Total Silence
By inertia4
@inertia4 (27961)
United States
July 21, 2016 12:03pm CST
Silence, is it really silent? Or does it have it’s own sound. Lets look at this quite closely. I think silence has a sound. Think about this for a moment. You are sitting in a room or some place isolated. You hear nothing, you just see and smell. Now, because there is no sound around us, we listen anyway. We always listen. So, we are always looking for some kind of sound to be made to hear.
As we listen to nothingness, we do tend to hear something. It’s like looking at something for a long time, we swear it moves or closes in on us. Same thing with hearing and listening. We get the feeling of silence closing in on us and as it does we hear like a hum. It does get louder the longer we try to listen to silence. It is strange, I know. And this post might seem strange. But I have experienced this myself before.
So I ask the question, does silence have a sound? Or does it just seem to have a sound? I think it is the mind creating something to hear within ourselves. And it stops when we stop concentrating so hard. Like after looking at something for a long time and seeing it move, we blink and it stops. Like an illusion. The human body and mind are quite amazing. The ears, in total silence do hallucinate. And we hear things that are not there. That is fact.
Although we mostly never experience complete and total silence, if we try and isolate ourselves in a room completely sound proofed, we will experience silence on a mega scale. And we will then hear what our ears want to hear. As I said, it sounds strange but it’s true, very true. I think this is an interesting topic, I hope you do also.
Copyright © 2016 Steven Cetta
All Rights Reserved
Image Credit : CoolText.com
inertia4, Total, Silence, inertia4posts
18 people like this
20 responses
@arthurchappell (45002)
• Preston, England
23 Jul 16
if it feeds our imagination, silence can be deafening
2 people like this
@inertia4 (27961)
• United States
25 Jul 16
@arthurchappell That sound about right. That would be torture. I would never want to deal with that.
1 person likes this
@arthurchappell (45002)
• Preston, England
24 Jul 16
@inertia4 sensory deprivation is one of the cruellest possible tortures
1 person likes this
@Jessicalynnt (50525)
• Centralia, Missouri
22 Jul 16
silence is relative, I was once in a cave, and when it was silent, it was...oppressively so. it's not normal, nor comfortable
2 people like this
@inertia4 (27961)
• United States
16 Aug 16
@shivamani10 That I believe you're right about. I haven't read the article since I saw it the first time. But I do believe we don't feel it.
1 person likes this
@shivamani10 (11038)
• Hyderabad, India
16 Aug 16
@inertia4 Silence is also a kind of sound a state in which you do not feel it.
2 people like this
@crazyhorseladycx (39515)
• United States
21 Jul 16
most interestin' 'ndeed. the only time i've 'xperienced such 'twas 'fore gettin' a danged mri. i wish those brief moments 'f quiet'd lasted, lol.
1 person likes this
@inertia4 (27961)
• United States
22 Jul 16
@crazyhorseladycx That's nothing compared to where I am. Noise everywhere. Traffic, horns, sirens and people yelling. One thing we do not lack in the city is noise.
2 people like this
@crazyhorseladycx (39515)
• United States
22 Jul 16
@inertia4 i told 'em when such 'twas done i felt like i'd come out'a a sci-fi james bond movie - a martini, shaken, not stirred'n they really needed somebody to answer the danged door! all that knockin' jest 'bout made me ill. 'tis ne'er truly quiet 'round here. there's the birds, winds whistlin' through the trees, birds, waterfall, horses hollerin' from the pastures...love e'ery moment'f such :)
2 people like this
@blitzfrick (2890)
• United States
10 Aug 16
I've always thought I could hear silence, but turns out it's just what's called 'ringing in the ears.'
On the other hand there's a word for the color a person sees when they open their eyes in a totally dark place: eigengrau. Whoa.
So maybe the sound I've always thought of as the sound of silence will someday get a fancy name that isn't the label of some sort of physical flaw.
Fingers crossed.
1 person likes this
@inertia4 (27961)
• United States
10 Aug 16
@blitzfrick Cool. Okay, you can rename it. I have a slight ring in my ear. And I know it is Tinnitus. But I know that silence does have it's own sound. And it is loud.
1 person likes this
@blitzfrick (2890)
• United States
10 Aug 16
@inertia4 yes, I know about tinnitus. But what I hear in the silence isn't that, or if it is, I want to rename it a lovely name, like the color eigengrau, only for silence.
1 person likes this
@OreoBrownie (3755)
• Commerce, Georgia
18 Oct 16
Unless a person is totally deaf, you can recognize silence when you hear it. I heard the clock ticking on the wall, the traffic heard in the background, I hear the thoughts in my own head. You can hear silence if you are listening for it.
1 person likes this
@inertia4 (27961)
• United States
19 Oct 16
Well, there is a sound to silence. It become overwhelming. I looked it up online. All the studies show that people can hear silence. Not the ringing one would get from Tinnitus or loud noise. But a humming of sorts. They say the sounds comes from the inner ear to help the ears hear something.
@BelleStarr (61047)
• United States
4 Aug 16
I will have to give this a try and hear "The Sound of Silence"
1 person likes this
@PatZAnthony (14752)
• Charlotte, North Carolina
26 Jul 16
You are right-Silence does have a sound. It is overwhelming, too much to bear at times. Ears seem to have a world of their own. Our thoughts echo there is the imagined silence.
1 person likes this
@JESSY3236 (19008)
• United States
26 Jul 16
Silence is a sound too. Here it is quiet until in the mornings when the birds start talking. My mother joking says I live in a jungle because the birds outside.
1 person likes this
@The_Bong_Woman (851)
•
21 Jul 16
"Silence is the loudest voice I can hear..."
I wrote a poem on Silence some time back. The aforestated line is from that poem of mine. The theme of my poem and your post is very similar.
1 person likes this
@inertia4 (27961)
• United States
23 Jul 16
@The_Bong_Woman You are correct, they do. But we are a rare breed.
@The_Bong_Woman (851)
•
23 Jul 16
@inertia4 Yes, they do. Atleast I like to think so 
1 person likes this
@owstalaga (4707)
• Philippines
24 Jul 16
Silence is the absence of sound so of course it would sound... silent. 
Unless of course if we're not used to silence we'd get fidgety and imagine stuff up and make sound just to hear sound.
Unless of course if we're not used to silence we'd get fidgety and imagine stuff up and make sound just to hear sound.1 person likes this
@Bluedoll (16774)
• Canada
3 Aug 16
ahhhhhhh boom boom poooooooooooo boom boom ahhhhhhh.... What would we hear if there wasn't any sound? Ourselves? Underwater sounds are different but sounds are just muffled, anything to escape that constant electric hum.
Not sure about the hallucinate part but if we close our eyes they still see imprinted images. I wonder if the listening part is similar?
@psanasangma (6010)
• India
23 Jul 16
I think Silent word itself is another type of sound where we can hear when we concentrate
1 person likes this
@Poppylicious (11133)
•
21 Jul 16
No, silence has no sound. But the world has sound. Didn't they design a completely soundproof room and nobody was able to stay in it for more than fifteen minutes? I think I read that somewhere. The silence was just too deafening!
1 person likes this
