The Deafening Sound of Silence.

I took a little road trip last night up to the local mountain. I found me a nice spot to pull over on the side of the road, and took a second to enjoy a moment of peace and silence.

The sound of silence was surprisingly loud. This silence affected me in a big way, and this led me to the conclusion that sound plays a huge role in our mood and mindset.

Nighttime at my house is full of the sounds of the night, such as frogs and crickets. But up there on the mountain, there was none of that. It was almost a little unnerving to have no sound.

Have you ever experienced this? What are your thoughts on it?

Thank you,

-SES

reply to post by SolarE-Souljah


YES.

If you really want to get weirded out. Try sleeping in a cave - pitch black! I swear I heard voices but it was only the river talking.

Well, I've never really experienced the kind of silence you mentioned. But I know that around the house, or when I'm sitting around in my room, I always have to have some sort of background noise. Be it white noise or music, I get kind of freaked out if there's silence. I hate walking through the house at night, too quiet. It puts me on edge.

--Kit.

reply to post by crimvelvet


That's what I'm trying to get at... within the silence, I was sensing things that I didn't notice when there was background noise...

It was like I could hear space and time; Reality itself... man it was quite an experience.

Please share your experiences if you have one.

The brain always tries to find patterns in the static. When you look at a totally solid-colored wall without any pattern in it, you won't see a perfectly smooth surface - your brain will embed little distortions into the visual image just because it is trying to find something besides constant/solid color. The brain does its best to find DIFFERENCES between two sensory objects.

For example, you might walk into a room that smells horribly, and has a constant, unchanging aroma. After a while of no change in the stimulus (the smell), your brain will phase it out and you will no longer experience that stimulus. The brain looks for changes in smells and lets you know about changes in smells, not constancy in smells. Same goes for all of the senses. Your brain looks for changes or differences in the sensory input from each.

If you have a sound playing, maybe a single note from a synthesizer which you play on repeat and have playing nonstop, you will eventually not hear it. Your brain will see no change, only a constant input. After enough time receiving the same input sound (or smell), the brain decides it is background noise and looks for anything else that actually changes, and you forget about the sound (or whatever it is you are sensing).

So in silence, the brain has no sound input - it has only the constancy of background noise. The ears soon begin to pick up your own heartbeat, hear the blood pulsing through your ears and head, hear the clicks as your inner ear equalizes its pressure, eventually being to hear subtler and subtler sounds which always are present but your brain has blocked out because they are like background noise.

In silence you can hear anything

I too have heard the silence...and it definately isnt silent.

I think its your body getting used to no noise and it takes time for your mind and system to adjust.

I can also sympathise with the feeling on edge part of it because i too have felt this

reply to post by tetsuo


Would have to agree 100% here.
Remember listening to the same song with a friend "Shut up woman get on my horse" Over and over for about 8 hours, non stop.
Evenutally it kind of dissapeared, and although the volume was loud, we could literally baely hear it, unless we conentrated really hard. (:

I myself have always been amazed at the silence you hear in a good snowfall. Everything is so still... I love it really.

After years of djing and owning a bar, I really to appreciate the silence now. It is peaceful for me.

reply to post by SolarE-Souljah


A colleague of mine specializes in sound, noise, hearing, etc. He does research for Bose, hearing aid companies, etc.

He has *sound-proof* labs--creepy things they are. I went in, and the effects on my body--or what I could feel, hear *in* my body, were too freaky

I lasted only about 10 minutes in that chamber--way too much tomb-like.--therefore, the title of your thread, for me, would be "The Deadening Sound of Silence"

reply to post by Corrupted Data


Just last night actually, I had a song on replay for hours on end, and you are right, after a while, I kind of just tuned it out.

Extremely fascinating stuff right here.

reply to post by tetsuo


Theres a lot more to the body and its spirit then scientists claim .. YOU control the brain the brain doesnt control you. Your awareness of things is found by the way you use your eyes, your nose, your touch, your ears. You can train oneself to hear further, you can train your nose to pick up less distinct odors, you can train your eye sight and preferial vision...

Sound waves hit the brain at a distinct pattern but its up to that persons mind on what they are hearing and to ignore it or not. If you ignore you wont hear EVERY little aspect of that noise/sound. but if you pay attention and focus on your ears/hearing you will dicipher the sound. People and scientists think the brain works automatic, fact is we have more control on our senses with the awareness we choose to take with every encounter so be it a sound/texture/taste/smell ...

When I meditate, I quite often hear sounds and see sights and otherwise sense things which are not normal... I remember reading about various sounds you hear as you go deeper into meditation and emptiness... They are the sounds of the soul and the universe

reply to post by jrmcleod


Ive sensed the silence too.. it is normal lol. its what you need when trying to meditate, helps your awareness by focusing and having no interruptions by things in your area (insects, animals, faucets, pipelines, other people, electrical things in your home etc..)

Everything has a frequency, and when there are no sounds being emmitted by a thing, its kind of like static. Its the uninterrupted electrical magnetic fied that our bodies and souls are acustomed too.

For the one who made a comment about your brain tuning out sounds and them becoming ignored by the brain... thats not it at all

You can play the same song over and over and over ... and still hear every single word and rythem of the music. Its not until you get "bored" or occupied away from the CD/Song your playing that it sounds as "background" music. It all comes down to your awareness, sure enough you wont pay attention to the same song or music for hour on end. you will eventually become occupied and ignore such sounds which then become "background".

