Phantom Sounds .. Audio Halucinations?

i don't know why or how we experience tinnitus, but i do know why i experience auditory hallucinations. my doctor told me that my first auditory hallucinations were due to the fact i lost all of my residual hearing among other things.

because of that, my brain created various sounds and voices to compensate for the hearing i had lost.

in fact, it created 20 different voices (those of my family, friends and strangers. they were male and female voices).

my successive auditory hallucinations (that i experience when i'm manic or off of my antipsychotic) are caused by stress and mania.
 
Hear Again said:
i don't know why or how we experience tinnitus, but i do know why i experience auditory hallucinations. my doctor told me that my first auditory hallucinations were due to the fact i lost all of my residual hearing among other things.

because of that, my brain created various sounds and voices to compensate for the hearing i had lost.

in fact, it created 20 different voices (those of my family, friends and strangers. they were male and female voices).

my successive auditory hallucinations (that i experience when i'm manic or off of my antipsychotic) are caused by stress and mania.
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That actually makes applicable sense to explain my auditory hallucinations!

Oh, did I miss-spell "hallucinations" in the title of this thread? :Oops:
 
From time to time (every few months or so) I hear a "num num num num num num num num num" sound in my ears .. It always lasts about 24 hours or so ... I usually wake up with it, and I can bear it in the morning by paying attention to other things, but by late afternoon or early evening I'm SO tired of the "num num num num num num num num num num num" sound that I start playing music - I purposely choose music at that time that is DIFFERENT to what I normally listen to, and at a much higher volume. It drowns out the "num num num" sound, and often by the next morning it is gone. Sometimes I think it is all in my head. I don't know if this is any help, especially for those who are not wearing their hearing aids or getting any sound at all right now ...
 
Hey Darren!

I also have MS related hearing loss (and probably all those sinus and upper respiratory infections [and concerts] didn't help either). This is a little off topic I guess, but I am also not in a wheelchair or braces and can get around just fine except for the pain and slight loss of coordination. On bad days I use a cane, but that is as bad as my doc says it will get (I have relapsing/remitting that is very stable). I have had a few jerky people claim that I am faking it because I can still walk after 4 years... and that I'm faking being deaf because MS causes blindness and not hearing loss. Have you ever encountered this behavior? If so, how do you handle it aside from walking around with laminated letters from the doctors? Feel free to not answer if you rather not talk about it (or talk about it here).

Has anyone else evry been accused of faking being deaf?
 
oh and to actually add to the conversation :M

I hear phantom music all the time. I also hear the phone ringing when it is not. I hear people calling my name all the time. I hear ringing and whistling. I hear phantom cats meowing. I also hear a flute softly playing scales.

But I can't hear my cats purr without putting my ear to their neck. :(
 
I also had/have tinnitus. I somehow manage to deal with it at present since it isn't currently as severe as it used to be at one stage. I have no problem when it's just music or just a 'zzz' sound like it is right now. Voices and things like fire alarms are harder to deal with for me.
 
oh wow, what you guys are saying.. it's exactly what's always been happening to me!

Sometimes I get a buzzing noise in my ear that grows in volume til it's really earthshaking loud! Then it disappears. Other times, I get a sudden loud squeal/scream in my ear, for no reason. When that happens, I jump in fright and ask people "did you hear that noise??" but people look at me puzzled and say no, there's no noise.

Geesh! How amazing is that this is a common theme with deaf people,more so than with hearing people. :hmm:
 
Gemma said:
One of my best friends is suffering from musical hallucinations - she has been going crazy with hearing sounds - opera, rap, ghostly, rock, etc - she keeps asking us if we heard sounds - of course we dont - she is really taking it very hard and she had a sudden hearing loss as well. She went from hard of hearing to totally deaf practically overnight and she hsa not found any help yet.
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I used to suffer from that before I got implanted.
 
i got severe tinnitus as well, hard to describe mine, it changes all the time, musical, tweeting, blaring like someone's stuck down a car horn....actually had is SO BAD for the last 3 days due to study stress, ( stress woiuld trigger the worse) and right now its still there, not quiten down lot though its like a low drone, almost like that 1970's Supertramp song "child of vision" when the keyboard wraned it out in a smooth sky-riding high i cant really describe it (but yes i like that song) but not the tinnitus it seems. to grip my moods and i find it terrifying becuase Id lose my focus (study focus is a major one for me here)

when i get really loud Howl, or that higher pinched car horn sound that goes on for 24hr id try find the higher pinched chirp and focus on that the somehow the drone would die away, not suddenly but slowly.......

