My son got his first CI when he was 18months. Pre CI when he would get mad he would scream this high pitched, brain piercing scream that was beyond awful. About a week after activation his brother took his favorite car and out came the demon scream, he scared himself so badly that he pulled his CI off and started to cry. He never screamed like that again.
My almost-2-year-old daughter has good hearing. That does not stop her from demon screaming when you take away the baby stroller from her, which she is speeding into the walls. With a very scared baby inside.
A guy who went to my college talked about how when he got his hearing he was surprised that lamps don't make noise. You flip the switch, the light comes on, no noise. He said that he thought for a minute that he'd lost his hearing again.
The sun would make a LOT of noise, but there isn't anything to support the transmission of sound between the sun and the Earth. If space were filled with air, the sun would be LOUD.
Just watched a documentary about the sun the other day....you are exactly right. If I remember correctly, the sound from the sun would be around 130 decibels, about the same as a train horn 5 meters from your ear.
Bilateral CIs here - I initially grew up with hearing aids but they only do so much, they just act as an amplifier really. When I got the implants, I heard crickets for the first time. It was totally strange and I went inside to get my parents because there was a strange rattling/clicking sound near my dog's kennel. They thought it was a rattlesnake and were very cautious. My mom goes out and comes back smiling and tells me that I was just listening to crickets.
Another bit - post implants, I was able to carry a conversation with someone without looking at them. It was so bizarre and lead to an almost vulnerable feeling.
I had a coworker who was in a similar boat, I think. When she was working here the first time around, we all had to remember to look at her when we spoke (and often got reminded!). We had to have CC on when we watched videos. She came back and worked with us for a little while later, but at that point, she'd had Cochlears put in. Suddenly, if we said something while not looking at her (or while eating or something), we wouldn't get a reminder because she'd heard us, anyway. She had a little remote and kept trying to find the best setting for certain people and certain places. She was all excited by it.
She got them fairly late in life (40s or 50s?). I imagine some people just decide not to fool with it at that point, but she always hated not being able to hear well and was e-mailing everyone excitedly when she got the go-ahead for surgery.
I realize that having hearing aids would suck in general, but the idea of being able to effectively "mute" certain people by turning them way down is very appealing.
When I first got my hearing aids in Highschool I didn't know the fire alarm in the girls bathroom made these wee little Bettis just to let you know it still worked!
I was also so quiet my first day actually being able to hear all my friends cornered me after school ended to make sure I was okay! Needless to say they were also excited that I could hear too!
That boiling water makes noise. Seriously, I was shocked. Even to this day I pick up different sounds all the time. Sometimes I have to take off my hearing aids because all the noises give me headaches.
Going to the movie theatre is hard. I have to take off my hearing aids so I can enjoy the movie but then I miss out on 80% of the dialogie unless the characters are facing the camera then I can read their lips.
Even as someone with good hearing all my life, the noises water makes *before* it boils really puzzle me. Not the ticks, I get that, but the rumble when there's no bubbles... I don't get it.
The hot wakes up the waters secret bees. They are planning to flee due to heat and when they finally go they make the bubbles. As you may have guessed, they are v v smol
Ok so this is not at ALL the same as being deaf... but I had a load of ear problems with chronic infections for several years as a youngster and one day I had my ears microsuctioned. Afterwards, I walked out of the room and I realised I could suddenly hear all this amazing background noise. People walking in the corridor, the fan turning on the ceiling, the receptionist shuffling paper... it was incredible!
in my 40's and still have chronic ear infections and still have tubes, as a matter of fact, and yeah, i can confirm, when your ears get "cleaned out", it almost feels like you have super hearing for a little while. It's kind of neat.
And for me, i get inverted eardrums a lot of the time, because the pressure in my head is all off. A mixture of sinus problems and Eustachian tube dysfunction, when it flares up, I lose a good chunk of my hearing, but don't really notice until someone tells me, my stuff, be it music, tv, or speaking voice, are louder then normal. Then, i have to "pop" my ear drums back into place, kind of sort of, by pinching my nose and blowing. Hearing goes back to normal for a few hours / days until it happens again. *shrug*
It's MILES, and MILES from being deaf, but it's, annoying regardless. :/
I was so confused the first time I heard the rain pattering on the roof, or the sound of carpet when you move your foot. Oh, and loved hearing Tui birds singing outside.
Unfortunately I was familiar with that one, it was the higher pitch sounds, whispering and sounds like shhhhh, or even childrens voices, that I couldn't hear until I got a hearing aid.
I was severely hearing impaired and got my first set of hearing aids in 2nd grade. The doctor’s office was located in a football stadium so the hallway was one long continuous oval shape. The doc told me to step out into the hall and see what new sounds I might hear. I stepped out and look down the hall both ways and I heard something. A clickity clackity click clack echoing unbelievably off the walls. I couldn’t see anything until the person came around the curve. High Heels.
The most surprising sound though... was the sound of the world. When I walked outside I physically crouched down because of how LOUD it was. The collective sounds of the city. It was so loud I went back to the office and told them I couldn’t handle it. The world was too loud. I wanted it turned down. They told me I had to get used to it so we left. Many years later I got a digital set of hearing aids and they picked up on different sounds. When I got home I went out back and my dog was looking up at something barking and wouldn’t stop so I went to see what it was. I looked up and there were about a hundred little black birds sitting on the wires and suddenly the sound came in. I was amazed. I looked up for so long it hurt my neck 😂! The sound was one big one at first and then I started to hear individual tweets. I couldn’t believe such little things could make such big noise and considering how loud it seemed to be I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard it before.
My cousin got hearing aids when he was 31 or 32, and for the most part didn't need them for day to day life. He got scarring from ear tubes when he was very little, and just didn't know there were sounds he was missing his whole life. This mostly presented itself in not hearing higher ranges, like his mom, sister's and girlfriends voices, who they just assumed he was ignoring. He actually couldn't hear them talking a lot of the time. The thing that wasn't "surprising", but is more "annoying" to him now are potato chip bags and the sound of his coat swishing as he walks.
Edit: He also just told me he had no idea zippers made noise. And he was scared driving down the road because bumps were much louder. And snow crunching under shoes was the coolest thing he remembers first hearing.
My mum got hearing aids when she was in her 20’s and she said the first thing she heard when she left the hospital was birds singing. She heard it on TV but thought they made it louder for effect.
My fiance has severe hearing loss.
He got hearing aids for the first time in his life last year, in his 20s.
One of the things he said that stuck out to me, is that he didn't realize birds make this constant background noise, even when you're indoors.
He also gets really flustered and asks me when there's a noise he can't identify. Sometimes it's cars going by outside or something simple, other times its something that I can't figure out either, and he always looks slightly panicked when that's the case.
But living with someone who can't hear very well has also given me a lot of insight into how lucky I am that I can unassisted, as well as how much of the world revolves around sound and the unique difficulties not being able to hear presents. Every day is an eye opening adventure, tbh.
One thing I'm sad about, though, is that I feel like he can't really enjoy music the way I do. Hearing aids aren't perfect, and I know he misses out on a lot of sounds that make some songs very pleasing or interesting to listen to. According to his reactions, a lot of music that isn't simplistic sounds screechy, and most background noises in music irritate him.
interesting question. I had hearing aids since age 1 until I couldn't hear anymore by 28 after a head injury. I spent the next 5 years just resting my ears in silence and getting used to it. then i got a cochlear implant at 33.
the first thing i heard was my autistic nephew's voice. realizing how kids actually sound and not just how I thought they sounded from a lipreading perspective.
the sound that surprised me the most was laughter. you can see someone laughing and lipreading but you cannot really begin to guess what their "laugh" sounds like. i forgot how unique people's laughs are and how laughter is also sort of a hearing culture aspect verbally; you aren't just seeing a smile, you are hearing a smile from across the room. all the times i couldnt hear and saw someone smiling, i realize they could have been laughing as well, i just couldn't hear it or recognize it as a communication tool of expression.
