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founded 1 year ago

Thunder in your head? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by arth@kbin.social to c/AskKbin@kbin.social

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A long while back I was hanging out with one of my sisters and she said that she hears thunder in her head when she gets startled.

Me: "Scuse me. What?"
Her: "You know. That thunder you hear when someone startles you."
Me: "Again. What?"
Her: "You don't hear thunder when someone startles you?"
Me: "Uh, no."
Her: "Oh. I thought that happened to everybody."

Is this a thing? Does this happen to anybody else out there? She did struggle with depression for much of her life. Could that have had something to do with it?

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[–] honung@kbin.social 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (23 children)

I believe this could be the result of the tensor tympani muscle activating, which it tends to do in fight-or-flight situations. It is located in your ear and has the purpose of lowering sounds that may otherwise make you deaf. I remember there was/is a subreddit called r/earrumblersassemble , consisting of people who claimed they could voluntarily "rumble" this muscle, and I happen to be one of them. Anyway, it does resemble a thundering noise, and it does activate when I'm startled.

[–] arth@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Hey this happens to me! Something in my ear just twitches for only a second or two and I hear a vibrating sound. It happens randomly and doesn't seem to be triggered by anything. It's also pretty rare. Maybe a couple times a month. I never thought that it sounded like thunder though and so didn't make the connection. This sounds (Haha. See what I did there?) like the most plausible explanation yet.

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

Ears are a pretty vague and complex system with weird acoustics that the brain usually filters out. Tinnitus can happen if the brain fails to filter out some change in the acoustics caused by damage or fatigue or who knows what.

But both a rumble and white flashes sound a lot like pain reactions. Maybe caused by sudden tensing. Brain just makes these weird sensations when it encounters odd inputs and they might be hard to describe.

Cold chills and hot burning blush and shudders and all kinds of funny little things often happen because of weirdest reasons.

[–] honung@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I think everyone experiences this every once in a while, but usually forgets about it. I think it's because the education is limited so it's hard to explain and normally it's not severe so you tend not to think about it.

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