The Hum - or: I'm officially a freak now

[East Street Trader]

Well, you could get something which measures sound and take readings where you hear the hum and where you don't.

I'm not sure how far that takes you - beyond reassuring yourself that the sound is really there. But if you went a step further and tried to map out the area (including your flat) where the hum can be detected then you might be able to locate a central point and look about for a possible source.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
Well, you could get something which measures sound and take readings where you hear the hum and where you don't.

I'm not sure how far that takes you - beyond reassuring yourself that the sound is really there. But if you went a step further and tried to map out the area (including your flat) where the hum can be detected then you might be able to locate a central point and look about for a possible source.

Yes, I'm planning to do a bit of research of that type. I plan to take note of the hours when I hear the hum clearly. I'll also try to map it, although this is a bit difficult since commonly the hum is only heard (or best heard) in rooms - so I have to find rooms in the surrounding where I can check it.
A good test will be from Thursday on, when I'll be for a day in Vienna, another day in Madrid and then in Seville for a week.

But if I really experience the same "hum" others do, I won't be able to locate a source. No one has, and there's even two German organizations for affected people that try with more resources than I have. And no, there is no UFO and other pseudo stuff there, they seem to be pretty reasonable. They mapped reports of the hum all over Germany: http://www.igzab.de/Auswertung/Brumm...rummkarte.html

[Kidlicious]

Good luck. It sounds horrible for you. I hope it all works out.

[Sir Og]

AFAIK if you have high blood preasure you can hear something simmilar to a hum (or a hiss). In this case there is no actual sound but you definately hear a noise. Maybe you should examine this possibility aswell.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Sir Og
AFAIK if you have high blood preasure you can hear something simmilar to a hum (or a hiss). In this case there is no actual sound but you definately hear a noise. Maybe you should examine this possibility aswell.

I rather have low blood pressure. I really hope my travel helps me to diagnose the problem better.

@Kid: Thanks for your sympathy.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

very interesting, and no I don't hear anything...

maybe with the special kind of hearing, you can find out how to make money this way, if it's useful for anything I bet you could charge a lot

[Wezil]

I suspect an internal cause.

Something along these lines (from wiki):

The tensor tympani muscle making the eardrum tremble
As of 2005, a scientific hypothesis suggests the Hum originates on the eardrums of affected individuals by the tensor tympani muscle trembling. (The tensor tympani is a muscle within the inner ear for tightening the eardrum.) The 40-page hypothesis can be read in German on the pages of the German Association for Research about the Hum, IGZAB (InteressenGemeinschaft Zur Aufklärung des Brummtonphänomens). See: http://www.IGZAB.de . See de:Brummton-Phänomen.

[Heraclitus]

Re: The Hum - or: I'm officially a freak now

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
Argh, just about two hours ago I figured out that I'm a freak since November.

At the end of November I noticed a weird sound at night, a continuous humming, a bit like the bus motor when it's at the station right below our house. Yet that "bus" didn't go away after some seconds, it stayed.
I continued to hear the hum esp. at night, after 11PM, and early in the morning in the following weeks, while my g/f only said she could "possibly" hear it on the toilet. My brother, who visited us over Xmas, said he could also hear it a few times and once disturbed him when sleeping. Others didn't notice the hum at all.
I even bought an MP3 player (yes, I didn't have one before, maybe I was a freak already) just to be able to get to sleep better. I lept a day somehwere else, just in case, and it was not there. It's not me, no low frequency tinnitus (which would have been odd anyway, since the sound comes from outside) or hallucination, I was relieved. But what is the source? I suspected to be especially receptive to infrasound and thought about the vibration of some heating system or from the Sauna ventilation of my neighbours (we live in a flat). Or could it be electromagnetic fields, cell phones, WLAN - OMG, go get the tinfoil hat!

It seemed to be a bit better in January but yesterday it returned with might and now it disturbed me even during the day. So I googled "infrasound" and came across "The hum", a mysterious phenomenon that made it to the X-Files (The Taos hum), which seems to occur preferently at some locations (Baden Württemberg, Taos...). The descriptions fit my own experience perfectly, it seems only a very low percentage of people are able to registrate the sound, and no one can locate a source. But all the similar independent cases indicate that there must be a real basis for it.

I feel better now, since there are also others who experience the same. But I also feel bad because I'm one of small population that can sense this - I feel like I see ghosts, albeit real ghosts. I think my disposition to this is related to a generally high sensitivity when it comes to noise. My ENT doctor attested me a very fine receptorium. A TV in another flat can drive me crazy when other people are able to "turn off".

But now I'm a freak (with a sleeping problem).

I had a very similar experience about a month or two ago. I was desperate to find a source, I hear it in my room, I couldn’t concentrate because of it, couldn’t sleep properly. The thing is I heard the exact same sound but much less audible on university campus. I hasn’t ended since, but I have to concentrate to hear it and it isn’t audible anywhere else except in the general vicinity of my house anymore.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Well, go to Santa Fe when you do ... it's beautiful, and a lot of history of the early Spanish colonies occurred there. Also, lots of good food

Little known factoid: Santa Fe is the oldest city in the U.S.

[VetLegion]

Good suggestion about blood pressure, but if it was in your head you would be carrying it around with you, which seems not the case.

Perhaps it's a case of weird room acoustics. Like when you press a sea shell to your ear and you hear "the sea" but this time on a room scale?

If your attempts to isolate the source fail you can always make yourself less sensitive to sound. Consult an expert about details, but going to techno concerts should help.

[DirtyMartini]

sounds like other people (his brother) are hearing this as well. I'd bet it's some appliance making a noise that's at a volume/frequency that most don't notice, but you do. My old TV made this high pitched whine all the time -- I never noticed it until my roommate pointed it out. He couldn't stand it. Once he pointed it out, I could hear it, but it still didn't really bother me that much. I'm betting it's something similar.

[Wernazuma III]

OK, I'm in Seville now since several days: no hum in Vienna, Madrid nor Seville. In Graz at several places. I reallz have to map the hum better and find the source. I'm more confident now that it must be possible.

[Zoid]

You need to buy a Hummer of your own, maybe they will cancel each other out?










Sorry, I think I'm funny. But I really ain't... It sounds really annoying...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
So, either I'm victim of a psychological mass phenomenon that has an individual basis (since the cases are not due to publicity but independent) or there is some objective sound here that can be heard only by some.

There's a normal variation in the range of human hearing, both by age and between individuals. Not too implausible, then, that you just can hear a slightly wider range.

[Lancer]

...or that when you get older it will just go away.