I Didn't Realise Objective Tinnitus Sounded So Relaxing!

what does objective tinnitus sound like

Check out this clip which clearly states in the title that it's the sound of objective tinnitus. I clicked on it and immediately thought, damn, there's so much definition and musicality to objective tinnitus! Who'd have thought it sounds just like Amazing Grace as well; no wonder it's rare.

 

I bet the person who created Amazing Grace had objective tinnitus.

 

that's a very specific kind of objective tinnitus which only occurs when you have intra exiguum musicum, a very rare condition where a miniature orchestra becomes stuck in your middle ear.

 

I've heard about musical tinnitus and I've always wondered how strange it must be to have it. It seems to be extremely rare though, because I've only seen it mentioned in the medical literature but never encountered anyone in person or via a forum who has it.

 

I was making a joke

 

There is musical tinnitus though, but I have no clue what the music is supposed to sound like. All I remember was a documented case where someone had the American anthem stuck in their head, or something along those lines.

I thought you actually knew the medical name and mechanism for a moment lol.

 

yeah. There's a fascinating anecdote in Oliver Sachs' great book Musicophilia about someone who was a career music composer, who developed tinnitus which turned into musical tinnitus as a result of a severe noise trauma. In his case, the music he heard was often "new", his mind would subconsciously "make it up" in real time -- and so his life had a whole soundtrack, which would vary and change based on his mood and circumstances.

This sounds "neat" compared to boring tonal tinnitus, but consider that the guy was a composer/musician, and the volume of his internal music usually rivaled the volume of whatever he was trying to conduct or play -- it must have been extremely difficult for him. None the less, he continued to conduct and play music for the rest of his life.

I actually had a quasi-lucid dream at one point after reading this, where I heard my tinnitus and thought "I wish this was music instead". In the dream, the high pitched ringing then faded and was replaced by orchestral music which matched my mood. I quickly realized that hearing constant music I couldn't control was going to be even more annoying than the ringing, and I thought "dear god, what have I done!" -- then I woke up

 

I'm also a musician who composes, but composing with other music going on in your head must be an absolute nightmare. It just shows how crazy our brains are and how plastic it is when it comes to changes. It seems to be triggered by hearing loss just like regular tinnitus but seems bizarre that your brain decides to take musical memories and start playing them back to you. How does that help? Cheers brain, I think I'll make the decisions from now on. Problem is we never do. Decision making is a complex process completed by the subconscious part of us, when the decision is made it hands it over to us giving us the illusion of control.

I wish I could take control of my head and tell my brain to turn the racket off, tell it there's no use to noise. Maybe my subconscious fell out with me and is doing it to piss me off, like a bad neighbour or something. Bastard.

 

I wish my tinnitus just played Mozart.