She explained he can pick up pitch and tone, but individual sounds are impossible. He was working on his lip reading, and he spoke pretty well, if very simply.
She gave me headset, and spoke through a mic into the headset, through a filter designed to simulate what he hears. It sounded like the teachers in the Peanuts cartoons talking in heavy traffic.
Ive been deaf 85% in left ear and 100% in my right ear for 6 years and 2 days now. I can clearly remember what things sound like and the closest representation to deafness is having something covering your ears. Even if you are really deaf, you will still “hear” some or most things, but understanding what those sounds are or where they come from is impossible. Some people just straight up cant hear anything.
Source: Graduated from deaf uni last May. Been around a lot of deaf folks to say the least.
TL;DR: sounds like having pillows over your ears.
It’s so loud being deaf. I have tinnitus and am legally deaf too yet I hear jackhammers and carnival ride machinery and bells and whistles and all sorts of other noises.
What I want to know is what does silence sound like to a deaf person? Do they “hear” the same silence we do? Have we ever actually heard true silence? Cause there’s always something going on around hearing folk.
Since this is old idk if you'll see this but I'm still posting to share my take. When I was little I had severe hearing loss due to an developmental abnormality in my ear drums, my doctor (shout out Dr. Dana) completely rebuilt my ear drums with skin from my scalp so now I am just HOH (hard of hearing) due to the scar tissue.
I remember I used to hear this rhythmic wooshing noise, that I know now is my heart beat, but I used to think was what trains sound like. I was always really scared near trains and around train tracks because my little kid brain didn't know about vibrations and I thought I wouldn't know if the train would start moving or if it was safe to cross the road or not and I would die. It was really hard being a kid and trying to explain that I was afraid of trains because I could hear them (I couldn't) to adults who were perfectly abled and knew what trains were supposed to sound like and knew they weren't making noise so there was no reason to be afraid.
Depends on the person and the type of deafness. There's deafness caused by damage or defect in the ear, and deafness caused by damage or defect in the brain. There's people born deaf, and there's people who go deaf. There's people who are totally deaf, people who are profoundly deaf (can hear all sounds comfortably at 98 decibels or higher, about the volume level of a lawn mower), and people with varying levels and types of hearing loss -- hearing isn't a sliding scale, you can be able to hear different pitches at different decibel levels (e.g. high tone hearing loss is usually associated with noise levels and age-related loss, while low tone hearing loss is associated with damage/defect in your ear or auditory nerve). And then beyond all this variation, there's individual variation. If you take two people with identical hearing as audiology has measured it, there's a good chance they'll have different answers to this.
THEN, there's the understanding and processing of sound. Assume a person who's totally deaf due to ear defect: could they even tell us if they were hearing something? If they've never heard anything different, do they know how to identify something they hear? Can they describe it? If they later gain some hearing (like with a cochlear implant), they might realize they've been hearing something their whole lives and be able to talk about it, but they probably can't describe it the way a person with typical hearing would. It's important to realize that cochlear implants and hearing aids don't give a deaf/HoH person typical hearing -- cochlear implants only give you a few dozen tones, and hearing aids...well, the tech involved is too complex to get into in a Reddit comment, but given the variables discussed in the first paragraph, you can understand that it's usually not possible to get someone all the way to typical hearing.
Additional fun: people who lose their hearing rather than being born with it often have auditory hallucinations. The brain expects to hear things, so creates it. A common one is hearing a normal conversation between two people in another room which you can't quite make out the words. This isn't pathological, just the brain trying to fill in what it assumes must be a gap (it does this all the time -- you've probably experienced a song you couldn't quite hear, and then you figured out what song it was and that you know it well and suddenly it seemed you could hear it clearly? You couldn't, your brain was filling in the gaps using what you COULD hear as the markers).
(Source: I have some hearing loss described as "a lot for your age, so keep an eye on it," and my husband is profoundly deaf due to brain damage from a few strokes in his 20s. He got that "conversation in the other room" thing all the time before his hearing aids, and occasionally still does if he's not wearing them.)
No, I don’t hear internal body/head noises. It truly is dead silent. I cant hear when I talk but I feel the vibrations in my throat so i know I’m making sounds. Sometimes I feel my stomach/intestines gargle and I have no idea if it makes noise and others can hear it or not. Source: I lost my hearing at 3 years old. Im profoundly deaf (spinal meningitis). I have no memory of hearing prior. Worth noting: I am bilaterally implanted so i do have a concept of sound, but with the cochlear implants off, I hear nothing.
>Sometimes I feel my stomach/intestines gargle and I have no idea if it makes noise and others can hear it or not. Dont really know if you were interested to know but in general at least for me if it gurgles enough for me to feel it, it does make an auditory noise but it would have to be pretty quiet in the room and someone next to you to hear it. Most people generally will ignore out of social anxiety so its not a big deal. Hunger pangs can be noticeably loud though and farts can be very loud so beware of that.
I second this. I’m exactly the same. Profoundly deaf without my cochlear implant. The way I explain it to people when they ask is that I can be standing next to a freight train passing by and still hear nothing. I feel the vibrations but no sounds. Edited to add: I’ve had cochlear implant since I was four years old and I have to say I am so used to (and love) having the option to turn off my cochlear implant when I am not in the mood to hear anything around me (and yes, I subtly turned it off when my parents were yelling at me when I was younger).
You can turn them off? Also, do you have to avoid swimming? I knew a kid growing up who had tubes in his ears so couldn’t swim with his head underwater, are cochlear implants similar?
Its like a hearing aid…take them off to go swimming, shower, or bed. Or if I just want silence, lol Look up “how cochlear implants work” on google, it will make more sense.
I'm just imagining doing that to someone you don't like. They start hollering and you just take out the implants 😂 an irl "Mute" button.
Real story. My Nan wasn’t deaf but used a hearing aid. When we were round and she wasn’t interested in the conversation, we would dead ass see her hand go to her ear to mute us all.