Everything you sense all comes down to YOU and how your awareness to whats around you and the enviroment. Senses keep us safe, knowing whats potentially threatening and whats benefical and not going to hurt us. Senses are what send signals to US (souls) through electrical messeging (in a sense), so we can work together (spirit & body) to experince and stay alive with the world around us.

Magical thing we are our "awareness" is our souls/spirit. that voice in your head is what YOU are! you are a soul sitting in a body (manifesting) and taking control of it. That body has magnificent abilities and senses. Your mind is you.

Life will make more sence to you when you meditate in that silence theres more then our 'brains' when talking about the body and how it reacts to the enviroment our us.

Good day
Kelliott

reply to post by SolarE-Souljah


I've never been able to hear silence. I always hear a ringing noise :\

I wish I knew what it was like

Now, if you can imagine that silence, deepen it a bit more till there is nothing but absence of sound, almost palpable, there you have what it must be like to stand out in a space suit over looking the universe from the huge open cargo hatch of the space shuttle.
Maybe its even quieter in the woods at times because you dont hear your own breathing as loud.
The east indian monks would take an apprentice, and go up a mountain, digging a cave between the two of them, and hauling enough bricks up to seal it off but for one brick in the middle of the wall.
The old monk would enter the cave, and his apprentice would brick it up till the last brick was inserted withot mortaar, and could be chivvyed out easily.
The old monks would live in these bricked up caves for many years, some till they died.
With the apprentice visiting with food and water every day till the monk died or came out.
The purpose of this exercise was i believe to allow the old monk to leave his body and roam the universe in spirit form....
This deep black silence suposedly is the trigger or enabler to astral travel......

Reminds me of night terrors I used to have as a kid. They were either deafeningly loud, or a roaring silence, one or the other. Maybe they're the same thing. Those dreams were also accompanied by geometric shapes and the most terrible feeling of slowness.

Originally posted by tetsuo
When I meditate, I quite often hear sounds and see sights and otherwise sense things which are not normal... I remember reading about various sounds you hear as you go deeper into meditation and emptiness... They are the sounds of the soul and the universe

Yes, of course. Now, I could hear 4 distinct frequencies in my deepest meditation trance. A long ringing sound very high pitch. A low pitch one like the sound of a car engine cruising along.. A middle pitch one like a small computer fan, humming along. Another one seems to have a variable pitch from low to middle.

reply to post by mnmcandiez


Exactly. When it is extremely silent, I start to hear all these different pitched frequencies, and these are very very loud...

It is very strange.

Ahh, yes.. the loud raucousness of total Silence is a bit of a shock when you experience it for the first time.

My introduction to it came in 1977 while I was driving across Australia's Nullabor Plains. I pulled over to have a walk around in the fresh air.. and within seconds of getting out of the car I began to hear the loudness within the lack of sounds. No wind, no animals, no other cars.. nothing but total silence.

I can imagine some people would become afraid in the Silence so that their mind's would trip them out a bit instead of simply enjoying it.

Years ago a friend and I hiked out to a Buddhist commune that had a very interesting temple. We rang the bell at the entrance, and after waiting a while, a monk came out to greet us. He showed us around, and then we came to the temple.

We took off our shoes, and entered into the candle-lit room, smelling of incense. The monk actually left us there, alone, he said he had work to finish, and so he kept his sandals on, turned around to leave, and over his shoulder said we should go to the center of the temple.

We went in, the big door shut behind us. Dead silence, except for my buddy's dumb giggle. But then we quieted down. It was way out in the country, no city sounds to begin with, and in the temple, it really was SILENT.

EXCEPT for the sounds of our breathing, and socks against the floor. As we got to the center of the temple, the almost non-existent sounds of our movement got louder, and we were shocked when we entered the circle, dead-center. An intense, spooky amplification of our own sounds was upon us, and it was startling.

What we found out (later) was that the temple had been constructed as a parabolic dome, focusing on the center spot that we stood. What was happening was that every tiny sound bounced off the parabolic surface, and it then came right back to us, highly focused.

If you've never had the experience, it is weird. I remember turning to my friend and saying something like "Holy sh*t!", and it sounded like a hundred whispering voices had surrounded us, repeated the words in echo.

And then, we stopped, and got very quiet. In the dim light we looked at the framed photo of their founder, at the foot of Buddha. In the photo, the monk was meditating in the lotus position, eyes closed. We closed our eyes, and tried to be as quiet as possible.

As we left, the thought came to mind, that moment was almost "beyond" silence. It was the opposite of what you would think, at a point where all sounds echoed perfectly back to center. But if you were really quiet, completely still, and held your breath, it seems like we "heard" silence.

I don't remember if I heard my heart beat, but afterward, we caught up with the monk at the work shop, and he asked us about our experience. We said something like, "Wow!" He asked if we had been able to "meditate" at all. Well, no, but we got quiet for a minute. He asked, "What did you hear?" Nothing!

Then he said it: "If you are completely still, you will hear the sound that is beyond silence." Whoa...I had thought that same term, "beyond silence"...Sort of gave me goosebumps.

I've never been back, moved out of the area, but this reminded me of that time, almost thirty years ago. I always meant to look up what that meant, "beyond silence". Maybe it was just a coincidence, and that monk just expressed himself that way. Who knows?

Anyway, I would highly recommend finding a temple like that. It's a real trip.

JR