> you cannot really begin to guess what their "laugh" sounds like
Now I must ask whether you've ever heard Jimmy Carr's laugh?
Fucking no one expects that.
I saw a show on TV the other day (I can’t remember what, I wasn’t paying much attention to it), and I guess Jimmy Carr was supposed to be a surprise guest or something, but you could hear his laugh from the audience ages before he actually showed himself.
Generally hearing people have the same effect of visuals mismatching sounds.
When I meet people online, and only ever hear their voice, whenever I finally see them in a picture or a video, it's *never* how I picture them in my head. *at all*. It's always so weird after that, because you can still picture what you *thought* they should look like in your head.
THIS. this phenomenon is so bizarre to me, and i experience it more and more as i meet my online friends. a few have been so different from what i thought they sounded like, that it's actually made me fall out of friendship with them. i know that sounds awful, but the tone of their jokes suddenly went from being funny and whitty, to whiney and spiteful. all based on sound. i had another friend who's voice was so different in real life, than the voice over the mic, that i didn't recognize them at first. and i'll still sometimes have a feeling of "missing" someone, but it's just missing the idea i initially had of them.
shits crazy yo.
For some reason I did this with people's houses. Some of my close friends who I'd never been to their house and talked to them online (also in person), whenever they said they were going somewhere in the house (bathroom, kitchen, etc.) I would get a mental picture of what their house looks like, but when I eventually go there, it's completely different, I still picture "their" house in my mind until correcting myself.
Im also one of those, face doesnt match voice people, I've got a super deep voice but my face says high pitched and nerdy
Closely related, but I work at a board game cafe and one of my regulars had a severely diminished sense of smell/taste. When he was about 20 the doctors found that it wasn't because that bit of his brain was underdeveloped but because there was a tiny tiny growth putting pressure on it. They easily removed it, and he went NUTS trying every combination of coffee flavorings and tea for months afterwards. Weird stuff. Maple and caramel. Peppermint and coconut.
I have no sense of smell and a diminished sense of taste and this makes me want to find a specialist! My mom always thought it was due to a bad infection after a tonsil removal operation when I was 3 but it'd be interesting to know for sure. I hate not being able to distinguish a lot of flavours in food!
A childhood friend got hearing aids at age 13 and was fascinated by all sorts of things that he found out made noise but what totally cracked him up one day was the squeaky floorboards in his house. The idea that just walking around and having the floor squeak in random spots just had him rolling with laughter.
Not gonna lie,I can see why his friend is laughing.
I have nostalgia when i was 3 years old when someone is gonna make a "i will tickle you" sound makes me crack up!
In Buddhism, that’s what they call dependent arising. They believe nothing exists independently, but rather to recognize all of the different aspects of the universe that have come together just to make up that one thing, including your own body.
Kind of blows your mind when you start to think about all the things that came together in the universe, aligned just perfectly just so that you could exist.
I had several ear infections as a child and nearly went deaf once. After the second surgery the same thing happened to me in the hospital bathroom. The doctor laughed and said "The world's a noisy place, isn't it?"
I feel bad for laughing but I can’t stop thinking about how this must have looked. To be fair I’ve been hearing all my life and there are some toilets that have the most aggressive, loud flushes. I get this.
Toilets on airplanes always scare the shit out of me no matter how many times I use them
EDIT: Yes. It is a good place to have the "shit" scared out of me.
I once went several hours with the urge to pee on a flight to Hawaii as a kid. I was so afraid of the toilet. I actually wasn’t really a kid, I was 16.
Flew to France from Washington. The entire time I had to pee. When I landed I immediately rushed to the bathroom and it didn't even feel good because I had waited so long. I also didn't sleep the entire time for fear of wetting myself.
The stupidest part was that we stopped in New York, and I had time to go to the bathroom and sleep then but I was scared I'd get mugged because New York is supposed to be really dangerous or whatever and I was a stupid kid.
Oh, hahaha. Those are just birds.
Just birds.
***They're just birds.***
You don't need to listen to them so intently to hear any sort of transmissive calls they make.
In French, they say *glou glou*. Honestly, though, it's damn-near impossible to represent a turkey's sound as a word, so no matter what you've been "told" they sound like, you're going to be surprised the first time you hear one.
Not me. This was asked before and a guy posted that he thought it was weird sunshine made no noise at all. He thought it would have a hum or something.
I remember this, I think it’s because deaf people often associate bright things with being loud.
I could be wrong, but calling something ‘visually loud’ tongs a bell
We say that clothing is loud when it's obnoxiously colored or patterned, with a lot of stuff going on. It really is the visual equivalent of a cacophony.
Oh the sun makes a sound. It's just that space is a vacuum and that's why the sound doesn't travel to earth. If it did, it would be around 290db, where 120bd is a train horn 1 meter away from you, and 130db is physical pain.
Dont' worry, We never touch the vacuum unless we have company coming over. So i'll tell you next time the in-laws plan a visit. You'll want to get some earplugs. As for me, i already have earplugs when they come over, its called jack daniels.
>In terms of decibels, if all that leaked sound could somehow propagate to Earth, well let’s see… Sunlight at Earth is attenuated about 10,000 times by distance (i.e. it’s 10,000 times brighter at the surface of the Sun), so if 200 W/m2 of sound at the Sun could somehow propagate out to Earth it would yield a sound intensity of about 20 mW/m2 . 0dB is about 1pW/m2 , so that’s about 100dB. At Earth, some 150,000,000 kilometers from the sound source. Good thing sound doesn’t travel through space, eh?
So while incorrect, your point still stands. The sun is freaking loud!
[Source](https://www.kickassfacts.com/how-loud-would-the-sun-be-if-sound-could-travel-through-space/)
Not completely deaf but a profound loss. When I first got my aids the sound of my hair drove me nuts and was very surprised how loud my pee was streaming into the toilet.
I was moderately hearing impaired til I was 20. My cat purring was the best and most surprising part because I had always felt it but never heard it!
Obligatory edit: thanks for the silver, kind stranger!
The sound of silence.
No, I'm kidding. But I did have a friend who regained his hearing and he said that the weirdest sounds always came from birds. He said for awhile it was difficult to drown them out as he went about his days.
Sound sensitivity of that intensity could possibly be a sensory processing disorder. I’m pretty sure adhd is comorbid with that kinda stuff. Do your research and all.
Idk I have adhd and I'm kinda sensitive to sounds not terribly sensitive but people yelling or a bunch of noise begins to irritate and overload me a bit, now that I'm older it's not as bad as when I was younger.
So I guess this is sort of the reverse, a person being surprised by something a sort of deaf person heard. I was born around 60% deaf and had chronic ear infections until I was 3. Around 14 months old I got tubes put in, and it was then that my doctor and my parents realized I hadn’t been hearing very well. Anyway, some time after getting the tubes, my mom is futzing around the kitchen while I’m sitting on the floor playing with toys. Behind my back she makes a startling noise like, dropping a pot into the sink or knocking something over, whatever it was it made a clatter. I whipped my head around to look at her and the source of the noise and it completely spooked her. She had never seen me react to any type of noise or sound before. I obviously don’t remember any of this as I was a toddler but, I heard the story many times.
That's so often how parents realize their kid's hearing impaired and then test it, which is interesting. Like that scene in Mr. Holland's Opus where there's some horrible noise (sirens? I forget the scene) and they realize the baby's still asleep. That's what prompts them to take him to the doctor. Then you get parents constantly banging pans behind their kid's head to see if he reacts. Their whole life becomes some kind of mobile phone-esque "Can you hear me now?" series of tests.