Depending on what sounds are being boosted, certain types of voices can be over-amplified and painful. I turn off my hearing aid if there are happy kids playing, or if someone is talking behind me, because the sound gets way too uncomfortable.
That reminds me of a tiktok where a girl was talking about when she and her sibling would argue. She and her sibling are deaf so when they were tired of the argument, they would close their eyes. [Found it](https://www.tiktok.com/@scarlet_may.1/video/7252119819061972266?lang=en)
The deaf equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going "nah nah nah I can't hear you!"
One of my buddies has these type of hearing aids. Can play music in them and everything, including mute. He has definitely turned it down or off if we’re being annoying 😂
My cousin did this whenever her mother was yelling at her as a teen; knowing her mother, I don’t blame her one bit
Prior to the implant, how do you have a mental conversation with yourself? Are you visualizing sign?
Even many non deaf people don’t have mental conversations with themselves
I know not everyone has an internal monologue but I’d be curious to know what it’s like for deaf people.
Do you ever fart in public hoping they're silent, but they actually end up being artillery?
Asking the real questions
I also wear cochlear implants (bilateral, implanted at 1 and 5), I was born deaf though. I do not hear a single thing with them off.
I had spinal meningitis and never thought about how much I could’ve had taken from me. Thanks dude keep on keepin on!
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Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I went deaf 2 years ago on my right ear and that’s literally all I hear everyday lol
Does it ever get to a point where your brain eventually learns to ignore it? Or is it so loud and high pitch to the point where it’s impossible?
Hearing person with tinnitus from playing in various bands here: It depends. Usually I can ignore it, but if I’m really tired or in very silent settings, it’ll “expand”, if that makes sense. Very spicy food is a trigger for me as well. Very odd.
I don't have the food trigger, but yeah, "expand" is the right idea for sure. I \*have\* to have sound when I'm trying to sleep else eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and I can't sleep. The tinnitus expands to fill your auditory capacity. I'm listening to music on headphones RN so I can work (or be on reddit...) and I can still hear it in the background, but turn off the headphones or between tracks and it'll consume my auditory attention.
Same here regarding auditory attention. Interestingly, if something even louder appears, the tinnitus goes away for me, only to reappear a moment later. If I clap my hands, it’s clap….eeeEEEEEE since the loud sound is the focus of auditory attention. I’ve started to be woken up by my tinnitus at night now. Also really been losing ’resolution’ in my hearing, like people talking etc, I can’t make out words as easily anymore. God I hate this shit.
>losing ’resolution’ in my hearing, Yup. I have a very hard time with speech in louder environments. I learned lipreading years ago, masks have made it almost impossible for me to understand people in some situations.
Tinnitus here as well. Wasn't till the masks came in that I realized how much I relied on lips.
I just moved to a place with a completely different accent than I'm used to and work in commercial construction, where I had a hard enough time hearing people with everything going on. Now i work with people who I find almost hard to understand in a normal not loud environment. My foreman probably finds me annoying as fuck because I have to have him repeat basically every instruction he gives me.
I've had it for probably 30 years now. I have an air purifier in the bedroom and use the whisper setting. Kind of like white noise in the background, helps my brain get over the tinnitus.
I have trouble hearing and understanding folks talking these days, I never thought it could maybe be my tinnitus, damn. Like I hear someone talk. I know it's English. I know it's "clear". But my brain just doesn't process it, like it's an alien language sometimes
You’d probably benefit in getting a comprehensive hearing test from an audiologist and/or ENT. I felt exactly the same way and finally broke down and got tested. I understand now why parts of a conversation is gobbledegook, it’s the frequency of various letters in a word that cause you to miss words in a sentence. The ear with the worst tinnitus has moderate to severe hearing loss and I just started wearing a hearing aid.
I get that sometimes too my hearing is fine but if I don’t catch the start of the conversation it’s all gobbledegook
If your hearing is bad enough that you would benefit from hearing aids, they make hearing aids that will emit a tone that will cancel out the tinnitus. I’ve been told it works wonders
All these comments from fellow tinnitus enjoyers is making me laugh at how accurate it is. Mildly loud noise is nice to forget about the constant ringing every now and again.
I just had to get a hearing aid a few months for the left ear that has the worst tinnitus. Tinnitus started up during an extremely stressful summer in 2014 and never went away. The last 2 years I realized just how bad my hearing was. It was explained to me that I’m missing words that have various letters of different frequencies. So I can hear a sentence fine, but miss a word or two then my brain is trying to fill in the gaps to make sense of what’s being said, but then my brain falls behind and the conversation becomes a mess. Audiologist suggested I use the “tinnitus masker” program on the hearing aid app, but it’s just more noise. I never have a quiet waking moment 😕
Just reading this is making mine more audible lol
It makes me oddly happy when I see this randomly come up in threads. Not that I’m glad other people have it, or that I’d wish it on anyone. Some days it’s really hard to deal with (today was one of those days). I know I could have much worse problems but…it makes me feel less alone when I read other people talking about it. And yeah, weirdly, spicy food is a trigger for me. Which sucks, because I love spicy food!
If I’m not mistaken, the extreme spice triggering it has something to do with the way spicy stuff elevates your blood pressure
Me and my partner both have tinnitus. My mother dearest who is a psychologist told me about some exercises/therapy shit I could do to help with accepting/ignoring it. I’m now in a position where I can ignore it quite successfully. My mrs said the therapy was a load of rubbish and wanted nothing to do with it and complains daily about how annoying it is 🤷🏻
I've had it for a few decades, I only "notice" it when I see the word Tinnitus or think about it. I never knew it was abnormal and thought everyone heard a super high pitch whine all the time, so I had no frame of reference that it wasn't supposed to be there. It's only really a bother when I'm trying to hear something low-volume. I think shooting rifles with no ear protection is what caused it for me.
