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Comment by teeray | Hacker News Reader

There’s muscles in my ears that I have conscious control of that don’t really seem to do anything other than make a rumbling sound. They were fun to use when I was young playing, since I could make explosion sounds and get a realistic rumbling bass too. Are these the same muscles?

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Seems like not:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_tympani_muscle

I can do this too. The article mentions it being “rare”, but it sounds like it hasn’t really been studied so might actually be common. From casual discussion with friends in the past I suspect it’s more like 30-50% of people.

Same here and I always sort of assumed this was a normal thing of the human body. I'm kinda shocked to learn that many people can't do it.

What kind of muscle can switch between voluntary or involuntary depending on the person?

Oh, so that's what that is? Crazy. Subjectively (besides the sound) it just felt like a vague pressure in my head, near the neck, so I never could figure out what the hell it was I was doing.

As the article mentions, the tensor tympani muscles are also involved in hyperacusis, which is an inability to tolerate sound at volumes most people have no issue with.

One of my kids has this. The best analogy I've found is it is like standing out in the sun when you already have sunburn.

https://www.reddit.com/r/earrumblersassemble/

I do this sometimes when my ears are congested and I’m trying not to do weird things with my jaw where people can see, to open up my Eustachian tubes. It works about a third of the time.

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