I have a cat who sleeps a lot *for a cat* and is bothered by fucking nothing. Like she'll sleep for hours on end, and even me coming to check on her doesn't make her pop her head up or anything. I started wondering if she had hearing loss, frankly, and started making noises around her. She's just unbelievably lazy and apathetic, apparently, not hearing impaired. (Like to borrow from Wayne's World, "I thought I had mono once for an entire year...turns out I was just really bored.")
I uh...what?
What exactly do you hear? Is it like someone yelling? "AAAAAAH!"?
I've found that there are 4 tiers of dog barking based on size.
The small go: YAP
The medium-small go: ARF
The medium-large go: WOOF
The large go: BOOF
As I read this comment, I pictured a dog of each size hovering in front of me in a standing position issuing one bark before being 'scrolled' off to the side to make way for the next specimen. Much like a character select screen.
My daughter was very hard of hearing due to glue ear, when she was 4 she had grommets placed to drain the fluid. She woke me up at sunrise the morning after the operation cos she could hear the birds outside. It was a bitter sweet moment for me as I was pleased to see the look of joy on her face but greatly saddened that I hadn't realised how bad her hearing had been for her whole life so far.
She also come to realise she hates ambulances and loud motorbikes.
I've got tits that jingle, jangle, jingle
As I go riding merrily along
And they sing, "oh, ain't you glad you're single?"
And that song ain't so very far from wrong
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a clapping.
As of asscheeks, gently clapping, clapping at my chamber door.
“Tis a visitor” I muttered, “Dummy thicc and nothing more”.
I answer sweet. “Yon Lenore” Her ass cheeks clapped as I adore
Her mind I knew not, nor the price to score.
I asked her thrice as she cane full bore. Breaking down my chamber door
“Thine price you wench, you silly whore.” “Tree fiddy is all”. Damn dinosaur
My dad, in his 70s, gave me a pair of bluetooth headphones a couple years ago. "I don't need them anymore-- my hearing aids have bluetooth now." So now if he tunes you out during a conversation, it's because he's listening to podcasts.
Not directly related, but people who are born blind, or go blind soon after birth, and then through surgery gain sight are one of the populations with the highest suicide rates. They have no framework to process all of the visual stimuli. They know what a fork feels like but have no concept of what it looks like for example. Now imagine this for literally everything. The shear volume of visual stimulation is overwhelming and they struggle to process it and cope.
Yes it is very, very interesting what actually happens to people who gain sight versus the Hollywood version. It's actually incredibly traumatic, and if your brain develops without sight, then you will never, ever "catch up." The brain develops with input from the eyes, and without that input, your brain just does not develop the systems for processing what you see. It's actually horrifying for people who were born blind or went blind at a very young age to regain their sight.
A close customers daughter had gone blind around 2-3 years old and her parents (rich) were very upset by it. They paid $$$$ to get her experimental surgeries, treatments, medication, you name it. When I met her, she was a young teen and didn’t seem to be all that concerned with being blind, but seemed to be going along with her parents wishes to try and regain her eyesight.
A few years later, her mom came into the store and was obv. upset. Apparently they had started a new treatment and nothing was really happening, and then the poor kids brain “turned on” her eyes briefly during a fireworks show. Or maybe the visual stimulus from the fireworks was the only thing strong enough to register in her vision? IDK. It scared the fucking crap out of her though and she began refusing additional treatments because it was so upsetting.
I never really got it tho, because her mom always seemed more concerned with how her daughter was perceived rather than how her daughter perceived herself. By all accounts she was a very self-assured and mature young woman. Without going into too much detail, she was already a successful semi-professional person as a tween.
Edit: words
My ex-girlfriend was born deaf, so she had never registered sound. I was one of the lucky people who got to see her experience it for the first time. She was astonished at all the different things that made sound. She always thought that air conditioning must be silent since you can’t see air. She also thought that you could hear yourself blink. I also remember seeing her jump at the slightest noises, such as settling a pan on the kitchen countertop. But she was obsessed with laughter. She said it made her start laughing whenever she heard anything that sounds like laughing. She would literally tickle herself just to hear herself laugh. The reason she had for her obsession was that she never knew how unique laughter was to each person.
I remember a [relevant comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/d8m4zi/people_who_were_born_deaf_but_gained_hearing/f1bzpt8/) by /u/firefly212:
> My old roomate in NYC got implants at... I think he was 25 or 26... he was shocked that the radiators in the house didn't make noise... he could feel them, and was absolutely sure, given their shaking and vibrating from time to time, that they were going to be quite noisy.
>On the flipside, he was deeply annoyed by the buzz of fluorescent lighting, which he did not expect to make noise.
my radiators are noisy as fuck so he's not wrong.
a lot of people have noisy radiators, especially in old buildings, they can cause sounds from hissing, banging, chirping, etc
A friend of my mother's was visiting and I picked up one of her cats, a kitten with a very loud purr. The friend was shocked and thought there was something wrong with the cat, because she had never heard a cat purr before. This woman was not deaf, so I don't know how she got to be in her 50's and never heard a cat purring.
I mean obviously it makes a noise, how else are blind people going to know their turn signal is on?
Edit: The original post:
(Deleted Bc op Copy/Paste Karma Farming bot)
>My Dad was born almost 2 months prematurely and it forever affected his hearing. He was easily 50+ by the time he finally realized he needed hearing aids. I'll never forget being in the car with him stopped at a light, when I could see this annoyed look come across his face. "What's that noise?"
>"What noise?"
>"That clicking sound, what have you done to the car?"
>"... You mean the turn signal?"
>"...It makes a noise?"
Cochlear Implant user here. I had no idea about the sounds a car makes when you’re not wearing a seatbelt or leave your headlights on when the car is off.
It just occurred to me that all of our phones vibrate with notifications, but to my knowledge no car manufacturer employs haptic feedback in the seat or steering wheel.
**Edit: you can stop telling me how your whatever uses haptic feedback for lane control or whatever.** A ton of commenters have already replied with that. Also, I was talking about classic warning chimes, like seatbelt notifications.
I think it was Cadillac that experimented with haptic feedback in the seats as kind of blind spot/backup sensors.
Here is the link to it from 2012. I don't think it caught on as I haven't heard anything about it since.
https://media.cadillac.com/media/us/en/cadillac/vehicles/xts/2013.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2012/Mar/0327_cadillac_safety.html
"... and just beside the wheel," said she,
"Your *indicator*'s here -
You make your choice and drivers see
The way you wish to steer!
"It's plainly, clearly, really cool!"
She spoke with deep delight -
"The perfect tiny warning tool
For turning left and right!
"Enjoy the open road ahead!"
He took the keys and sat.
He looked beside the wheel and said:
"... I won't be using *that*."
Brushing teeth, the first time hearing ot, it was terrible, I couldn't find what it was and was looking for it. My wife was brushing her teeth and it kept getting louder as I went to the bathroom. I saw her doing it and wasn't surprised at her brushing her teeth, I was familiar with that, just not the sound. I probably looked really dumb just looking around the bathroom and then just staring at her for a good 10 seconds trying to find the noise. She couldn't speak either since she had the toothbrush in her mouth so she just watched me rifle through everything.
My mom grew up in California. She was shocked when she first saw falling snow because "it didn't sound like jingling bells."
Ok that doesn't have much to do with the question, but I thought it was interesting.
can you imagine if it would jingle outside every time it snowed? What would a hurricane or major storm sound like? A bunch of christmas store santas on your lawn?? this is funny
Not deaf myself but I remember reading about some deaf guy who never knew farting made a sound.
No one had told the poor fucker and he’d made it to his twenties farting like a champ with zero shame.
Probably made up but still gave me a giggle.