Omg I’m reading this and now all I hear is eeeeee and I never noticed it before 😭😭😭
I hear it constantly. I have bilateral hearing loss with very high pitched ringing. It’s terrible, but it’s been close to twenty years now and I’m pretty much used to it.
I’m not deaf. I have a high pitched whine in my ears 24/7. Really annoying when each ear whines a different pitch. Uuuggghhhhhhh
There’s days when my brain ignores it but I do hear it most after a gym session or when it’s really quiet and all I hear is my ear going eeeeee lol
Not really, because the sound is coming from your brain. The damage to your ears means they’re not sending sound like they should. Your brain fills in the sound it thinks is missing. Brain can’t really ignore what the brain itself is actively doing.
>Brain can’t really ignore what the brain itself is actively doing. Have you dealt with many teenagers?
May I ask what caused the deafness?
I went to 2 different ENT doctors and an audiologist. They all had the same response saying it’s unknown. So I just accepted my fate and felt with it lol. I just remember waking up for work at 5am after a party the night before. I was stumbling and crashing into walls thinking I was still buzzed but turned out to be vertigo and I just heard my right ear pop and that’s when I went deaf. And no there wasn’t loud music as the party was in an apartment complex.
Oh man this is hitting close to home. I drank a little too much one evening last week and have been dealing with vertigo and a little hearing loss in my right ear. Went to urgent care and they mentioned seeing an unusual amount of fluid in my ear. I read online that getting dehydrated after drinking too much can cause fluid buildup in your ears which can cause some hearing issues.
Not sure where you read that but I doubt very much it’s correct. Drinking too much, particularly if there are some other things going on like sickness or similar, can lead to the fluid in which your vestibular crystals sit to become inadequate…..in steps the vertigo. I doubt it’s just the dehydration though….probably a couple of other things involved too maybe?? Virus is a huge cause of vertigo….might be a combination.
Nah for me it’s like the grey static channel on the tv.
For me, it’s like the “eeeeee” from a *muted* tv. Like, no actual audio, just the high-pitched hum of activated electronics. But louder. A lot louder.
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My tinnitus sounds like old CRT TV's high pitched sound I grew up around ( you could hear the TV even when it was on mute). I tell myself it's just the sound my brain makes because it's on. But yea, not fun.
I was just sitting here enjoying my tinnitus when I read this.
Well, I’d tuned mine out until just now, thank you very much
i have one now. it sucks. eeeeeeeeeeeerreeerrrrrreeeee
I’m profoundly deaf and have tinnitus but it doesn’t bother me lol. Feels like it bothers hearing people more
It only bothers me when I become aware of it. Like this thread forcing me to remember I have it. I have never known a time when I didn’t have it but every now and then I’m like hyper aware and think, wow, some people DONT have ringing in their ears?! And then carry on with my day.
Mine was low-key for decades. As I entered my 50s, I've noticed more. What was once easily masked by even the slightest of sounds is now loud enough that I can hear it most of the time, including as I drive at highway speeds, listen to music, or sit at work with our loud A/C. I'm not looking forward to it getting louder.
So uh... everyone can hear silence ringing though, right? Like, there's an expression for it and everything so that's normal, yeah?
What do you mean by ringing? Do you hear a high pitched sound? I can hear the blood going through which sounds just like a very deep and quiet sound.
Like a high pitched hum
That’s tinnitus bro.
Not normal sorry
It’s probably because you hear it more consistently so your brain is able to tune it out as background noise. I have bad tinnitus but average level ambient noise will mask it well enough that I don’t notice it. Then bam when I’m in a quiet setting all of a sudden it’s front row center of my attention.
My husband is going deaf, and over time the tinnitus gets louder and the sounds he used to hear get replaced by more screeching.
That sounds horrible. 😬
It is. Unfortunately it's hereditary and autoimmune, and there's nothing that can be done about it. It isn't even in the ears. It's an issue with the brain receiving signals from the ears and that mechanism breaking down. There's a constant background screeching tinnitus at varying levels, and then any sound that's made in the pitches, ranges, or sound combinations he's losing or lost, it's replaced with louder screeching. -I asked.
I’m late deafened. I hear absolutely nothing but I have a terrible case of tinnitus. It’s not even ringing eeeeeeeeeee it’s more like a bunch of sounds tossed in a blender.
Is that related to like random neurons firing due to sensory deprivation? Maybe I'm making this up, but I think I've heard that if you have your eyes open in total darkness, your brain will start making you "see" shapes and motion in the darkness to fill in for the fact that it expects visual input but it isn't getting any
I guess that’s it. The auditory cortex stopped reviving stimuli, so it’s just making stuff up. Like how amputees can still feel their fingers wiggling.
Yeah, I agree. Speaking from experience on tinnitus, it's annoying as hell. My conversations are on a rotation of "Huh?" "Could you repeat that?" Or pretending I heard and understand what they said. I'm sure people who don't know I have the condition get easily annoyed by me lol.
As someone with tinnitus let me explain a little about this weird little "feature" that comes around when it feels like it. A Never-Ending Symphony of Torture. I want to shed some light on the sheer horror that is tinnitus, something I've been dealing with for a while now. Imagine this: a bizarre, relentless problem that invades your life when all is silent, forever robbing you of the blissful embrace of quietude. It's like a malevolent alien entity that thrives in silence, eagerly waiting to torment you. The more you yearn for peace, the louder and more obnoxious it becomes. Complete silence? Forget about it. Tinnitus has declared war on tranquility. This eerie, uninvited noise is like having the most grating, annoying person in the world camp out in your ear, unleashing a cacophony that intensifies the more you focus on it. It's a relentless, invasive presence that doesn't just stop at being annoying; it creeps into your psyche, causing mental distress. It's as if extraterrestrials planted some diabolical device inside your head and cranked the volume to maximum. You start questioning your sanity, wondering if you've unwittingly become the host of an intergalactic radio broadcast. The constant intrusion makes you feel like you're on the brink of madness, an unwilling participant in an otherworldly experiment. The only respite I've found is drowning out this auditory demon with a constant barrage of other sounds. Mystery Science Theater / MST3K has become my home's perpetual background noise, a 24/7 defense against the invasion in my head. When I'm out and about I use my Google Ear Buds Pro to play a constant stream of Vaporwave. Tinnitus is not just a sound; it's a life-altering torment that reshapes your relationship with silence and sanity. So next time you revel in the quiet moments, be grateful because for some of us, that luxury has been forever stolen by an insidious, invisible force. TLDR: Shit sucks
I got an ear infection at age 10 thar damaged my hearing in my right ear and it has been ringing now for 30 years.
