Tinnitus, Meditation, and the Evolution of Consciousness

For decades I have regularly done several types of daily contemplative practices. One of these is called "Shabd Yoga" which consists of focusing on an inner sound (generally one single high pitched tone somewhere in my cranium). This is an ancient yogic practice sometimes called "The Yoga of the Inner Sounds." It has to do with the Theosophical book by Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence. By focusing on a single sound, the sound can be made to grow in volume and clarity. I often thought that people suffering from tinnitus may actually be having a breakthrough in conscious evolution, becoming more spiritual, closer to God, listening to the "machine language" of the universe.

However when suddenly this year full blown tinnitus erupted in my awareness I finally discovered what an affliction it can be, particularly at first, when I almost had panic attacks due to not being able to fall asleep or ignore the sounds, which often grew even louder at night. I still believe tinnitus is not simply a "disease" but that it may have some significant connection with the changes in our consciousness that evolution continues to grow within human awareness.

Now I find I must use 10mg of Trazodone to help me fall asleep. Still, tinnitus is a fascinating phenomenon and I'm not going to completely curse the experience but will keep an open mind. One thing for sure it has made my contemplative periods more fascinating as I have more sounds to focus upon!

 

I believe the inner sounds that can be generated or heard during yogic practices are not the same phenomenon as tinnitus from noise trauma or other health problems. I don't know if this is the case. It could be that like with any spiritual practice, without the proper grounding and preparation the results can be very negative for a person since they "bite off more than they can chew". I have been known to do this..

For instance, the unfortunate people who experience a spontaneous Kundalini awakening here in the west, without knowing what it is and without meeting anybody who recognizes what has happened to them. I think many of these people get diagnosed with psychosis and treated as such...

 

@Dr. Shelli Joye

Did your tinnitus resulting from the shoulder stand subside at first?

One of many suspects in my tinnitus is that it was an injury from headstands, shoulder stands and other yogic poses I would not want to perform with what I know now.

 

I was about 26 years old when I first experienced a few "high-pitched inner sinusoidal frequencies" in my cranium while performing a shoulder stand. At the time I also used to smoke a little bit of cannabis before doing my hatha yoga and meditation. The sounds were not at all like the broadband plethora of sounds that suddenly erupted around both left and right regions of my cranium this past January (and have been with me ever since). I was in a really silent 5th floor flat when I first heard the singular "inner tones."
That night I was afraid I had caused an aneurism in my brain. But I was fascinated when I noticed that when I tried to focus carefully on the location of the sound, to "tune in" to the sound, it would grow perceivably louder! That night I couldn't sleep because I could not stop exploring these sounds. There were only four or five of them, in different locations within my cranium. And though they were extremely high pitched, it seemed to me, they were distinctly different in tone, slightly different in frequency. I had graduated with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering three or four years earlier, and so I immediately recognize them as sinusoidal tones, quite pure in frequency, quite distinct.
Strangely enough I sweated profusely that night, and assumed that had something to do with the phenomena, and yet it might have been a product of anxiety as I was still worried I had caused some physically negative change in my brain, possibly an aneurism. The next day at work (I worked as an electrical engineer in the World Trade Center North Tower, Floor 64) I noticed to my surprise that when I walked up to a Coka-Cola machine, suddenly I perceived a loud inner high pitched tone in my head, similar to the ones I had "discovered" the night before.
This began a lifetime of trying to investigate these sounds, with no guidance from any thing I could find in books, except, eventually, books on "Shabd Yoga" and "Nadam Yoga" and "Naam." I found many references here and there to mystical inner sounds. I even found clear references in the writings of Sta. Teresa of Avila, who talked about how she "heard pans high pitched flutes" during her periods of contemplative practice, and St. Francis of Assisi, who spoke of "hearing Christ's call of panpipes" during his time of living in small caves near Assisi. All I could find in medical science books was regarding tinnitus and how it was definitely "a disease of unknown origins," which made me suspicious.
I began to study the physics of sound, and eventually acquired a "tone generator" device, often used in physics and engineering laboratories. I could turn the dial and the generator would produce acoustical sine waves at different frequency settings. I was trying to determine what the frequency ranges were of these inner sound tones that I experienced in the dark and silent periods of my meditation and contemplative practices. However even at the top of the range of frequencies that the tone generator could put out (or at least that I could hear), which was about 15 KHz, the "inner sounds" seemed to be even higher in frequency, i.e. higher than my ears could discern from normal sound vibrations transmitted in the air.
Now of course, with "full-blown tinnitus," it is like an enormous orchestra of tones broadcasting without restraint. During the first few weeks the tinnitus in one ear or the other would become louder than the other, and sometimes unusually shrill tones would erupt for a few minutes, and sometimes strange high frequency "clicking" would be heard in a region behind my right ear, though they would go away in a minute or two.
I have always suffered a bit from claustrophobia and so not being able to shut these sounds out put me on the verge of panic attacks now and then, during those first weeks of tinnitus. Of course this was also at the beginning of the pandemic, so that also added anxiety to my plate of worries as I tried to hard to fall asleep. It was frustrating to be fatigued and wanting to sleep (and to dream... I also have practiced a form of dream yoga for years, trying to keep a dream diary and trying to recall dreams soon after awakening). Finally I went to my doctor and was given a prescription of something called Trazodone. Taking 10 mg of Trazodone an hour or so before bedtime seems to have somewhat solved my sleep problem, thank goodness.
Having said all that (and apologies for the ultra-long posting) I find that the "full-blown tinnitus" is actually becoming an asset, I believe, during my periods of meditative contemplation in the dark and silence. By trying very hard to connect with the tinnitus frequencies instead of trying to make them go away, I have discovered them to be a very rich source of contemplation. They are fascinating and I can almost visualize them swirling like a miniature aurora borealis in my cranium! I wonder if they might be some kind of energy-information network with my brain, operating at machine-language levels far below (or beyond) my normal cognitive "thinking." After all, we can all initiate musical recordings with our brain at will. I can call up the beginning bars of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," for example, or the chorale ending of Beethoven's 9th symphony. In fact, prior to acquiring Trazodone for sleep, I found that one thing that helped "mask" the tinnitus was to play and replay bits of music in my brain-mind.
Well I had better end this! It is nice to know I am not the only person experiencing "inner sounds" and have read that up to 40% of adults experience them at some time in their life. However the vast majority try to, and likely succeed, in "tuning out" these sounds. After all, the brain is extremely malleable and through a process called neoplasticism can reprogram itself to either filter things out or to tune them in more sharply!
You might try listening to your tinnitus with a clear focus sometimes, as you try to fall asleep, rather than trying so hard to avoid the sounds. It is one of the grand mysteries of our existence, hopefully not entirely a bane!