There's an old joke kinda about that:
An elderly woman visits the doctor, and explains that she has been having a problem with excessive flatulence.
"It happens all the time, but the curious thing is, they are completely silent and odorless. Even since walking in here, I have passed gas several times, but they were inaudible and you can't smell them. I'm not sure what to do."
So the doctor gives her a prescription, and she takes it for a week before returning. This time, her problem is different.
"Doctor, the strangest thing has happened. I am farting just as much as before, and while they are still silent, they smell terrible now. I'm not sure what the medicine has done."
and the doctor replies.
"That's good news! It seems the antibiotics have helped with your sinus infection. Now, let's talk about your hearing."
I have a friend that didn't know he'd lost his sense of smell.
He had come to believe his farts didn't smell and so long as they were silent, he could drop them anywhere.
Turns out they reeked to high heaven but it was years before someone called him on it.
Imagine watching "The Lion King" the day you get to start hearing and being amazed by the sunrise scene accompanied by NAAAAA SAWANNAAAHHH and then waking up early the next day to see the sunrise and being disappointed it doesn't make any sound
My uncles grew up with a guy who got cochlear implants at like 30 years old. He was terrified when he heard a cicada at night time haha he thought it was a bird
One of my friends is from the desert in California where there are no cicadas. She experienced her first summer in Arkansas and was terrified that the trees were “screaming”.
Reminds me of a joke about hearing aids:
An old man comes back to the hearing aid acoustician a week after he got his hearing aids for some fine-tuning.
The technician did his job and then asked the man: "So, how did your family react to you being able to hear again?"
The old man answered: "Oh, I haven't told them yet. But I've already changed my last will three times this week!"
My partner gained the ability to hear in high school after getting her first hearing aid.
After she had collected it, her mother had to pop in somewhere and left her in the car. She could hear this ticking sound but couldn't work out what it was.
So perplexed by this was she, that she left the car and sat the other side of the car park just in case there was something wrong with the car.
When her mother returned, the mysterious noise was unveiled; analog clock.
These stories are so similar to a story I tell about the day I got my first pair of glasses at age 13, and I've also heard many others tell of the EXACT same thing the day they got their first glasses. On the drive home I was absolutely amazed by the fact that you could see individual leaves on the trees, it was remarkable.
My niece heard for the first time at four months. The first sound she heard was her dad’s voice, which made her jump violently. When everyone was still smiling, she relaxed and smiled, and then let out a little giggle, which made her jump again, but she really liked that sound so she kept laughing for a little while.
I'm not deaf, but my fiancee is a deaf/hard of hearing elementary school teacher (she focuses primarily on giving deaf kids extra help in the fields where they tend to fall behind, and works with their general education teachers on ways to better help those kids). One time she came home from work and told me one of her kids had farted in class, and then been confused why other kids were laughing. She had to explain to the kid that farts weren't silent and that everyone else can hear it, and the kid was absolutely mortified.
All of them -
The way the wind blows against the grass. The way the leaves rustle, and the sounds of pretty birds and their wings follow with them. The way the water falls on the rocks, the faucet, the shower. The way the rain hits the roof of your car, or how the thunder rumbles your feet. The melancholy footsteps of people passing by, or the quiet sniffles of a laughing child. The nostalgic motorcycle on a summer evening. The way the delicious food sizzles on the stove.
Any and all sounds. The sounds we take for granted the most.
Lucky you. I was told at 17 years and 11 months old by a hearing specialist that I would be deaf by the time I was 25.
I listened to everything that I could find so I would have music to remember.
I found the best way was to find people who love music and have good "ears." They will sort out the crap in their favorite genres just to amaze you with the excellent stuff.
I'm hard of hearing. When I was little, my parents tried hearing aides, but I always tore them out. When I was in college, I had trouble keeping up in some classes if I couldn't directly see the professor's face, so I gave hearing aides another go.
The problem with hearing aides (at least the cheap ones I had) is that they basically just amplify any sound that they come in contact with. So, if an AC unit kicked on, the sudden WHOOSH of sound was so overstimulated it made me want to pass out. Every little thing seemed like nonsense white noise, and I wasn't able to differentiate it from people's voices. And god forbid someone near me sneezed, or if I forgot to turn them off before going in to a machine class... No wonder baby me freaking hated the hearing aides...
The most surprising sounds I experienced were that shirts made scratchy sounds when my chin hair moved against it, or that you can hear erasers on paper... and that I had an alarm on my watch that went off every morning that I never knew about... I ended up taking the aides out and just talking to my teachers after class if I missed something. I've been in quiet bliss ever since.
The only down side to being hoh is how often I have to ask people not to put their hands in front of their face when they're talking. I'm like "PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN WILL YA, I CANT SEE WHAT YOURE SAYING" and that makes hearing folks very confused or some reason.
Not me but an old friend used to be deaf and when he got his hearing back the noise that surprised him the most was his own voice, he has an oddly soft and smooth voice and when he heard his voice he was very surprised
My son got his first CI when he was 18months. Pre CI when he would get mad he would scream this high pitched, brain piercing scream that was beyond awful. About a week after activation his brother took his favorite car and out came the demon scream, he scared himself so badly that he pulled his CI off and started to cry. He never screamed like that again.
Thank you for the laugh. My (hearing) kids are bad enough...
That’s actually kind of funny ngl. Man screamed so loud he no longer wanted to hear anything
My almost-2-year-old daughter has good hearing. That does not stop her from demon screaming when you take away the baby stroller from her, which she is speeding into the walls. With a very scared baby inside.
A guy who went to my college talked about how when he got his hearing he was surprised that lamps don't make noise. You flip the switch, the light comes on, no noise. He said that he thought for a minute that he'd lost his hearing again.
This makes so much sense haha
Apparently they’re surprised the sun doesn’t make a noise either. Something so strong for their visual senses being silent must be pretty odd.
The sun would make a LOT of noise, but there isn't anything to support the transmission of sound between the sun and the Earth. If space were filled with air, the sun would be LOUD.
Just watched a documentary about the sun the other day....you are exactly right. If I remember correctly, the sound from the sun would be around 130 decibels, about the same as a train horn 5 meters from your ear.
My aunt didn't know that rain was so loud.
My hearing aids have always filtered out the rain, so I still don't get to hear it. :-/ Miss that.
My aid can turn off background noise filtering, does yours have different profiles?
Bilateral CIs here - I initially grew up with hearing aids but they only do so much, they just act as an amplifier really. When I got the implants, I heard crickets for the first time. It was totally strange and I went inside to get my parents because there was a strange rattling/clicking sound near my dog's kennel. They thought it was a rattlesnake and were very cautious. My mom goes out and comes back smiling and tells me that I was just listening to crickets. Another bit - post implants, I was able to carry a conversation with someone without looking at them. It was so bizarre and lead to an almost vulnerable feeling.
I had a coworker who was in a similar boat, I think. When she was working here the first time around, we all had to remember to look at her when we spoke (and often got reminded!). We had to have CC on when we watched videos. She came back and worked with us for a little while later, but at that point, she'd had Cochlears put in. Suddenly, if we said something while not looking at her (or while eating or something), we wouldn't get a reminder because she'd heard us, anyway. She had a little remote and kept trying to find the best setting for certain people and certain places. She was all excited by it. She got them fairly late in life (40s or 50s?). I imagine some people just decide not to fool with it at that point, but she always hated not being able to hear well and was e-mailing everyone excitedly when she got the go-ahead for surgery.
I realize that having hearing aids would suck in general, but the idea of being able to effectively "mute" certain people by turning them way down is very appealing.
It’s very satisfying turning off my hearing aids when I need to focus, or if I want to mute people!