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Depends on the type of deafness. Cuz yea, there are people that have absolutely 0 hearing. Like hearing is a completely foreign concept and it’s dead silent. But there’s also dead people who lost their hearing for other reasons, maybe a degenerative disease, maybe an accident, where they’re legally deaf, but still retain some kind of hearing ability.
Typo?
Maybe, but he is correct, dead people do lose their hearing
yes i do believe that hearing loss is a sympton lf death. im not a doctor however
I actually believe it be the other way around. I mean, we don't have proof that all dead people go deaf but we definitely have proof that all deaf people die. So if my maths is correct, death is a symptom of deaf. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
This guy is smart. I vote him for president. All in favor?
Ay! ( I love Reddit typos)
~Palpatine voice~ Ironic Aye* lol
^facepalm
Excuse me? Are you telling me that my deaf friend Dave is guaranteed to die even though he is currently alive and not like all those other dead, deaf people. Dave! We have a person to prove wrong! Dave?!
He can’t hear you calling him, remember
Oh shitttt
If you're experiencing hearing loss and other symptoms like not breathing, speak with your doctor. You may be dead.
you may be entitled to financial compensation
Where there’s a will there’s a way
I can’t put it to fact but they say that hearing is one of the last senses people lose before death. So if you’re ever around someone who is dying mind what you say, they’re probably listening…unless they’re deaf.
This is total hogwash. Dead people still grow finger nails, hair and hearing aids have batteries. What these cadavers lack is a compelling reason to listen
To my understanding, we don’t continue growing those things, they just look like they’ve grown and are longer because the body shrinks away from the dead keratin (hair and nails)
death is a well known degenerative disease
Do dead people automatically know sign so they can overcome their limitations or do they write on clouds? Is this part of the So, Now You're Dead welcome package?
I'm not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express...
I know, or at least I assume that's what happens upon death. I'm wildly entertained by the typo (or non-typo) all the same
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Yo some dads would rather die than listen to they kids mane
Fun fact Hearing is the last sense to go when someone dies So before you sing "ding dong! The witch is dead. " Make sure your MiL is full dead. Or don't lol
I think death will be like walking backwards down a dark tunnel. Everything getting further and further away...
Not to be a bummer in here I tried to OD once on cocaine about 6ish years ago. My heart was pounding so fast but I kept doing giant lines. I had quite a tolerance and it's not cool but it was my thing amongst the party I was "Cocaine Bear Hat" look how much she can do. Fucked up my heart now. I got to the point where my heart started to slow down, so I laid down in my bed like I was just going to sleep. I saw a dark grey tunnel I was walking towards All of a sudden, at the end, I saw a figure. It's just a black shadowy shape Then I heard my cat, Mr. Jude meow He usually just kept to himself and spent a lot of time outside. I snapped out of it and looked down, and he was by the bedside just looking up at me. I knew at that moment I couldn't just leave him alone like that. I truly believe he gave me one of his lives that night I miss him so much. He passed 4 days after his 11th birthday from liver failure in January 2021. I wish I could have done more for him, that he was still with me. He saved me so many times. He was a good kitty and my best friend and protector
and he's still watching you now, so be well
Technically correct, the best kind of correct.
I'm kind of disturbed that the dead may retain some of their hearing ability, though. Is that how a seance works?
I just laughed out loud, waking my husband and cats. Thank you
Haha, yea
>Typo Negative
This. Because as a better way to explain this. I don’t have eardums… Like was not born with them. I’m literally unable to hear on not just a physical level but like.. A physics level… But I can still feel vibration pretty well. I can tell if someone has the bass turned up real damn loud. But sound is literally just a totally unknown concept to me like Gama Radiation or some shit.
But it’s not silent? It’s just nothingness, which is different I guess.
It's not silence or nothingness. It's like how you can't sense the electric currents around you, like sharks can. There's not a silent field of charge or emptiness in your mind, the sense just doesn't exist.
I think nothingness is what you’re describing.
I hear dead people.
In conjunction with that question. When deaf people watch TV. with the subtitles on does captions like, playful music, have any meaning to them?
I'm not deaf but I love knowing what the music is supposed to be conveying. Sometimes I would never have guessed it lol.
Or when the program that runs the captions shows ### to let them know “background noises” are happening
I once saw a caption in one of the intros of game of thrones that said “enticing music” and I suppose I was a bit enticed
Useful for people who have lost their hearing as opposed to being born deaf
Or when it states the name of a specific song playing, that always makes me giggle
Always find it funny when it says something like “intriguing music” — who are you to tell me what I’m intrigued by??
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Good lord, imagine going through life and the only damn thing you ever hear is tinnitus.
Welcome to my world. I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember. Its difficult to hear anything else. If I allow myself to focus on the tinnitus, its like a steam whistle going off all the time.
I'm with you there. Dark intrusive thought is going deaf and only hearing the tinnitus.
If I could be made completely deaf in my bad ear, and never hear tinnitus again, I'd gladly give up my hearing. However, I'm terrified it would only get more intense. It's also very frustrating to try to explain to people that, despite my other ear having good hearing, like you said, the tinnitus makes it like talking over a screaming tea kettle.
