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Comment by no_time | Hacker News Reader

But that isn’t tinnitus right? I noticed mine right around the same time and I call it the “aether noise”.

To me, regular tinnitus (which I also had for a few days after concerts) could be matched and recreated with a tone generator, and is much more “in your face” despite being the same volume by the end of my ears healing.

Aether noise on the other hand sounds multi tone, not a buzz or a hum. I have not yet managed to recreate it. I can hear it all the time if I can focus on it, but it only calls attention to itself in dead silence.

Do you have visual snow by chance too?

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Not OP, but yes! I've had the exact same "symptoms" my entire life.

- A faint multi-tonal background "hiss", only apparent during silence, never goes away but is quite relaxing. I'm hesitant to even call it tinnitus - Visual snow. I have early memories from at least 5 or 6, staring at the blue sky and noticing it's not pure (I see blue as everyone else, but with a very transparent layer of static)

I have attributed it to something "off" in the sensory filtering part of my brain

It's so subtle I've for a long time wondered if it's something most people experience and don't notice, or they assume is normal, just because unless I think about it I don't really notice it either. I have been known to focus on details more than others do. Not sure if this contributes to my seemingly heightened sense of smell as well. But not being able to experience what others experience, makes me wonder if I'll ever know.

I always thought that was just blood flow in the ears. Would make sense if that would cause _some_ noise.

>It's so subtle I've for a long time wondered if it's something most people experience and don't notice, or they assume is normal

I wondered this myself too. One thing I do know is nobody was able to relate from friends and family when mentioning this. Visual snow syndrome (which according to affected people online can be very disabling) was only first described as late as 2015 according to wikipedia. So we may never know at this pace.

heh welcome to the club I guess. I always knew it’s not only me, even though nobody knew what i was talking about when explaining these symptoms.

Not quite tinnitus, much less drastic than anyone describing their diagnosed visual snow symptoms. Could be a very mild case of VSS or an yet to be named condition.

Aether noise is a great name for it. Just really quiet broad-spectrum noise.

I remember reading a long time ago that it was caused by "the neurons in your ears occasionally randomly firing" but I cannot find any source for that, so assume that it's untrue :)

The audiologist I went to said tinnitus is anything you can hear that doesn't have an external source. In his case, he's always been able to hear his own heartbeat.

On that note, I can usually hear my heartbeat after any mild physical effort. Like a short brisk walk or waking up a flight of stairs very quickly. I’m not very athletic or fit, perhaps that could be a contributing factor. Not all the time though - if that is what your audiologist meant, that’s very cool.

There is research I only learned about recently that is showing that some tinnitus can be heard with a microphone (surprisingly), this is showing that some are due to spasms causing actual sound!

I have the aural version of this. Buddhists might liken this to a nimitta, a qualia of your consciousness

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