Head Noises—The Quality Probably Depends on the Memory of Sounds Heard in Youth—The Sea and the Church Bells—“Voices” and Subjective Audition—Insanity and the Unseen—The Rich Dream-Life of the Deaf.

Deafness is not even complete silence, for we must frequently listen to head noises, which vary from gentle whispering to wild roars or hideous bellowing. There is little other physical discomfort usually, though some exceptional cases are associated with headache or neuralgia. There is, however, an annoying pressure upon the ears, which is greatly increased by excitement, depression or extreme fatigue. Unseen hands appear to be pressing in at either side of the head. The actual noises are peculiar to the individual in both quantity and quality; there are cases of the “boiler-maker’s disease,” where the head is filled with a hammering which keeps time with the pulse. I have known people to be amazed at the “uncontrolled fury” of the deaf when their anger is fully aroused—perhaps by something which seems trivial enough. They do not realize how a sudden quickening of the heart action may start a great army of furies to shouting and smashing in the deaf man’s brain!

Again, the roaring and the pounding will start without warning, and then as suddenly fade to a dim murmur. It appears to diminish when the victim can concentrate his mind upon some cheerful subject, so I take it to be more of a mental or nervous disorder—not essentially physical. Many times I have observed that these noises become more violent and malignant whenever the mind is led into melancholy channels. They appear to be modified and softened in dreams, so I am thankful that I have been able to train myself into the ability to lie down and sleep when the clamor becomes unendurable. I meet people who pride themselves on their ability to go without sleep, and I shudder to think of their fate should they ever be marooned in the silence, since they appear to regard extra hours of sleep as a form of gross negligence at least! These night-owls tell me that they are the “pep” of society—its greatest need. I am not so sure of their mission. As I see it, the world has already too much “pep” for its own good. We need more “salt.”

You have doubtless noticed deaf people who go about with a weary, half-frightened expression, and have wondered why they have failed to “brace up” and accept their lot with philosophy. You do not realize how these discordant sounds and malignant voices are driving these deaf people through life as a haunted man is lashed along the avenues of eternal doom. Of course his will frequently becomes broken down, and his capacity for consistent and continuous labor is practically destroyed. Do you know that if you were forced to remain for several hours in a roaring factory you would come back to your friends showing the same symptoms of voice and manner which you notice in the deaf?

In my own case these noises have not been greatly troublesome, since I have persistently refused to listen to them. It is not unlikely that they are largely imaginary—although you are free to experiment by taking a double dose of quinine, which should give you a fair imitation of what many deaf people live with. The chief noise trouble that I have had is a sort of low roaring or murmuring, at times rising to an angry bellow, and then again dying to a low muttering. The deaf usually remember common noises heard in their youth, although I fancy that as the years go on our memory of sound changes with them. My private demonstration reminds me of the old sound of the ocean, pounding on the shores of the seaport town in New England where I was born. It seems to me now that the ocean was never quiet, except at low tide, and even then there came a low growl from the bar far out at the harbor entrance. I can remember lying awake at night as a child, listening to the pounding of the surf or the lap of the waves against the wharf. With a gentle east wind there was a low, musical murmur, but when the wind rose and worked to the north it seemed to me like a giant smashing at the beach, or like a magnified version of the Autumn flails pounding on barn floors far back among the hills. It seems to me now that I can hear and distinguish all those variations of sound in the noises within my head; I have often wondered if such memories ever come to those who have perfect hearing.

Poets and dreamers have enlarged upon the romantic quality of “the sad sea waves.” I once knew a woman who wrote very successful songs about the “shining sea,” though she never saw the ocean in her life. Those who live in the interior, far from the ocean, with never a view of any large body of water, are easily led to believe that the sounds of the sea are delightful companions. I often wish I could share my part of the performance with them! I would gladly exchange my constant sound companion for ten minutes of wind among the trees. Bryant says:

True; but Bryant was not deaf. No doubt as a child he held a sea shell to his ear and listened to its murmuring with delight. But he could lay it aside when it became tiresome! One speaks from quite another point of view when incased for life within the shell. I think I know just how the Apostle John felt when, looking out from every direction from his weary island, he saw only the blue, rolling water. He wrote as part of his conception of heaven:

“There shall be no more sea!”

I agree with him fully, and yet I know people whose conception of heaven includes Byron’s apostrophe to the ocean. How can we all be satisfied?

Other curious sounds come to us as we sit in the silence. Some are interesting, a few are strange or delightful. I frequently seem to hear church bells gently chiming, just as they did years ago when the sound came over the hills of the little country town where I was a boy. The sound now seems to start far away, dim in the distance; gradually it comes nearer, until the tones seem to fall upon the ear with full power. They are always musical, never discordant; they go as suddenly and as unexpectedly as they come. And where do they come from? Can it be that dormant brain cells suddenly arouse to life and unload their charge of gentle memories? Or it may be—but you are not interested in what the deaf man comes to think of strange messengers who enter the silent world. You would not believe me were I to tell you all we think and feel about them.

