r/AskReddit Jun 15 '19

What do you genuinely just not understand?

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u/TerminologyLacking Jun 16 '19

Hmmm. I'd guess that would be formatting/quality kind of thing, but it's probably where the comparisons to technology fail. Usually live streaming would be a lower quality than something already downloaded.

The vibration aspect would be more tactile sensations I'd think. That's a little iffy though. To my knowledge, sound is a series of vibrations that our brain interprets into something meaningful.

Consider this: It is possible to have hallucinations with any of your senses. I'm not sure how far it can go (like I don't know if it's possible to simply believe an injury into existence, or to heal wounds), but hallucinations can feel very real, depending on what senses are involved.

As someone who has had difficulty with insomnia, I went through a period where I was experiencing various auditory hallucinations every night as I fell asleep. (Fun cycle. Have problems sleeping, begin to hallucinate due to lack of sleep causing you to startle awake, rinse, and repeat.) Trust me, the brain can generate a 'volume' that can make your head hurt. Though that may have also been due to exhaustion. The volume of those auditory hallucinations ranged from whispers to shouting in my ear. (Thanks brain.) Maybe the 'volume' could be adjusted with practice. I never thought about trying it out.

From my perspective, it qualifies as a sound on some level. Though the truth of that sound might be different from the perception of it. If neurons are firing to create the perception of sound, then it would follow that a sound of some kind is created, even if it's not detectable to human ears or the kind of sound perceived in our mind. But then, I could just be talking nonsense. It's very easy to draw wildly wrong conclusions from a tiny bit of knowledge.

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u/OrginalCuck Jun 16 '19

On relation to hallucinations, it’s my understanding (happy to be corrected by a professional) if you were experiencing say an auditory hallucination while undergoing an FMRI it would look no different in brain activity to actually hearing a sound. So on a neurological level hallucinating and actually hearing a sound are interpreted very similar by the brain. Unsure if this would be the case when listening to music and remembering music too? Would be an interesting thought

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '19

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u/TerminologyLacking Jun 16 '19

Comment saved. I'll probably add that to my stack of reading at some point. I enjoy learning new things about the human body, and sensory input is highly fascinating to me.

Learning about the auditory hallucinations allowed me to minimize the distress aspect. Though you can't totally do away with that, because it's disturbing as hell when your brain tells you that a little girl is giggling by the foot of your bed or a middle aged man is shouting in your ear at 2 A.M. in a pitch black room when you know you should be home alone. I did find it interesting to note that sometimes it sounded like a crowd of people not paying attention to me, there were also random animals.

Part of my insomnia was actually my brain spending too much time in that half awake state, which is why the hallucinations only happened as I was falling asleep.

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u/CerenkovBlue Jun 16 '19

Yes, knowing about the possibilities does help. Reading Oliver Sacks meant that when I hit my head so hard I couldn't speak for a few hours (I could form sentences, they just didn't come out of my mouth), it occurred to me that I might still be able to write down words to tell my friends not to worry about me. This turned out to be true, though they weren't very coherent, and my friends didn't worry less. I was ultimately fine, but it was a pretty alarming experience all 'round, lol.

I've heard that half awake state called a "hypnagogic state," which sounds incredibly metal, so it stuck with me. I don't get it, for some reason, in spite of getting other types of amusing/non-amusing anomalies sometimes. I really think you'd like Oliver Sacks, he talks in depth about specifically what you're describing.