Noise: It’s everywhere you want to be.
When I used to live in an apartment by myself, I lived near a freeway. Even when the windows were closed I could hear it, especially at night. Since it was a studio apartment I could also hear the sound of the refrigerator as well. I remember thinking this noise must be one of the reasons why the rent was affordable.
I started to take note of how quiet other peoples places were. That’s when I noticed that there really is no silence anywhere. If someone lives in the forest, the sounds of nature are ongoing with the trees rustling and the birds chirping. By the beach, the sounds of waves crashing are perennial. In the desert, where there is seemingly nothing, the dry winds ferociously gust and the shifting sands can strike against the windows.
So no matter if someone lives somewhere in the city where traffic can always be heard or far away from civilization where nature takes over, silence is nowhere. In fact, people can go crazy or get totally disoriented in a completely silent room!
There are anechoic chambers where the walls, floor and ceiling absorb and deaden all sound instead of reflecting it like most surfaces normally do. With zero noise coming from the outside and a space that’s perfectly absorbing all sound, you are left with zero sound pressure from anywhere. Sitting in an anechoic chamber, making no noise, our ears open up the gain because they’re always trying to hear something (anything!), and with no extraneous noise to drown out the internal sounds, we start to hear all sorts of things.
These rooms are so quiet that you become aware of the sound of your own heart beating, stomach churning, lungs inflating. In between heart beats you could hear the blood rushing through you. You may even hear the sound of rain, but it’s the sound of individual molecules striking your ear drum, the threshold of hearing.
Until you’ve been in one of these rooms you won’t have any idea how much your hearing allows you to orient yourself. Removing this echolocation ability has a dramatic effect on your senses and becomes quite disorienting. It requires your vision to work overtime and it turns out to be quite exhausting. So don’t feel bad if you live in a noisy city. People isolated in nature have to deal with sounds too… just different kinds!
But anyway, if you’re really craving the sounds of nature, play one of these 8 hour long relaxing YouTube videos in the background during the day or while you’re sleeping!
Hope that was insightful. Wish you all a good day/night/life.
–Antranik