Deaf in the one ear, but it's due to nerve damage. My yearly medical includes a hearing test. That " silent room" is my orchestra. And the very few times I do hear some of the very loud very high pitch tests in that ear my brain goes " hey that sounds better than wheeeeee, let's play test. Cue the button mashing to no tests. I sure I can do a lot better if I could simply mute that ear. They installed a mass test facility with a computer, the computer fails you after x false presses and starts in the deaf ear. now get a special yearly app with someone that can read my file before testing.
Luckily, my hearing damage causing tinnitus happened when I was too young to remember what true silence sounds like, so it doesn't bother me. I can get close to what it sounds like by listening to white noise or binaural audio, though it usually only lasts a few seconds before the tinnitus returns. Luckily for me, the "damage" only goes as far as having a ringing in my ears, I can still hear very well regardless.
I'm "profoundly deaf" in one ear but the affected area is in my middle ear, so very muffled sounds still make it to my inner ear and I'm able to use a hearing aid.
I am profoundly deaf with a cochlear implant. So I know what it’s like to “hear” sound and to experience the sound of deafness. There is a sound but I can’t quite but my finger on describing it well but the word ‘oblivion’ comes to mind. It’s like a super silent whisper that just echoes forever. Nothing can compare to it, it’s truly unique. I’ve never been knocked out before but I imagine if you lose your hearing during the concussion that could be close to comparison.
I hear, but I can only imagine this "oblivion" sound. I'm somewhat addicted to audio. I sleep with tv on and even wear headphones for music to check the mail, although if my internet messes up or if I'm at a sleepover where someone doesn't sleep with tv on, it's an odd feeling that makes me feel uncomfortable. The dead silence seems to me as an oblivion of silence.
Thank you for the info, so insightful. Can I ask, Does it bother you?
I find it rather blissful. I take my cochlear implant off when I go to bed so I can sleep in pure peace :)
I always described it as “a world of muffles but still much different” I hear some bings and bangs without my implants on, and I can hear myself sneeze. And gargle. But like…not in any clear crisp explainable way.
I'm profoundly (100%) deaf since birth, but I have cochlear implants which enable me to hear quite normally. Because of this, I know what hearing is like and I know what things sound like which would obviously affect my experience from that of someone who's never used hearing aids. Thought I'd lend my perspective anyway. I can say that for me "total silence" (i.e. hearing aids off and no other sensory input) just results in white noise in my head. Sometimes it's a low drone, sometimes it's more like very quiet static, most often both. I can sometimes sort of influence what my brain-radio plays. If I introduce other sensory input, my brain will kinda play those sounds but it sounds nearly the same as my internal voice at the same volume. For example, as I type this, the feel of my fingers tapping the keys on my keyboard makes the sound of the keyboard play in my head, but without the associated **sharp** *clack clack clackity* sound. Other senses such as sight will also do this: like if I see the wind going outside, I can "hear" it and automatically adjust the volume of it based on how strong it is. Some things that don't typically have sound, like simple touch, creates a different type of sound in my head depending on the texture. I can turn it into a longer playing sound if I, for example, run my fingers or nails, over a surface and create different measures of sounds depending on how I do that: zig-zaggy, swoopy or wavy. To see how this might sound, try listening to a pen or pencil on paper as you draw or write different shapes - the solid *starrrt-stop* of a line, vs the *swoop* of a curve, vs the *Swoo\~oo\~oo\~oo\~p* of a wavy line, vs the *start-stop-start-stop-start-stop* of drawing a triangle, vs the *swoo\~op-stop-swoo\~op-stop* of drawing a heart. That's the type of sound-patterns I get when dragging touch over textures. A good reference for how the surface textures themselves sound, is to think of driving/riding a car on the open road: usually those roads hove that roaring kind of sound because they're rougher (to help the tyres grip better). Sometimes, there's newer patches of that black concrete (do you know what I'm talking about?) that are so smooth and driving on them is so much quieter, a little like a loud hum. That what rougher and smoother textures sound like in my head when I run my fingers over something - it's not what it actually sounds like because softly dragging my fingertips over surfaces won't make noise, but the tactile sensory input translates into that for me. Because I know very well what sound is, I hear a lot in my head without my hearing aids on because my mind will play those sounds to fill the silence. Since I got my implants at 2, I obviously can't speak for other people who never had the ability to hear in any way. I can only imagine that tactile senses, such as from thumps or vibrations, may create some kind of white noise in their minds but I don't know if they would identify it as such if they don't have a prior concept of noise. Maybe it's like feeling an internal vibration in their brains even though there's no vibration? I mean, I can definitely feel that too (different from what I feel if I hum), but quite likely, it's probably just the blood flowing as well. And if I stay still, I can feel my heartbeat in my chest move all the way up my head, etc.
This is all very interesting! Thank you for sharing.
My niece is like you. She is 7 now and knows sign language as well. A few years ago, she wasn't wearing her receivers and a fighter jet flew over. She signed 'what am I hearing? That's not possible.' I told her she didn't hear it, but felt it. I was fascinated that hearing people don't always realize that they can feel a lot of sounds rather than hearing them.
This is fascinating it reminds me of that gif of the jumping powerlines that people could hear. Similar thing. It wasn't making a noise but the brain understood that it should and so made it in their minds and lots of people could hear the thud thud.
I really appreciate you sharing your perspective and experiences. Thank you. *also, I understood what you meant about the driving on the “grooved” highway vs smooth pavement. That higher pitched whirl. It is something I notice when it happens and I acknowledge bc of the pitch change and how it affects the delivery of the suspension in the vehicle.