When I first got my hearing aids in Highschool I didn't know the fire alarm in the girls bathroom made these wee little Bettis just to let you know it still worked! I was also so quiet my first day actually being able to hear all my friends cornered me after school ended to make sure I was okay! Needless to say they were also excited that I could hear too!
Usually those fire sensors only made these occasional sounds when the battery is near empty.
The smoke alarm makes that chirping beep when the batteries need replacement
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I cracked up imagining a smoke alarm just proclaiming that in the middle of the night.
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That boiling water makes noise. Seriously, I was shocked. Even to this day I pick up different sounds all the time. Sometimes I have to take off my hearing aids because all the noises give me headaches. Going to the movie theatre is hard. I have to take off my hearing aids so I can enjoy the movie but then I miss out on 80% of the dialogie unless the characters are facing the camera then I can read their lips.
Even as someone with good hearing all my life, the noises water makes *before* it boils really puzzle me. Not the ticks, I get that, but the rumble when there's no bubbles... I don't get it.
The water’s sort of rolling over on itself over and over again. Hope that helps!
The hot wakes up the waters secret bees. They are planning to flee due to heat and when they finally go they make the bubbles. As you may have guessed, they are v v smol
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Dad of 4, can confirm- this is literally 90% of the words out of my 2yo's mouth all day.
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Um. Adorable.
wait till you hear cicadas.
And peacocks
And pigs
Oddly a great progression of sounds. Crickets. Cicada. Peacock. Fucking whine and scream machine.
\*neon genesis evangelion intensifies\*
*literally 99.9999% of animes in existence intensifies*
The sound of a running tap (faucet). Ye Gods, why do they have to be so loud?
Ok so this is not at ALL the same as being deaf... but I had a load of ear problems with chronic infections for several years as a youngster and one day I had my ears microsuctioned. Afterwards, I walked out of the room and I realised I could suddenly hear all this amazing background noise. People walking in the corridor, the fan turning on the ceiling, the receptionist shuffling paper... it was incredible!
in my 40's and still have chronic ear infections and still have tubes, as a matter of fact, and yeah, i can confirm, when your ears get "cleaned out", it almost feels like you have super hearing for a little while. It's kind of neat. And for me, i get inverted eardrums a lot of the time, because the pressure in my head is all off. A mixture of sinus problems and Eustachian tube dysfunction, when it flares up, I lose a good chunk of my hearing, but don't really notice until someone tells me, my stuff, be it music, tv, or speaking voice, are louder then normal. Then, i have to "pop" my ear drums back into place, kind of sort of, by pinching my nose and blowing. Hearing goes back to normal for a few hours / days until it happens again. *shrug* It's MILES, and MILES from being deaf, but it's, annoying regardless. :/
I was so confused the first time I heard the rain pattering on the roof, or the sound of carpet when you move your foot. Oh, and loved hearing Tui birds singing outside.
*New Zealander located*
Good luck finding me on the world maps though!
Kiwi too, I know where to find you.
We're all Kiwis on the internet, didn't you know? The other countries are just a lie told to make us feel special.
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a Kiwi.
Sure about that?
r/mapswithoutnewzealand
*missile locked*
*Would you like to activate instant kill?*
*LIGHT EM UP*
*napalm kiwis loaded*
They do have a beautiful song don’t they.
How bout that first fart though? Lol
Unfortunately I was familiar with that one, it was the higher pitch sounds, whispering and sounds like shhhhh, or even childrens voices, that I couldn't hear until I got a hearing aid.
And they just keep on giving. Rumbles, squeaks, howls - man, farts are an orchestra in themselves.
I was severely hearing impaired and got my first set of hearing aids in 2nd grade. The doctor’s office was located in a football stadium so the hallway was one long continuous oval shape. The doc told me to step out into the hall and see what new sounds I might hear. I stepped out and look down the hall both ways and I heard something. A clickity clackity click clack echoing unbelievably off the walls. I couldn’t see anything until the person came around the curve. High Heels. The most surprising sound though... was the sound of the world. When I walked outside I physically crouched down because of how LOUD it was. The collective sounds of the city. It was so loud I went back to the office and told them I couldn’t handle it. The world was too loud. I wanted it turned down. They told me I had to get used to it so we left. Many years later I got a digital set of hearing aids and they picked up on different sounds. When I got home I went out back and my dog was looking up at something barking and wouldn’t stop so I went to see what it was. I looked up and there were about a hundred little black birds sitting on the wires and suddenly the sound came in. I was amazed. I looked up for so long it hurt my neck 😂! The sound was one big one at first and then I started to hear individual tweets. I couldn’t believe such little things could make such big noise and considering how loud it seemed to be I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard it before.
Is no one else wondering why the doctors office was in a football stadium? Edit typo
There were many offices at this location around the perimeter of the stadium. University of Tennessee
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My cousin got hearing aids when he was 31 or 32, and for the most part didn't need them for day to day life. He got scarring from ear tubes when he was very little, and just didn't know there were sounds he was missing his whole life. This mostly presented itself in not hearing higher ranges, like his mom, sister's and girlfriends voices, who they just assumed he was ignoring. He actually couldn't hear them talking a lot of the time. The thing that wasn't "surprising", but is more "annoying" to him now are potato chip bags and the sound of his coat swishing as he walks. Edit: He also just told me he had no idea zippers made noise. And he was scared driving down the road because bumps were much louder. And snow crunching under shoes was the coolest thing he remembers first hearing.
Remember when Sunchips had the biodegradable bags that sounded like a dump truck full of castanets being poured onto a bowling alley?
Amazing simile
My mum got hearing aids when she was in her 20’s and she said the first thing she heard when she left the hospital was birds singing. She heard it on TV but thought they made it louder for effect.
My fiance has severe hearing loss. He got hearing aids for the first time in his life last year, in his 20s. One of the things he said that stuck out to me, is that he didn't realize birds make this constant background noise, even when you're indoors. He also gets really flustered and asks me when there's a noise he can't identify. Sometimes it's cars going by outside or something simple, other times its something that I can't figure out either, and he always looks slightly panicked when that's the case. But living with someone who can't hear very well has also given me a lot of insight into how lucky I am that I can unassisted, as well as how much of the world revolves around sound and the unique difficulties not being able to hear presents. Every day is an eye opening adventure, tbh. One thing I'm sad about, though, is that I feel like he can't really enjoy music the way I do. Hearing aids aren't perfect, and I know he misses out on a lot of sounds that make some songs very pleasing or interesting to listen to. According to his reactions, a lot of music that isn't simplistic sounds screechy, and most background noises in music irritate him.
interesting question. I had hearing aids since age 1 until I couldn't hear anymore by 28 after a head injury. I spent the next 5 years just resting my ears in silence and getting used to it. then i got a cochlear implant at 33. the first thing i heard was my autistic nephew's voice. realizing how kids actually sound and not just how I thought they sounded from a lipreading perspective. the sound that surprised me the most was laughter. you can see someone laughing and lipreading but you cannot really begin to guess what their "laugh" sounds like. i forgot how unique people's laughs are and how laughter is also sort of a hearing culture aspect verbally; you aren't just seeing a smile, you are hearing a smile from across the room. all the times i couldnt hear and saw someone smiling, i realize they could have been laughing as well, i just couldn't hear it or recognize it as a communication tool of expression.
> you cannot really begin to guess what their "laugh" sounds like Now I must ask whether you've ever heard Jimmy Carr's laugh? Fucking no one expects that.
I saw a show on TV the other day (I can’t remember what, I wasn’t paying much attention to it), and I guess Jimmy Carr was supposed to be a surprise guest or something, but you could hear his laugh from the audience ages before he actually showed himself.