When I asked my aurist about this he wanted to know if any particular incidents of my childhood were connected with the ringing of bells. I could remember two. It was the custom, years ago, for the sexton of the Unitarian Church to come and strike the bell when any member of the community died. There was one stroke for each year of their age. That was the method of carrying the news. The sexton did not pull the rope, but climbed into the belfry and pulled the tongue of the bell with a string. It was my duty to count the strokes, and thus convey the news to my deaf aunt. In that community we knew each other so well that this tolling the age gave us as much about it as one would now get over the telephone. And then the bell on the Orthodox Church over in the next valley! That always rang on Sunday, before our bell did, and I heard it softly and musically as the sound floated over us. I had been taught to believe that the Orthodox people had a very hard and cruel religion, and I used to wonder how their bell could carry such soft music. When I spoke of this the aurist smiled understandingly and said it fully explained why these musical sounds now come back to my weary brain.

Actual voices come to us at times. I have had words or sentences shouted lustily in my ears. In several cases while sitting alone at night reading or writing this conversation of the unseen has seemed so clear and natural that I have stopped and glanced about the room, or even moved about the house, half expecting to find some visitor. As a rule the sentences are incoherent, and are not closely connected with everyday life; they sometimes refer to things which have preyed upon my mind in previous days. Deaf friends have told me of direct and important warnings and suggestions they have received in this way, but I have known nothing of the sort. It does seem to me, however, that this shouting and incoherent talking usually refers to matters which I have deeply considered at times of depression, fatigue or strong excitement. I consider that, as in the case of the bells, it may mean the sudden stirring of brain cells which have stored up strongly expressed thoughts, and are in some way able to give them audible rendition to the deaf.

My aurist offers an ingenious explanation. He says that I can hear my own voice, and undoubtedly it is at some times clearer than at others. I may unconsciously “think out loud”; that is, go through the interesting performance of talking to myself without knowing that I am doing it. Perhaps if he were deaf himself he would not be quite so sure of his theory—nothing is so convincing as a fact. I remember that at one time my dentist was trying to persuade me that I ought to have a plate.

“But that is merely your theory,” I said. “You tell me that you can make a plate which will enable me to eat and talk in a natural manner. How do I know? I think a dentist, to be entirely successful, should be able to prove such statements from his own experience.”

For answer he gravely took a good-sized plate out of his own mouth. I had no idea that he had one! I have often wished that some of our skilled aurists might graft their theory of head noises upon practical experience.

Scientists and psychologists refer to these noises as subjective audition. I shall attempt no scientific discussion of the matter, as this book is intended to be a record of personal or related experience. All students of deafness seem to agree that we can hear sounds, definite noises and even words that are purely subjective. Certainly in some forms of insanity the victims hear voices commanding them to do this or that. I have known several persons apparently sane in all other matters who insist that unseen friends talk to them and give advice.

Some years ago I was permitted to make a careful study of members of a small religious community which was established near my farm. Its members were ordinary country people, for the most part of rather low mentality and narrow thought, yet with a curiously shrewd power of intuition. They were fanatics, and among other practices or “self-denials” they refused to eat anything which had to do with animal life. Thus they limited their diet to grain, vegetables and fruit. One man, who called himself “John the Baptist,” found this restriction a rigorous punishment, for he “liked to eat up hearty!” He wrestled in spirit for weeks, and finally told me that he had received an unanswerable argument straight from the Lord. In a moment of depression he had heard a voice from Heaven saying very distinctly:

“John, look at that big black horse!”

“I can see him right now!”

“Look at him! He is big and strong and can pull a plow all alone. Does he eat meat? No, he lives on grain and hay—the grass of the field! Now if that big horse can keep up his strength without meat, you can do the same, John!”

And John fully believed that he had held direct conversation with the Lord. No man could shake his faith in that. Undoubtedly it was a case of that subjective audition similar to what the deaf experience. John heard the conversation, or at least imagined that the words were spoken; they followed or grew out of his thought.

I myself have had enough experience along this line to make me very charitable with those who give accounts of this sort of thing. It is a question, however, as to just how much of the unseen one can hear and not be considered insane! While some of the deaf lack the imagination to carry out this strange experience, others realize that the public draws no distinct boundary between “oddity” and insanity, and are wary of repeating all the strange messages which come to them. I think it is beyond question that primitive people, Indians, isolated mountaineers or ignorant folk living in lonely places have this subjective side of their hearing greatly developed. This I believe to be also true of educated thinkers who are largely influenced by imagination. It seems perfectly evident to me that some persons of peculiar psychic power may really develop abilities unknown to those who possess the ordinary five senses. As I have stated elsewhere in this book, I predict that the study of this strange power is to develop during the next century, and that the afflicted are to lead in its investigation.