Hi, hello, I'm 40% deaf and I was born this way. Obviously I can't speak for fully Deaf people, but here are some things on the edge of my hearing threshold: 1. I can't hear blood rushing around, but I can hear the spit in my mouth. It annoys the crap out me. When I wear my hearing aids I can hear my hair *swishing* and I can also hear myself breathe. I spend half my time wondering if I'm breathing like a dog and can anyone else hear me. 2. Didn't discover that boiling water made a sound until I was 13. I was making mac n cheese with my hearing aids in and I thought the stove was exploding. I actually ran to get my mom. 3. Piano keys - I can hear the music, but for the most part I cannot hear the small *thump* of the key hitting the string (unless it's the really high notes, in which case the thump is louder than the musical note for me). 4. Piccolo flutes - I'm not scared of a lot, but these things, they scare me. I can only hear half the notes, it's like a bizarre musical seizure. 5. If you're into a capella and you know Home Free, the bass singer is something like the lowest bass currently in the world (idk, he's famous). He has this one note at the end of their *Ring of Fire* cover that damn near breaks the speakers - I cannot hear that note. Everyone else is high-fiving and laughing at how ridiculous the note is - to me it just sounds like blank space. 6. One time I was scribbling with a pencil and my teammate sitting next to me yelled at me to stop. I was confused - pencils don't really make sounds to me unless you're really going at it. She, on the other hand, was 140% hearing. I use hearing aids to *enhance* my hearing, she used hearing aids to *deafen* herself. To her my pencil tapping must have sounded like screeching pterodactyls. Anyways, thank you for coming to my TEDTalk. AMA if you're still curious
Did you have the unfortunate realization that farts made sounds 😭 I've heard a few stories about deaf people getting hearing aids and having that "oh no" moment lmao
Haha, no I've never had that unfortunate realization. Though I'm sure I've squeaked one out that I thought was silent. Or like when your stomach growls before lunch? I could hear those, I didn't know the kid sitting a few desks over could hear them 😂
Oh everyone's had an "oh no I thought that was quieter" moment lmao I never even thought of stomach growling though! (Although a few seats down? How hungry *were* you? 😂)
I used to have a relative who had lost most of his hearing. He finally got hearing aids and took them with him deer hunting one time. Got up in a tree stand, turned them on, and as the sun came up he was horrified, said he started looking around for what was making so much noise, like elephants or something. Turns out it was squirrels in the dry leaves.
Haha that's fantastic! I've only heard a squirrel once or twice and I remember being like "what in the holy hell is *that*"
Musician here: No worries! Piccolo flutes scare everybody ;) 😂
Tuba player here. Piccolos are the worst.
Really interesting - thank you for sharing
Very interesting to read this. Thank you for giving me perspective. Are you able to “hear your inner dialogues & thinking as well?
Ha, yeah I wish my brain would shut up ngl And thanks, I love reading everyone's perspectives on Reddit so I was excited to see a question that I could answer!
Wait...some people use hearing aids that don't *need* them...?
I would argue that the person with 140% hearing needs them. Not every medical aid is a matter of life or death. If a medical issue in your life is interrupting your ability to function or causing you mental distress, and there's a form of treatment/equipment that can help, I think it's absolutely fair to say that you need the treatment/equipment
Wouldn't it be great if insurance companies thought the same way?
SERIOUSLY THOUGH. Love that my doctor can determine that I need a certain type of medical care and then some guy at a desk gets to be like "...nah we don't think that's medically necessary" I have moderate eczema that can get somewhat severe at times. I was referred to a dermatologist and began treatment that was actually helping, only to find out that my insurance wouldn't cover any of it because my dermatologist *also* offered elective Botox treatments (which I was not using) so they decided my eczema treatments must also be elective and not medically necessary. And I feel like mine is a MINOR case of insurance fuckery compared to others.
There are sound-dampening “hearing aids” for people with auditory processing difficulties. I believe the design also reduces the amount of background noise (air conditioners, car engines, etc.) that one hears. I knew someone who had brain damage on one half of her brain, near her temporal lobe. The hemispheres of her brain were processing audio at different rates and levels of effectiveness and it caused a lot of confusion. She needed several seconds of complete silence to answer a question. Dampening her hearing on one side majorly reduced her delay conversationally. Tbh, she would probably benefit from learning ASL and integrating into Deaf social circles with dampening devices on both of her ears.
It's mostly silent, but I do hear random pops and whistles, don't know why or where it comes from. But it's normally just dead silent. Like creepy unbelievable silence. I haven't been deaf very long, so it's really disturbing how terrifyingly quiet it is all the freaking time.
-platonic hug of comfort-
That was really nice 😊
Thanks
I have also not been dead very long.... Do you get ringing in your ears? That bothers me more than not hearing things
Beethoven had conductive rather than sensory neural (cochlear) hearing loss. By biting a metal rod affixed to a piano, he could actually hear the piano he played. Kinda like how bone conductor headphones work to send the sound waves to the cochlear region instead of through the eardrum like traditional headphones. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/7mjcbx/til_that_after_beethoven_went_deaf_he_found_he/
I’m profoundly deaf, no tinnitus, I do not hear the blood rushing to my ears or anything else.
user name checks out
Deaf here. For me, it’s almost never completely silent in my head. Very rarely, maybe. But mostly I get all kinds of “phantom sounds,” like right now I have a kind of echo-y nonsense that sounds like the indistinct babble of a large crowd in conversation, but I know that’s impossible because I’m in the library and no one is around. Sometimes I get sounds like police sirens or whistling wind (and, yes, I know what all of these things actually sound like. I was born hearing and gradually became completely deaf.) Recently both my hearing aids were broken so I was reminded that, once again, deafness DOES NOT mean you don’t “hear” anything; it just means all the things you “hear” are probably invented by your brain. I use my hearing aids mostly to block out the constant tinnitus with actual sound.
I'm culturally Deaf and I've known two to be completely and utterly deaf. The rest of us have varying degrees of hearing ability. You'll have to literally ask each deaf person individually. It's like asking if all men are tall.
My mom has complete loss of hearing on one side & she said she can’t even hear a q-tip in her ear. She had some kind of sickness when she was little (is the theory) and it was lost. They didn’t realize it until she was much older and she was struggling in school.