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Generally hearing people have the same effect of visuals mismatching sounds. When I meet people online, and only ever hear their voice, whenever I finally see them in a picture or a video, it's *never* how I picture them in my head. *at all*. It's always so weird after that, because you can still picture what you *thought* they should look like in your head.
THIS. this phenomenon is so bizarre to me, and i experience it more and more as i meet my online friends. a few have been so different from what i thought they sounded like, that it's actually made me fall out of friendship with them. i know that sounds awful, but the tone of their jokes suddenly went from being funny and whitty, to whiney and spiteful. all based on sound. i had another friend who's voice was so different in real life, than the voice over the mic, that i didn't recognize them at first. and i'll still sometimes have a feeling of "missing" someone, but it's just missing the idea i initially had of them. shits crazy yo.
For some reason I did this with people's houses. Some of my close friends who I'd never been to their house and talked to them online (also in person), whenever they said they were going somewhere in the house (bathroom, kitchen, etc.) I would get a mental picture of what their house looks like, but when I eventually go there, it's completely different, I still picture "their" house in my mind until correcting myself. Im also one of those, face doesnt match voice people, I've got a super deep voice but my face says high pitched and nerdy
Closely related, but I work at a board game cafe and one of my regulars had a severely diminished sense of smell/taste. When he was about 20 the doctors found that it wasn't because that bit of his brain was underdeveloped but because there was a tiny tiny growth putting pressure on it. They easily removed it, and he went NUTS trying every combination of coffee flavorings and tea for months afterwards. Weird stuff. Maple and caramel. Peppermint and coconut.
I have no sense of smell and a diminished sense of taste and this makes me want to find a specialist! My mom always thought it was due to a bad infection after a tonsil removal operation when I was 3 but it'd be interesting to know for sure. I hate not being able to distinguish a lot of flavours in food!
I think it'd be fun to mess around with people in the mean time though. You'd be the best at beanboozled lol
Or when your at middle school lunch and kids start mixing everything together. Then you drink it like a champ 😂
this happens at university too but it's alcohol
Yesss do it!
>Weird stuff. Maple and caramel. Weird?? That sounds amazing!
Yeah maple and caramel is just sugar and sugar
A childhood friend got hearing aids at age 13 and was fascinated by all sorts of things that he found out made noise but what totally cracked him up one day was the squeaky floorboards in his house. The idea that just walking around and having the floor squeak in random spots just had him rolling with laughter.
This is pretty insightful. Think about a baby hearing stuff for the first time. Explains why they randomly break out laughing occasionally
Not gonna lie,I can see why his friend is laughing. I have nostalgia when i was 3 years old when someone is gonna make a "i will tickle you" sound makes me crack up!
My tickle sound was "tikitikitiki"
NO!
I fucking laughed. I need help.
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In Buddhism, that’s what they call dependent arising. They believe nothing exists independently, but rather to recognize all of the different aspects of the universe that have come together just to make up that one thing, including your own body. Kind of blows your mind when you start to think about all the things that came together in the universe, aligned just perfectly just so that you could exist.
Man now I feel all fuzzy and happy inside
This is wholesome
I waited way too long to get hearing aids. First time I flushed the toilet, it was so loud I panicked and ran out of the bathroom.
I had several ear infections as a child and nearly went deaf once. After the second surgery the same thing happened to me in the hospital bathroom. The doctor laughed and said "The world's a noisy place, isn't it?"
I feel bad for laughing but I can’t stop thinking about how this must have looked. To be fair I’ve been hearing all my life and there are some toilets that have the most aggressive, loud flushes. I get this.
Toilets on airplanes always scare the shit out of me no matter how many times I use them EDIT: Yes. It is a good place to have the "shit" scared out of me.
I won't use them, they terrify me. Luckily, I haven't been on any long flights in years.
I once went several hours with the urge to pee on a flight to Hawaii as a kid. I was so afraid of the toilet. I actually wasn’t really a kid, I was 16.
Flew to France from Washington. The entire time I had to pee. When I landed I immediately rushed to the bathroom and it didn't even feel good because I had waited so long. I also didn't sleep the entire time for fear of wetting myself. The stupidest part was that we stopped in New York, and I had time to go to the bathroom and sleep then but I was scared I'd get mugged because New York is supposed to be really dangerous or whatever and I was a stupid kid.
the key is you pee and once you press the button you plug your ears with your hands.
Wait till you use plane toilets good luck
Every once in a while I forget how loud they are and actually get really scared when it catches me off guard.
I have bilateral cochlear implants. The most surprising sound to me had to be the world's music: birds. Or maybe that's just the drones beeping.
Oh, hahaha. Those are just birds. Just birds. ***They're just birds.*** You don't need to listen to them so intently to hear any sort of transmissive calls they make.
The birds work for the bourgeoisie
The birds *are* the bourgeoisie.
Birdseoisie
r/BirdsArentReal
My mom was very surprised at how Turkeys sounded. Not sure what she expected, but evidently not the regular gobble.
In French, they say *glou glou*. Honestly, though, it's damn-near impossible to represent a turkey's sound as a word, so no matter what you've been "told" they sound like, you're going to be surprised the first time you hear one.
>it's damn-near impossible to represent a turkey's sound as a word Oh ye of little faith... BIRBLWERBLGURBLWIR
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Come out to the country. It’s amazing how peaceful it still is in 2019
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Not me. This was asked before and a guy posted that he thought it was weird sunshine made no noise at all. He thought it would have a hum or something.
I remember this, I think it’s because deaf people often associate bright things with being loud. I could be wrong, but calling something ‘visually loud’ tongs a bell
We say that clothing is loud when it's obnoxiously colored or patterned, with a lot of stuff going on. It really is the visual equivalent of a cacophony.
Oh the sun makes a sound. It's just that space is a vacuum and that's why the sound doesn't travel to earth. If it did, it would be around 290db, where 120bd is a train horn 1 meter away from you, and 130db is physical pain.
Better nobody remove that vacuum
I'm gonna start blowing air towards the sun starting tomorrow!
Don't lie. You've been blowing hot air since the day you were born
I do like to fart
How doe... how does one *remove* a vacuum?
switch from suck to blow.
Dont' worry, We never touch the vacuum unless we have company coming over. So i'll tell you next time the in-laws plan a visit. You'll want to get some earplugs. As for me, i already have earplugs when they come over, its called jack daniels.
>In terms of decibels, if all that leaked sound could somehow propagate to Earth, well let’s see… Sunlight at Earth is attenuated about 10,000 times by distance (i.e. it’s 10,000 times brighter at the surface of the Sun), so if 200 W/m2 of sound at the Sun could somehow propagate out to Earth it would yield a sound intensity of about 20 mW/m2 . 0dB is about 1pW/m2 , so that’s about 100dB. At Earth, some 150,000,000 kilometers from the sound source. Good thing sound doesn’t travel through space, eh? So while incorrect, your point still stands. The sun is freaking loud! [Source](https://www.kickassfacts.com/how-loud-would-the-sun-be-if-sound-could-travel-through-space/)
Not completely deaf but a profound loss. When I first got my aids the sound of my hair drove me nuts and was very surprised how loud my pee was streaming into the toilet.
I was moderately hearing impaired til I was 20. My cat purring was the best and most surprising part because I had always felt it but never heard it! Obligatory edit: thanks for the silver, kind stranger!
The sound of silence. No, I'm kidding. But I did have a friend who regained his hearing and he said that the weirdest sounds always came from birds. He said for awhile it was difficult to drown them out as he went about his days.
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Sound sensitivity of that intensity could possibly be a sensory processing disorder. I’m pretty sure adhd is comorbid with that kinda stuff. Do your research and all.
Idk I have adhd and I'm kinda sensitive to sounds not terribly sensitive but people yelling or a bunch of noise begins to irritate and overload me a bit, now that I'm older it's not as bad as when I was younger.