Speaking of head noises and imaginary voices, I have an idea that there are deaf men who took these things too seriously and came to think that such noises appear to all. This led to a condition which made it something of a trial to live with them. They have been railroaded off to some “sanitarium” or asylum, even though they may be entirely sane. I have met deaf men who realize all this, and therefore, as they express it, they “will not tell all they know.” I am convinced that for this reason much that might be valuable to the psychologist is lost to the world.

Another strangely interesting point in this connection is that the deaf hear perfectly in dreams. Even considering dream psychology, this is to me the most curious phenomenon of the condition. In dreams I seem to meet my friends just as in waking hours, and I hear their conversation, even to a whisper. I also hear music, but it is entirely of the old style which I heard as a young man, before my hearing failed. Unfortunately (or otherwise) the modern “jazz” and rag-time tunes mean nothing to me; I have never heard a note of them. In dreams I hear grand operas and songs of the Civil War and the following decade; these last are plaintive melodies for the most part, for New England, when I was a young man, was full of “war orphans,” who largely dictated the music of the period. But even in sleep, listening as easily as anyone to this old music or to the voices of friends, the thought comes to me constantly that I am really deaf, and that all this riot of music and conversation is abnormal. The psychological explanation that here is a dream struggle between a great desire and the fact which thwarts it in real life sounds plausible enough, but the deaf man still must ponder on the profound mystery of his dream-life. I do not know just how common this dream music or sleep conversation may be among the deaf. I am told that some deaf people rarely, if ever, have this experience, while others tell very remarkable stories of what comes to them in sleep. It must be understood that I am merely giving my own personal experience, without trying to record the general habit of the deaf.

Physicians relate some curious experiences in this line. In one case a deaf and dumb man, utterly incapable of hearing when awake, was made to hear music and conversation when asleep. On the other hand, a deaf man who could hear music and conversation in dreams could not be awakened even by loud noises close to his ear. He showed a mechanical response to the vibration by a slight flicker of the eyelids, but protested that he heard nothing of the racket. In most cases of hysterical deafness arising from nervous trouble or shell shock during the war the patient seemed to have forgotten how to listen. If he could be made to listen intently he usually made some gain in hearing. Mind control or the use of some hypnotic influence is actually helpful in many cases.

I feel confident that this subjective hearing and these strange voices are responsible for the reverence or fear with which the Indians and other ignorant people usually regard the deaf. It is not unlikely that the famous “voices” which inspired Joan of Arc resulted from a form of subjective audition. Seers or “mediums” probably have developed this quality until it gains for them the respect and awe of their constituents; this would account for their great influence with primitive peoples. I have even had evidence of a remarkable attitude of wonderment toward myself on the part of strange people among whom I have traveled.

I take it that all this subjective audition arises from thoughts and emotions filed away by memory somewhere in the mind. Business men run through their dusty files and find letters or documents that were put there years ago and forgotten. Here at last they are brought to recollection, and the memories associated with them start a train of ideas which may affect the mind like a joyous parade or a funeral procession. The deaf, lacking the healing or diverting influence of sound, live nearer to this subconscious stratum of memories and can more easily call them up; in time of worry or great fatigue they can more easily come to us. Much of the curious foolishness of intoxicated persons results from this rising of the subconscious.

I have no doubt that the original deaf man, far back in history, when men lived in caves without light or fire, was considered a gifted and highly favored individual. I think it likely that the voices and strange noises which come to us through subjective audition were considered by these primitive people as communications from the strange, mysterious powers which changed light into darkness, and brought cold, hunger and storm. Probably the original deaf man was given the warmest corner in the cave and the first choice of food, in order to propitiate the spirit which communicated with him. The modern deaf man, however, can take little pride in the good fortunes of his original representative, for he is made aware every day that his fellows no longer class him as a necessity in the world’s economy, unless perchance he is able to lend them money or cater to their necessities.

It has been clearly shown that the play of our emotions has a physical influence on the body. The working of such emotions as fear, anger or worry is destructive; joy or quiet pleasure helps to build up rather than to break down. The happier emotions are nearly always influenced or guided by sound—music, or gentle tones of the voice. Thus we may see how the deaf, deprived of this healing or harmonizing influence, except in dreams, may easily become fearsome and morbid. Once a woman loathed dishwashing with a hatred too bitter for this world. She was obliged to do it, and she was able to largely overcome her emotion of disgust by playing selections from the operas on the victrola while at her work. That music influenced the counter emotions of joy and beauty until they overcame the loathing. Her hands were in the dishwater, but her mind was in glory—and then what did her hands matter? We can all remember similar cases where music has filled the soul with a great joy and has lifted the body out of menial tasks or humiliation. But music is not for the deaf; we are shut away from it, and can find no substitute. We must work out our mental troubles as best we can.