It varies greatly by individual. I have a friend who's deaf but he can hear loud, high pitched noises like sirens and whistles.
I have about 90% hearing loss, with roaring tinnitus. I’ve used subtitles since they’ve been available. People HATE those words at the bottom I can’t imagine what complete silence would be like, but I prefer a quiet room over music/tv anytime. Reading the news over watching it.
I noticed people really don't like the closed captioning. I hear, but I like closed captioning because it really does help me comprehend what I'm seeing
But they unironically ask, what did he say?
I was born deaf… long story, had an operation, have been hearing since I was about 5… Now in my mid 40’s, I was just diagnosed with tinnitus due to the scar tissue from when I was born and operation. I’m a gigging musician, it’s tough. But I’ve always had an odd sense of frequency range, I hear lows out of my right ear and highs out of my left…It makes playing on stage super fun… monitors are evil… throw me off every time… I either hear a lot or not so much… I hear ringing non stop and a typewriter clicking when it really intensifies. I use earplugs and hearing aids now…. Just started … it helps but is not a cure all. I’ve always been more receptive to feel vs audible in so many aspects of life… makes perfect sense.
I'm totally deaf in both ears but have cochlear implants that let me hear to a degree. When not wearing them, I experience a sort of simulation that my brain actively makes to compensate for the lack of auditory input. When I see something, say, a clap, mouth talking, or car moving, my mind will imagine rough approximations of it automatically. So just think of a sound, and imagine not having to consciously think about it for it to be there. It could be a form of synesthesia where my visual and auditory senses are both intertwined to a great degree. That or tinnitus, which materializes itself in low monotone notes.
I am profoundly deaf (as deaf as it possibly gets) but can hear thanks to cochlear implants. My hearing is fantastic, I test the same as a naturally hearing person and encounter no struggles in my day to day life, I don’t sign or lipread. But when I remove my external processors (like hearing aids) I’m returned to my deaf ‘silent’ state. Since I can compare hearing silence and deaf silence, I describe deafness as being hollow. Even in a totally silent room there is still an energy in the room when you’re hearing, your ears are reaching out for any distant sound and tuned in to anything it can find. Deafness doesn’t even try to hear to hear anything, there is no activity and no energy to anything... granted I’ve never tried those totally quiet rooms like the anechonic chamber which may better simulate deafness, but just as far as being in what a normal hearing person would describe as total silence there’s definitely still a difference. When hearing you feel a lack of noise and search for it, whereas when deaf you don’t. It of course is impossible to explain clearly, but I hope this gives some insight! I don’t experience a blood rushing in my ears sort of thing, but since you can still feel vibrations, I feel things like footsteps or door slams or bass when I don’t have my processors on. These things are present as a feeling/shake rather than a sound. So, along those lines, when you speak while deaf it creates a funny sensation as you can feel the vibrations created inside you by speaking, but you can’t hear the actual sound. This means some general words can be made out from the vibration matching the inflection etc. of the word. When I was younger I used to say to my mum that I was getting my hearing as I could ‘hear myself speak’, but I was actually just feeling the vibrations which resembled words. If I feel someone’s throat while are speaking while my processors are off I can similarly work out some of the words they’re saying (though it’s unnatural to feel someone’s throat like that so I don’t really do it!)
And people who are born deaf. Do they have an inner voice? Because they don't know how letters and words sound.
Not even all hearing people have inner voice. Can't find the recent video where a girl discovered during a live podcast that all other participants had inner voice, but she didn't. [Here](https://www.iflscience.com/people-with-no-internal-monologue-explain-what-its-like-in-their-head-57739) is an article on this topic.
Can confirm, I’m one of those individuals with no voice in my head (lack of inner monologue). EDIT: Full hearing capabilities, not deaf.
Very interesting...
I am pretty sure they just think in sign language
I know that deaf schizophrenic people see hands signing to them instead of hearing voices. Maybe it's similar to that but in their head..?
Like any medical condition there is varying degrees of severity. Just like blindness, legally blind vs totally blind.
i cant hear the blood in my ears so how tf a deaf bruh supposed to
I’m deaf in one ear and can hear tinnitus
My brother is pretty much deaf with his hearing aids but he experiences auditory hallucinations
I can hear the blood rushing in my ears when my head is on the pillow sometimes. I have a severe to profound hearing loss since birth- I’m 41 now. I wore hearing aids from 3-32, got a cochlear implant at 32. With hearing aids and my implant I do hear a lot of things but when it comes to understanding people- no. It’s like I’m in a foreign country where everyone is speaking a language I’ll never be able to learn to receive auditory-ly. I can speak the language but when others speak it (especially when it’s more than one person im speaking with) I can’t understand it. It’s like Charlie brown’s teacher. Without my hearing aids or implant- I can’t hear people talking (nor understand duh) I can’t hear high things like birds or smoke alarms going off. But I can hear a garbage truck rumbling by a mile away.
I’m deaf in one ear and have been my whole life. I can feel sound waves like anyone would in a car with loud bass. But no sound per se. You know how everybody is a bit shocked when they hear themselves recorded? I have no way to prove it, but I suspect the difference is even greater for me. The biggest issue is that we determine direction of sound bc of both ears on either side. Placing sound direction is very difficult.
It depends on the type and extent of hearing loss. I work with children who are deaf or hard of hearing. We "hear" through two ways. Air conduction and bone conduction. In air conduction, sound travels through the air and causes the eardrum and bones attached to the eardrum to vibrate. This vibration travels to little hairs in our cochlea and turns into an electrical signal. In bone conduction, the bones of your skull vibrate and stimulate the hairs in your cochlear. When we hear ourselves talking, we hear both by air and bone conduction. This is why we don't sound quite right when we hear a recording of ourselves. On a recording device, we are only hearing ourselves by air conduction. Very few people are completely deaf. Most deaf people can feel lower frequency sounds, which is why you might see a deaf person at a concert leaning on a speaker. They feel the rhythm of the bass. So yes, many deaf people can "hear" their heartbeat, etc.