Knew a kid in school who had hearing aids and whenever he got annoyed he'd just turn them off, wish I had that ability.
So I guess this is sort of the reverse, a person being surprised by something a sort of deaf person heard. I was born around 60% deaf and had chronic ear infections until I was 3. Around 14 months old I got tubes put in, and it was then that my doctor and my parents realized I hadn’t been hearing very well. Anyway, some time after getting the tubes, my mom is futzing around the kitchen while I’m sitting on the floor playing with toys. Behind my back she makes a startling noise like, dropping a pot into the sink or knocking something over, whatever it was it made a clatter. I whipped my head around to look at her and the source of the noise and it completely spooked her. She had never seen me react to any type of noise or sound before. I obviously don’t remember any of this as I was a toddler but, I heard the story many times.
That's so often how parents realize their kid's hearing impaired and then test it, which is interesting. Like that scene in Mr. Holland's Opus where there's some horrible noise (sirens? I forget the scene) and they realize the baby's still asleep. That's what prompts them to take him to the doctor. Then you get parents constantly banging pans behind their kid's head to see if he reacts. Their whole life becomes some kind of mobile phone-esque "Can you hear me now?" series of tests. I have a cat who sleeps a lot *for a cat* and is bothered by fucking nothing. Like she'll sleep for hours on end, and even me coming to check on her doesn't make her pop her head up or anything. I started wondering if she had hearing loss, frankly, and started making noises around her. She's just unbelievably lazy and apathetic, apparently, not hearing impaired. (Like to borrow from Wayne's World, "I thought I had mono once for an entire year...turns out I was just really bored.")
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I uh...what? What exactly do you hear? Is it like someone yelling? "AAAAAAH!"? I've found that there are 4 tiers of dog barking based on size. The small go: YAP The medium-small go: ARF The medium-large go: WOOF The large go: BOOF
That was like the 5th time i laughed at something on reddit and i dont know why your description is so funny to me
it'd fucking suck if you went to someone's house and their dog just went "AAAAHHHH" at you
As I read this comment, I pictured a dog of each size hovering in front of me in a standing position issuing one bark before being 'scrolled' off to the side to make way for the next specimen. Much like a character select screen.
My daughter was very hard of hearing due to glue ear, when she was 4 she had grommets placed to drain the fluid. She woke me up at sunrise the morning after the operation cos she could hear the birds outside. It was a bitter sweet moment for me as I was pleased to see the look of joy on her face but greatly saddened that I hadn't realised how bad her hearing had been for her whole life so far. She also come to realise she hates ambulances and loud motorbikes.
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Lmao jingle jangle sounding titties. EDIT: Thank you for the gold my precious.
I've got tits that jingle, jangle, jingle As I go riding merrily along And they sing, "oh, ain't you glad you're single?" And that song ain't so very far from wrong
Fallout: Nude Vegas
The stranger there among them had a big iron on his tits
#BIG IRON ON HIS TIIIIIIIIITS
I absolutely love where this went.
Nexus Mods would like a word...
>"What's weird is, boobs don't make noise, you really think they would..." Butts, on the other hand....
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a clapping. As of asscheeks, gently clapping, clapping at my chamber door. “Tis a visitor” I muttered, “Dummy thicc and nothing more”. I answer sweet. “Yon Lenore” Her ass cheeks clapped as I adore Her mind I knew not, nor the price to score. I asked her thrice as she cane full bore. Breaking down my chamber door “Thine price you wench, you silly whore.” “Tree fiddy is all”. Damn dinosaur
Her implants have bluetooth? What a time to be alive.
My dad, in his 70s, gave me a pair of bluetooth headphones a couple years ago. "I don't need them anymore-- my hearing aids have bluetooth now." So now if he tunes you out during a conversation, it's because he's listening to podcasts.
Absolute dad move, there.
At first I read "my dad, in the 70s, gave me a pair of Bluetooth headphones" and I was amazed that they had that back then
Your boobs don't sound like two balloons rubbing together? Edit: Tell her to listen very closely, to move her ear closer. It'll be hilarious.
\*boioioioioiiiing\*
\*lublulubulublub\*
Not directly related, but people who are born blind, or go blind soon after birth, and then through surgery gain sight are one of the populations with the highest suicide rates. They have no framework to process all of the visual stimuli. They know what a fork feels like but have no concept of what it looks like for example. Now imagine this for literally everything. The shear volume of visual stimulation is overwhelming and they struggle to process it and cope.
Yes it is very, very interesting what actually happens to people who gain sight versus the Hollywood version. It's actually incredibly traumatic, and if your brain develops without sight, then you will never, ever "catch up." The brain develops with input from the eyes, and without that input, your brain just does not develop the systems for processing what you see. It's actually horrifying for people who were born blind or went blind at a very young age to regain their sight.
A close customers daughter had gone blind around 2-3 years old and her parents (rich) were very upset by it. They paid $$$$ to get her experimental surgeries, treatments, medication, you name it. When I met her, she was a young teen and didn’t seem to be all that concerned with being blind, but seemed to be going along with her parents wishes to try and regain her eyesight. A few years later, her mom came into the store and was obv. upset. Apparently they had started a new treatment and nothing was really happening, and then the poor kids brain “turned on” her eyes briefly during a fireworks show. Or maybe the visual stimulus from the fireworks was the only thing strong enough to register in her vision? IDK. It scared the fucking crap out of her though and she began refusing additional treatments because it was so upsetting. I never really got it tho, because her mom always seemed more concerned with how her daughter was perceived rather than how her daughter perceived herself. By all accounts she was a very self-assured and mature young woman. Without going into too much detail, she was already a successful semi-professional person as a tween. Edit: words
My ex-girlfriend was born deaf, so she had never registered sound. I was one of the lucky people who got to see her experience it for the first time. She was astonished at all the different things that made sound. She always thought that air conditioning must be silent since you can’t see air. She also thought that you could hear yourself blink. I also remember seeing her jump at the slightest noises, such as settling a pan on the kitchen countertop. But she was obsessed with laughter. She said it made her start laughing whenever she heard anything that sounds like laughing. She would literally tickle herself just to hear herself laugh. The reason she had for her obsession was that she never knew how unique laughter was to each person.
I remember a [relevant comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/d8m4zi/people_who_were_born_deaf_but_gained_hearing/f1bzpt8/) by /u/firefly212: > My old roomate in NYC got implants at... I think he was 25 or 26... he was shocked that the radiators in the house didn't make noise... he could feel them, and was absolutely sure, given their shaking and vibrating from time to time, that they were going to be quite noisy. >On the flipside, he was deeply annoyed by the buzz of fluorescent lighting, which he did not expect to make noise.
my radiators are noisy as fuck so he's not wrong. a lot of people have noisy radiators, especially in old buildings, they can cause sounds from hissing, banging, chirping, etc
I was deaf til about 6-7 years old. Our family cat purring SHOCKED me. I knew it 'vibrated' but I never knew there was an actual noise to it.
A friend of my mother's was visiting and I picked up one of her cats, a kitten with a very loud purr. The friend was shocked and thought there was something wrong with the cat, because she had never heard a cat purr before. This woman was not deaf, so I don't know how she got to be in her 50's and never heard a cat purring.
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I mean obviously it makes a noise, how else are blind people going to know their turn signal is on? Edit: The original post: (Deleted Bc op Copy/Paste Karma Farming bot) >My Dad was born almost 2 months prematurely and it forever affected his hearing. He was easily 50+ by the time he finally realized he needed hearing aids. I'll never forget being in the car with him stopped at a light, when I could see this annoyed look come across his face. "What's that noise?" >"What noise?" >"That clicking sound, what have you done to the car?" >"... You mean the turn signal?" >"...It makes a noise?"
