Lucid Dreaming

[Grimnebulin]

I get tinnitus by default, but to someone who's never had it, it can be quite jarring. I sleep with a lot of things on in my room - the fan, the windows open, sometimes some music from a cd player on low volume, just to keep the sound manageable at night.

Not to derail the thread, just curious how bad your tinnitus is and whether you've ever had it diagnosed. I've suffered with it for many years, fortunately never debilitating, but still bad enough in the quiet hours to court madness. Haven't come across anything that's been of much help either.

[Wesley]

Not to derail the thread, just curious how bad your tinnitus is and whether you've ever had it diagnosed. I've suffered with it for many years, fortunately never debilitating, but still bad enough in the quiet hours to court madness. Haven't come across anything that's been of much help either.

I'm deaf in both ears thanks to German measles while I was in the womb, so when I was born I had damaged cilia in my cochlear chambers. I was also born with fluid in both ears, so I was deaf for the first two years while they waited for me to grow a bit more. I had grommets drilled into both ears to take out the fluid (first memory I've ever recalled) and I've had tinnitus ever since, I guess. I was too young to know what it was, and couldn't tell the doctors about it.

Nowadays I've learnt to live with it. I've had my ears checked regularly since I was seven since my hearing loss will accelerate over time. The tinnitus cannot be cured because its related to my damaged hairs inside the cochlear, so I'll have to get one implanted to get rid of it. Its become a mild irritation these days, but its always there. I joke with my friends that I've never known the sound of silence.

At night when its dead quiet, or after a hot shower, its at its loudest and I can't do much about it except have other sounds in my room to counter it. I did an experiment with white noise though, and that cancels it out almost completely, but never works all the time. Unfortunately, those white noise generators people put into offices are a bit out of reach for me.

[Grimnebulin]

Takes minor issue and exits stage left, sheepishly.....

Sorry to hear that, for what it's worth. Though I'm sure you're coping more than admirably with it.

I'm thankful that mine doesn't relate to a degradation of hearing, but I do understand the mild irritation. I'm distracted enough during the day for it not to be a problem, and running the fan at night tends to make sleep easier, but that doesn't work very well in Winter. The irony is, I can't fall asleep unless it's pretty quiet, even if my wife is listening to something through headphones it's too much of a distraction, but when it is finally quiet, the tinnitus becomes all I can hear. Also, for a dedicated audiophile, I can't use headphones.

Anyways. Back to scheduled programming.

[Wesley]

The irony is, I can't fall asleep unless it's pretty quiet, even if my wife is listening to something through headphones it's too much of a distraction, but when it is finally quiet, the tinnitus becomes all I can hear. Also, for a dedicated audiophile, I can't use headphones.

Yeah, the quietness part is weird, I've never known why it works that way. I'm completely deaf in the right ear, so I do have a perk - comfortable silence whenever I want, just by sleeping on my left side. Its led me to become a deep sleeper, so I'm always going into REM sooner than normal (not that I can remember the majority of my dreams).

Also, being totally deaf in one ear makes nice headsets like the Cooler Master Storm Sirius only worth half the value :-P

But the weirdest thing is I can put my finger just over my earlobe or lightly touching it, and my tinnitus spikes up for about a minute afterwards.

[Spindleshanks]

I've had something similar, a while ago I went through a phase where when I was asleep, I would wake up very suddenly and my entire body felt like it had pins and needles. While I could move, it was that weird sensation you have where you limbs feel really heavy. What would wake me though was like a really loud buzzing/ringing which felt like it was coming from inside my ear. The noise was so loud it was painful and after it happened the first time, every time I would drift off, as I was falling asleep it would come back suddenly, jerking me awake. My breathing would also be really shallow.

Dude, as soon as I read your post I freaked out a little. I am a 1st year student studying Audiology and I am pretty concerned by this. You don't also happen so suffer from sudden vertigo attacks do you? Because if you do, there is a slight chance it can be something quite nasty.

Now, I'm no expert (yet) but I think you may have the symptoms of what is called Meniere's Disease. You should go check it out IMMEDIATELY as it could be a result of a neuroma on your acoustic nerve. The tumor, in most cases, is benign, but the pressure it causes as it grows can be fatal.

Well, it's that or just normal sleep paralysis...

[Azraphael]

I haven't had it in quite a while, and at the time I used to get it I was working as a sound and lighting tech in the concert industry. I always just put it down to excessive sound checks, thank you Mr Van Dyk for that one. I've never suffered from vertigo, well, not while sober anyway. I'm not too worried about it, when it does happen (once, maybe twice a year) it is no where near as bad as it was a few years ago.

[pArkEr]

I'm deaf in both ears thanks to German measles while I was in the womb, so when I was born I had damaged cilia in my cochlear chambers. I was also born with fluid in both ears, so I was deaf for the first two years while they waited for me to grow a bit more. I had grommets drilled into both ears to take out the fluid (first memory I've ever recalled) and I've had tinnitus ever since, I guess. I was too young to know what it was, and couldn't tell the doctors about it.

Wow, my mom had German measles while I was in the womb as well. Luckily it didn't really affect me that much, so I've only had to go to yearly ear-checks. Glad you learned to live with it, I can't imagine what it must have been like.

For the guys that had the sleep paralysis, read this.

I've been making some substantial progress. I can remember at least one dream every night now, but I can't seem to realize that I'm dreaming as of yet, no matter how ****ed up my dreams may be. For the moment, I'm going to try and increase my reality checks, and I'm setting my alarm to say "You are in a dream" to see if that may work.

[Zen]

Suffered from sleep paralysis 2 or 3 years ago. Don't know why but I suddenly woke up and I couldn't move a muscle. It felt like I had someone pushing every part of my body down. It really freaked me out, though I never heard the buzzing sound that some of you guys mentioned.

Its definitely not an experience I want to repeat.

[Wesley]

Wow, my mom had German measles while I was in the womb as well. Luckily it didn't really affect me that much, so I've only had to go to yearly ear-checks. Glad you learned to live with it, I can't imagine what it must have been like.

Thanks. I guess one of the benefits, though, of losing hearing from birth is you never have to go through the shock half-way through childhood. Strangely its also heightened my awareness of certain sounds although my hearing loss is in a certain low-pitch range thats very small, and in the high-pitch range in one or two points. What I do find is that I'm more sensitive to pressure changes than others, but that's about it.

Also when I yawn while someone's talking I can't hear a thing while doing it. Quite odd, dunno if this is a normal thing or not.