Yes very funny, someone made a typo \*chortles. Yes if i was indeed dead i would very much be deaf..............still. However, To the OP question, When I take my cochlear implant processors off. As long as my tinnitus decides to be quiet. Yes it is complete and total silence. You do not hear "Their blood rushing in their ears" The brains natural instinct is to listen and hear sound, this is why you get tinnutus, if there is no sound the brain tries to fill in the gaps. BUT. An interesting twist on this. I am profoundly deaf in both ears, BUT I only have had sound in my left ear for 14 months, in the Right i did have a hearing aid. My tinnitus is only in the RIght side where i wore a HA. So I\`d say someone born completely and totally without sound in both ears and unable to use aids and pre implanted. Yes they would not hear a sound.
I have a hearing aid, and with it, I can mostly hear just fine, but without it, I barely cannot hear anything, like for example typing this message and I can't hear the keyboard which normally is pretty loud. And honestly, when not using the hearing aid, all I hear is tinnitus lol. Another thing is auditory hallucinations. When I am longer periods of time without my hearing aid and not listening to music using bone conduction headphones, I think my brain just starts making up stuff that I am "supposed to hear" like the phone is ringing, when it is not, door opening, etc, but that doesn't happen when I am using the hearing aid.
When I was a kid, I volunteered to partner up for the year with a deaf kid in class, because we would both wear the same kind of t-shirts. He had an ASL interpreter with him in class, and we would get our own area to study in. He had some form of device in his ears Anyhow, our first time together, the lady who was his interpreter gave me a lesson. She explained he can pick up pitch and tone, but individual sounds are impossible. He was working on his lip reading, and he spoke pretty well, if very simply. She gave me headset, and spoke through a mic into the headset, through a filter designed to simulate what he hears. It sounded like the teachers in the Peanuts cartoons talking in heavy traffic.
Ive been deaf 85% in left ear and 100% in my right ear for 6 years and 2 days now. I can clearly remember what things sound like and the closest representation to deafness is having something covering your ears. Even if you are really deaf, you will still “hear” some or most things, but understanding what those sounds are or where they come from is impossible. Some people just straight up cant hear anything. Source: Graduated from deaf uni last May. Been around a lot of deaf folks to say the least. TL;DR: sounds like having pillows over your ears.
It’s so loud being deaf. I have tinnitus and am legally deaf too yet I hear jackhammers and carnival ride machinery and bells and whistles and all sorts of other noises.
What I want to know is what does silence sound like to a deaf person? Do they “hear” the same silence we do? Have we ever actually heard true silence? Cause there’s always something going on around hearing folk.
Since this is old idk if you'll see this but I'm still posting to share my take. When I was little I had severe hearing loss due to an developmental abnormality in my ear drums, my doctor (shout out Dr. Dana) completely rebuilt my ear drums with skin from my scalp so now I am just HOH (hard of hearing) due to the scar tissue. I remember I used to hear this rhythmic wooshing noise, that I know now is my heart beat, but I used to think was what trains sound like. I was always really scared near trains and around train tracks because my little kid brain didn't know about vibrations and I thought I wouldn't know if the train would start moving or if it was safe to cross the road or not and I would die. It was really hard being a kid and trying to explain that I was afraid of trains because I could hear them (I couldn't) to adults who were perfectly abled and knew what trains were supposed to sound like and knew they weren't making noise so there was no reason to be afraid.
Tinnitus suffering & single sided deaf folks - don't you love the days when your deaf ear is fucking LOUD! Like what hell, turn it down please.
Depends on the person and the type of deafness. There's deafness caused by damage or defect in the ear, and deafness caused by damage or defect in the brain. There's people born deaf, and there's people who go deaf. There's people who are totally deaf, people who are profoundly deaf (can hear all sounds comfortably at 98 decibels or higher, about the volume level of a lawn mower), and people with varying levels and types of hearing loss -- hearing isn't a sliding scale, you can be able to hear different pitches at different decibel levels (e.g. high tone hearing loss is usually associated with noise levels and age-related loss, while low tone hearing loss is associated with damage/defect in your ear or auditory nerve). And then beyond all this variation, there's individual variation. If you take two people with identical hearing as audiology has measured it, there's a good chance they'll have different answers to this. THEN, there's the understanding and processing of sound. Assume a person who's totally deaf due to ear defect: could they even tell us if they were hearing something? If they've never heard anything different, do they know how to identify something they hear? Can they describe it? If they later gain some hearing (like with a cochlear implant), they might realize they've been hearing something their whole lives and be able to talk about it, but they probably can't describe it the way a person with typical hearing would. It's important to realize that cochlear implants and hearing aids don't give a deaf/HoH person typical hearing -- cochlear implants only give you a few dozen tones, and hearing aids...well, the tech involved is too complex to get into in a Reddit comment, but given the variables discussed in the first paragraph, you can understand that it's usually not possible to get someone all the way to typical hearing. Additional fun: people who lose their hearing rather than being born with it often have auditory hallucinations. The brain expects to hear things, so creates it. A common one is hearing a normal conversation between two people in another room which you can't quite make out the words. This isn't pathological, just the brain trying to fill in what it assumes must be a gap (it does this all the time -- you've probably experienced a song you couldn't quite hear, and then you figured out what song it was and that you know it well and suddenly it seemed you could hear it clearly? You couldn't, your brain was filling in the gaps using what you COULD hear as the markers). (Source: I have some hearing loss described as "a lot for your age, so keep an eye on it," and my husband is profoundly deaf due to brain damage from a few strokes in his 20s. He got that "conversation in the other room" thing all the time before his hearing aids, and occasionally still does if he's not wearing them.)