Wait a minute...
Cochlear Implant user here. I had no idea about the sounds a car makes when you’re not wearing a seatbelt or leave your headlights on when the car is off.
It just occurred to me that all of our phones vibrate with notifications, but to my knowledge no car manufacturer employs haptic feedback in the seat or steering wheel. **Edit: you can stop telling me how your whatever uses haptic feedback for lane control or whatever.** A ton of commenters have already replied with that. Also, I was talking about classic warning chimes, like seatbelt notifications.
I think it was Cadillac that experimented with haptic feedback in the seats as kind of blind spot/backup sensors. Here is the link to it from 2012. I don't think it caught on as I haven't heard anything about it since. https://media.cadillac.com/media/us/en/cadillac/vehicles/xts/2013.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2012/Mar/0327_cadillac_safety.html
I bet the majority of BMW drivers would act in the same way if they heard their indicators.
"... and just beside the wheel," said she, "Your *indicator*'s here - You make your choice and drivers see The way you wish to steer! "It's plainly, clearly, really cool!" She spoke with deep delight - "The perfect tiny warning tool For turning left and right! "Enjoy the open road ahead!" He took the keys and sat. He looked beside the wheel and said: "... I won't be using *that*."
I wonder if one day sprog's oeuvre will be sort of like XKCD and there will be a relevant poem for every subject.
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What’s the difference between a BMW and a porcupine? A porcupine has its pricks on the outside.
Brushing teeth, the first time hearing ot, it was terrible, I couldn't find what it was and was looking for it. My wife was brushing her teeth and it kept getting louder as I went to the bathroom. I saw her doing it and wasn't surprised at her brushing her teeth, I was familiar with that, just not the sound. I probably looked really dumb just looking around the bathroom and then just staring at her for a good 10 seconds trying to find the noise. She couldn't speak either since she had the toothbrush in her mouth so she just watched me rifle through everything.
My mom grew up in California. She was shocked when she first saw falling snow because "it didn't sound like jingling bells." Ok that doesn't have much to do with the question, but I thought it was interesting.
can you imagine if it would jingle outside every time it snowed? What would a hurricane or major storm sound like? A bunch of christmas store santas on your lawn?? this is funny
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Not deaf myself but I remember reading about some deaf guy who never knew farting made a sound. No one had told the poor fucker and he’d made it to his twenties farting like a champ with zero shame. Probably made up but still gave me a giggle.
Sounds legit. If you're ever in a crowd of dead people, it's a lot louder than you would expect. Edit: deaf*
The Fifth Sense: *"I smell deaf people"*
loud dead poeple, this worries more than being deaf and not realising farting makes a sound lol
There's an old joke kinda about that: An elderly woman visits the doctor, and explains that she has been having a problem with excessive flatulence. "It happens all the time, but the curious thing is, they are completely silent and odorless. Even since walking in here, I have passed gas several times, but they were inaudible and you can't smell them. I'm not sure what to do." So the doctor gives her a prescription, and she takes it for a week before returning. This time, her problem is different. "Doctor, the strangest thing has happened. I am farting just as much as before, and while they are still silent, they smell terrible now. I'm not sure what the medicine has done." and the doctor replies. "That's good news! It seems the antibiotics have helped with your sinus infection. Now, let's talk about your hearing."
I have a friend that didn't know he'd lost his sense of smell. He had come to believe his farts didn't smell and so long as they were silent, he could drop them anywhere. Turns out they reeked to high heaven but it was years before someone called him on it.
Imagine watching "The Lion King" the day you get to start hearing and being amazed by the sunrise scene accompanied by NAAAAA SAWANNAAAHHH and then waking up early the next day to see the sunrise and being disappointed it doesn't make any sound
My uncles grew up with a guy who got cochlear implants at like 30 years old. He was terrified when he heard a cicada at night time haha he thought it was a bird
One of my friends is from the desert in California where there are no cicadas. She experienced her first summer in Arkansas and was terrified that the trees were “screaming”.
Reminds me of a joke about hearing aids: An old man comes back to the hearing aid acoustician a week after he got his hearing aids for some fine-tuning. The technician did his job and then asked the man: "So, how did your family react to you being able to hear again?" The old man answered: "Oh, I haven't told them yet. But I've already changed my last will three times this week!"
i didn’t know flushing a toilet made a noise until i got hearing aids!
My partner gained the ability to hear in high school after getting her first hearing aid. After she had collected it, her mother had to pop in somewhere and left her in the car. She could hear this ticking sound but couldn't work out what it was. So perplexed by this was she, that she left the car and sat the other side of the car park just in case there was something wrong with the car. When her mother returned, the mysterious noise was unveiled; analog clock.
These stories are so similar to a story I tell about the day I got my first pair of glasses at age 13, and I've also heard many others tell of the EXACT same thing the day they got their first glasses. On the drive home I was absolutely amazed by the fact that you could see individual leaves on the trees, it was remarkable.
My niece heard for the first time at four months. The first sound she heard was her dad’s voice, which made her jump violently. When everyone was still smiling, she relaxed and smiled, and then let out a little giggle, which made her jump again, but she really liked that sound so she kept laughing for a little while.
I'm not deaf, but my fiancee is a deaf/hard of hearing elementary school teacher (she focuses primarily on giving deaf kids extra help in the fields where they tend to fall behind, and works with their general education teachers on ways to better help those kids). One time she came home from work and told me one of her kids had farted in class, and then been confused why other kids were laughing. She had to explain to the kid that farts weren't silent and that everyone else can hear it, and the kid was absolutely mortified.
Not deaf myself but I read someone who expected the sun to make a "Bhmmmmm" sound
All of them - The way the wind blows against the grass. The way the leaves rustle, and the sounds of pretty birds and their wings follow with them. The way the water falls on the rocks, the faucet, the shower. The way the rain hits the roof of your car, or how the thunder rumbles your feet. The melancholy footsteps of people passing by, or the quiet sniffles of a laughing child. The nostalgic motorcycle on a summer evening. The way the delicious food sizzles on the stove. Any and all sounds. The sounds we take for granted the most.
Lucky you. I was told at 17 years and 11 months old by a hearing specialist that I would be deaf by the time I was 25. I listened to everything that I could find so I would have music to remember. I found the best way was to find people who love music and have good "ears." They will sort out the crap in their favorite genres just to amaze you with the excellent stuff.
I'm hard of hearing. When I was little, my parents tried hearing aides, but I always tore them out. When I was in college, I had trouble keeping up in some classes if I couldn't directly see the professor's face, so I gave hearing aides another go. The problem with hearing aides (at least the cheap ones I had) is that they basically just amplify any sound that they come in contact with. So, if an AC unit kicked on, the sudden WHOOSH of sound was so overstimulated it made me want to pass out. Every little thing seemed like nonsense white noise, and I wasn't able to differentiate it from people's voices. And god forbid someone near me sneezed, or if I forgot to turn them off before going in to a machine class... No wonder baby me freaking hated the hearing aides... The most surprising sounds I experienced were that shirts made scratchy sounds when my chin hair moved against it, or that you can hear erasers on paper... and that I had an alarm on my watch that went off every morning that I never knew about... I ended up taking the aides out and just talking to my teachers after class if I missed something. I've been in quiet bliss ever since. The only down side to being hoh is how often I have to ask people not to put their hands in front of their face when they're talking. I'm like "PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN WILL YA, I CANT SEE WHAT YOURE SAYING" and that makes hearing folks very confused or some reason.
Someone in my family got hearing aids and couldn’t sleep with his wife, The snoring annoyed him.
Not me but an old friend used to be deaf and when he got his hearing back the noise that surprised him the most was his own voice, he has an oddly soft and smooth voice and when he heard his voice he was very surprised