Are some sounds impossible?

sixolet · 2021-10-09T23:57:38.064Z

I actually just read about sound perception in a book enough to know! It turns out that by the time it gets to neurons being activated, humans are insensitive to phase, so you wouldn’t be able to de-activate those neurons by finding a canceling phase of sound.

aeoner · 2021-10-10T01:54:46.176Z

When I was younger I had this weird thing called exploding head syndrome, which triggered just before I fell in sleep when I was very tired: it was a massive noise, with a “crunchy” sound and a flash of white light. I never managed to create this specific, sinesthesic, raw noise - but I keep trying

Blit · 2021-10-10T02:23:07.912Z

I didn’t know those had a name. I used to get them after drinking/smoking or after a loud party. I thought of then as sound hallucinations

_mark · 2021-10-10T06:44:24.523Z

Me too!

Exactly the same, and I didn’t discover what it was until I was 30 or so…

I’d be looking round the house for the thing that had fallen over!

louwrens · 2021-10-10T08:14:03.553Z

Really interesting, I’ve never heard / heard of this sound before but it reminds me of a sound that I’ve always wanted to recreate. During an episode of sleep paralysis I’d often hear something that seems like a whooshing, droning or pulsating sound that would get more and more intense and enveloping. Since it usually occurs during the hypnogogic state it is hard to recall exactly what it sounded like or whether it could actually be described as a sound at all. Either way I will one day attempt to ‘capture’ it.

xmacex · 2021-10-10T11:10:04.265Z

Thanks for animating this thread people. Lines is a good place

I am on a walk and listening to a podcast about Jo Milne who heard anything at all for the first time when her cochlear implant was activated at the age of forty. I’ve seen that famous, and extremely powerful mobile video of her earlier¹, but it’s nice/a privilege to get closer to her experience and life with sound. I think it might be impossible for the rest of us to hear sound like Jo does.

Sound Matters: 05 – New Ears And Strange Rooms Stream episode 05 – New Ears And Strange Rooms by Sound Matters podcast | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

Googling her name brings a number of stories on the internet from which, i believe, we can all learn from.

¹ i cry every time i see it

hermbot · 2021-10-10T13:40:50.308Z

Fascinating! Terrifying, too.

Apparently I can do this which is somewhat rare, never thought to recreate digitally it and only recently learned what it was.

Being able to make yawn rumbles at will is as exotic of a super power as I’ll get, unfortunately.

aeoner · 2021-10-10T14:50:06.199Z

I don’t remember anymore if I read about the expoding head syndrome when I was still having some episodes or just after, but I was when I found it (bad joke, sorry - it was quite disturbing).

Interesting what you are saying about looking for the falling object: when the episodes started I thought it was an electric discharge from my CRT television, because there was a kind “static” feeling in the super loud sound and the white bright light etc.

@louwrens recently I had a very interesting and beautiful episode of sleep paralysis.

Although It’s very rare for me to experience those phenomenons (in spite of thos situations, my sleep is deep), when they happened was very visual and absolutely frightening, watching objects of my room merge into monster faces etc.

In this recent one I left by accident a small part of the window open.

There’s a lot of birds around here, so very early in the morning I had this gentle feeling (?) with a beam of light shinning over me and the birds singing in a high pitched tone until they are singing my name. I couldnt move at all but this one was very beautiful and sublime, not disturbing at all.

This topic just give me the idea of this kind of choir-like, polyphonic speech synthesis turning intl something else (or the opposite).

timp · 2021-10-10T20:32:00.142Z

(off topic but ‘exploding head syndrome’ is the subject of a new film “Memoria” by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, starring Tilda Swinton… I had a few email exchanges with the sound designer, can’t wait to see/hear it!)

_mark · 2021-10-11T09:37:59.041Z

For anyone curious, this is the passage I mentioned earlier, from: Echoes of other worlds by Tom Garner:

Somatosensory forms of tinnitus, in which the perceptual experience can be traced to an internal physiological source, have been documented but in most cases, the sensation is entirely psychological, with no physical correlate identified. Similarly, ‘exploding head syndrome’ describes a rarer condition in which individuals feel an intense and sudden explosive sound with no apparent sound wave. The experience is an example of parasomnia, due to it most commonly taking place during the transitional phase between sleep and wakefulness. If you have ever been awoken by the sound of a door slamming or similar explosive event but no one else nearby has reacted even slightly and there’s no trace of any possible cause, you may have experienced exploding head syndrome. Case studies conducted by Ganguly and colleagues (2013) evidence the above description and note that, to the individuals affected by the condition, the sound as it is experienced cannot be distinguished from that which has a physical correlate.

Blit · 2021-10-11T13:32:37.373Z

@_mark I don’t want to derail from the original topic nor be mean about your ppst but does that quote of tinnitus has a bibliography or source? I would take it with a grain of salt as most tinnitus has a physical cause (tmj, accoustic trauma, inflammation of the tympanic membrane, tumors, middle ear inflammation born of infection of the eutachian tube)

_mark · 2021-10-11T18:31:01.629Z

Not even sure why I pasted that bit as not relevant to my point!

But it may be from here:

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laneur/PIIS1474442213701601.pdf

But I can’t check it as behind a pay wall.

zebra · 2021-10-11T21:00:52.971Z

this seems either awkwardly phrased or just interpreting the sources in a weird way. “in most cases, the sensation is entirely psychological, with no physical correlate identified.” as stated, that’s just not true. most cases of tinnitus are correlated with cochlear lesions (regions of damaged tissue.) such lesions can have a variety of causes, from noise exposure to ototoxic drugs (often chemotherapy.) the classic diagnosis kind of assumes this.