im hoping to get a CI this year and i have failiing hearing, and jsut sick and tired of this tinnitus but then again theres a risk of it getting worse....(but they say thats a Very small chance of it getting worse but it does happens)

cheers
 
this is an interesting thread. ive had to deal with the tinnitus for years. sometimes its a humming or whistling or buzzing or somtimes those combined in both ears and tends to get louder and softer as if someone is using a volume control. have even closed my ears off just to make sure thats what it was instead of something else. i thought it was just me at the time but once or twice ages ago i heard what i thought to be a radio going and someone talking like a news program. i walked around the house looking(was home alone) and even went outside trying to locate it and found nothing. was very soft. seemed to be low enough so i couldnt make out what it was "saying" even though i tried to. i had never heard of those auditory hallucinations before i started reading on this site. its nice to find out its not just me and im not alone with this kinda thing. :dunno:
 
i wanted to point out that auditory hallucinations are distinctly different from tinnitus. auditory hallucinations involve hearing voices that bring a person completely out of touch with reality and/or causes them to drift in and out of reality since hallucinations are never constant (meaning that they are intermittant in nature). tinnitus does not cause this even though it is indeed possible to hear faint voices. however, it is different because the person hearing these "voices" has not lost touch with reality.

i've experienced both. the first time i experienced auditory hallucinations was back in the early 90s. the second time was in 2006 after my diagnosis of bipolar. i still continue to hear voices (up to 4 of them) at a moderate level even though i am on meds. the difference though is without my meds, they would be severe and land me in the hospital just as they did 2 years ago.

i've also had tinnitus (severe) following both of my ci surgeries. i heard up to 8 different sounds that alternated with each other. just as i became used to one sound, it would change to another. i also heard faint talking, but could not understand what was said.

fortunately, my tinnitus is mild to moderate and only occurs when i am ill, tired or stressed.
 
My deaf daughter is hearing beeps & ringing

My daughter 18 yr. old daughter is deaf, has been since age 6 (from meningitis) She has a coclear implant on the rt side. She says she can hear ringing, or beeps....actually in the left ear...how is this possible, with her being totally deaf?
 
Beth6568 said:
My daughter 18 yr. old daughter is deaf, has been since age 6 (from meningitis) She has a coclear implant on the rt side. She says she can hear ringing, or beeps....actually in the left ear...how is this possible, with her being totally deaf?
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Tinnitus.

I wonder what happened to Mints?
 
I've had Auditory Hallucinations for ... well for as long as I can remember. In my case they're more complex than my tinnitus (general non-specific ringing, buzzing, ocean sounds) rather it's as if my brain is remembering a sound in a way that is so accurate that I can actually hear it. Typically this will be when I'm falling asleep/restless sleep or exhausted, or if I'm in a place that is completely quiet for a while.

In some cases the AHs will be spontaneous - a doorbell ringing, running water, a phone etc however I can also "trigger" them sometimes by focusing very hard on remembering a voice or piece of music etc ... and much like some people have a "photographic memory", I have an "auditory memory".

My Audiologists, ENTs and other medical professionals all say that I'm mentally fine and that these AHs are NOT a sign of a mental health issue or psychosis etc - rather its just my brain recreating sounds in the same way that some people can close their eyes and "see" a picture/painting/scene etc as if it was really there.

Of course if someone EVER hearing a voice/sound etc that makes them feel compelled to do something/hurt themselves or others etc - they need to see a mental health professional, doctor or go to the hospital immediately as this cane be a sign of a serious medical illness/ condition that needs to be accessed right away.
 
I have experienced this too! I wondered if I was going crazy, LOL! :D

I do have tinnitus as well, but the AH's I've gotten sound more like running water, or someone mumbling nonsense in another room. Once I've gotten orchestra music, too. The worst night had to be when I heard what sounded like an alarm. I woke up scared!
 
Here's a link:

Pseudo-Auditory Hallucinations

This seems to happen to me more frequently right after a big hearing loss. I had a big hearing loss recently. After the loss, the hallucinations have stopped. Maybe it's how my brain responds to the process?
 
Anyone who finds this thread interesting should check out the book [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Musicophilia-Tales-Music-Oliver-Sacks/dp/1400040817"]Musicophilia[/ame] by Oliver Sacks.
 
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sallylou said:
Here's a link:

Pseudo-Auditory Hallucinations

This seems to happen to me more frequently right after a big hearing loss. I had a big hearing loss recently. After the loss, the hallucinations have stopped. Maybe it's how my brain responds to the process?
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Yes, that is what happens to me too. I started with moderate loss (I think?) and then progressed to severe-profound. Each jump was accompanied by one night of the hallucinations, but never any more.
 
I guess I never really thought of what I was going through as Pseudo-Auditory Hallucinations. I hear music all the time. Different songs on a shuffled basis. Imagine having all the songs you've ever heard on one massive capacity CD and have it playing on shuffle and repeat. That's me. There are times I will have one song on one side and a different song on the other side. It gets disconcerting to hear Chris Tomlin's Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone on one side and Barney the nauseating purple dinosaur and his I Love You song.
 
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