(the VR book author is mixing up physical diagnostic correlates with, like, physical acoustic phenomena? idk?)

the work of Langguth (and others cited by this VR sound book) is interesting because it is looking at neuronal correlates of tinnitus, both for diagnosis and for therapy. this just means that there is some identifiable pattern of neural activity associated with the sensation, and that not only can these patterns iddentify the patient as experiencing tinnitus (perhaps across language barriers etc.), but that one can actually alleviate the experience by treatment of the neuronal correlates (behavior therapy, sound therapy etc.) but this is sort of a last resort given a lack of identified, treatable pathologies.

this diagnostic flowchart from the linked paper is perhaps clarifying

image830×863 87.4 KB

sorry i don’t mean to further the tangent, but i think it’s important to get the facts straight around auditory health questions. the TL/DR is that if you have serious tinnitus, please consult a doctor instead of assuming it is a mysterious psychological phenomenon best addressed by sound or behavior therapy.

_mark · 2021-10-11T21:17:11.037Z

zebra:

but i think it’s important to get the facts straight around auditory health questions

Yes for sure.

I also don’t know the reason for it if in error, perhaps misunderstanding the source I suppose. I’m certainly not qualified to gauge here.

ChemicalAdam · 2021-10-11T22:04:25.675Z

Back in University I confused my Professor & classmates with my statement that, acoustically, square waves cannot exist in nature since the instantaneous binary oscillation could not actually take place in any physical medium - at least not without some kind of “quantum rarefaction” (I struggled to keep a straight face whilst using my newly invented terminology) during which the air molecules would spontaneously jump from one pressure to another and thus create no soundwave to speak of.

However, the square wave could be a sonic cousin of reddish green and other so-called impossible colours which cannot appear in nature because of the nature of light waves, yet can be perceived within the mind through hallucinations & mystical experiences. By hacking the electrical representation of the square wave directly into the brain one could bypass the pesky physical limitations of reality, air & the human ear, and perhaps “hear” (or audiate?) the tangiest, most overtone-rich spicy boy of a pulse wave that ever there was…

tl;dr probably all sounds are possible somehow. You ever hung out with a big group of ADHD addled beatboxers with access to drugs & DSP? I have heard some fkkn bizarre noises in my time haha

/peace

tehn · 2021-10-11T22:48:59.002Z

zebra:

should probably just put this on a blog

please, yes, please.

or at least publish a zine with all of your deleted posts.

zebra · 2021-10-12T00:12:37.031Z

ChemicalAdam:

most overtone-rich spicy boy of a pulse wave

i like thinking about this as a what-if in the randall munroe style.

i guess to achieve this platonic square wave within, like, the vestibulocochlear nerve or something, means… the voltage gradient of the neurons must have infinite slope? it seems like your head would implode to a black hole or enter a different quantum state or something

Olivier · 2021-10-12T12:49:36.710Z

Wild. I just had the immense privilege of seeing Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, which is inspired by his experiences with Exploding Head Syndrome. The best damn thing I’ve seen in a long time — enough to reinvigorate my dwindling cinephilia, and absolutely worth seeing if it’s playing near you.

One thing that grinds my gears is that AW mixed this thing in Dolby Atmos, which surely sounds incredible, but — of course — screenings will be relegated to theaters that aren’t Atmos equipped. Such a shame. Those’ll be reserved for fucking Dune.

EDIT: @timp hadn’t noticed your reference to the film up top. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!

naxuu · 2021-10-12T20:23:15.395Z

I’ve been highly anticipating this film! The release strategy for it has left me sour, though:

Rather than a traditional platform release in multiple theaters simultaneously, the Tilda Swinton-starring film will be rolled out with a “deliberate and methodical approach,” says Neon, “moving from city to city, theater to theater, week by week, playing in front of only one solitary audience at any given time.” The idea is to frame “Memoria” as a kind of never-ending, moving-image art exhibit. The film will only play in theaters, and it will not become available on DVD, on demand, or streaming platforms.

So, it sounds like the Matthew Barney / Crispin Glover approach where you simply have to go to a theater for a very limited or one-time engagement in your city when it comes around. I’m not a big fan of that approach in its willful limiting of access and pretensions to rarefied art obscurantism, but the pandemic has made it almost indefensible in my mind. I’m just about the biggest target audience for this film one can think of, but I hate a forced choice between safety and seeing a film. My kid is still unvaccinated, so sober assessment means I’m probably just going to watch a pirated screener at some point.

timp · 2021-10-12T21:09:01.837Z

I’m sure you are aware Weerasethakul also exhibits installation work in art galleries, so I don’t believe they are making an uninformed choice especially with regards to “pretensions to rarefied art obscurantism.” Maybe also useful to question the sense of entitlement that everything must be available online instantly, especially when an art film like this (and all his earlier films) would “usually” spend 12-18 months screening exclusively at Film Festivals and would not be available to stream at all or until many years later (eg I checked to see if “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” was available to stream now and Amazon has it, but is likely geo-limited) If they made this new film available to stream, then no film festivals will then screen it and it seems to me his career is not based on streaming numbers. The film is scheduled to screen next month at NZIFF, and I would presume a series of film festival s around the globe for the next year.

I am not ignoring your disappointment, or staying safe but maybe a more useful part to quote from that article, is about the filmmakers intent:

“For Memoria, [the] cinema experience is crucial or maybe the only way. Let’s embrace the darkness and dream, one at a time,” Weerasethakul said.

A vocal advocate for the theatrical experience, Tilda Swinton said, “’Memoria’ is the perfect film for this. Big cinema or bust… Throughout the universe, in perpetuity.”

sorry this is OT