Enigmatic Sounds

I hear things.

I’m not talking about rumors, or all the usual sounds most people hear during the course of their daily lives. I’m not even talking about those creaks in the middle of the night as the house relaxes after a long day, though the sounds I am talking about come to me after the dark of night settles in and mostly after everybody else in the house has gone to bed.

The thing is, I’m don’t think these sounds are coming through my ears.

Ghosts? If it is, they have followed me from our old house in Nebraska to our new house in Florida.

What I hear is - frequently - music. I’ll be sitting here, playing games working on my computer, and I’ll become aware of music. Specifically, a radio playing Elvis tunes, or 50s hits, or once in a while, swing. But it’s not a strong signal; it reminds me of when I briefly lived in Cheyenne, and while I did my homework, I would try to tune in a specific radio station from Oklahoma. I frequently couldn’t find it, but if the clouds between us were in the correct positions, I could. Kind of. As I remember it, the static threatened to overtake the music, and that’s what this ‘night serenade’ sounds like. And there isn’t any DJ.

I’ve heard - now, this is a rumor - that some people pick up radio signals because of fillings in their teeth. But for me, this only started a couple years ago, and all my old-type fillings are much older than that. This past decade, my dentists have used ‘composite’ fillings, which don’t have the same minerals in them.

But static-laced music isn’t the only thing I hear. Last night, I listened to a phone ring for about an hour. We don’t have a land line in our house, and neither cell phone sounds like an actual phone ringing. In any case, this was the kind of ringing when you have ‘dialed’ and are waiting for someone to answer. Nobody ever did, nor did it go to voice mail or an answering machine. It just kept ringing.

I’m not the only one who ‘hears’ this kind of stuff. A couple friends have admitted having similar experiences, and all of us are diabetic. I don’t know if that last part has any bearing on it, but I would like to know why my mind does this. Is it so bored, it’s entertaining itself? How does it pick what it’s going to listen to? I’ve enjoyed Elvis as an entertainer, but I never bought any of his records. The 50s songs would have been popular when I was a child, but I don’t remember listening to a radio at that age. Swing music from WWII was definitely before my time. And a ringing phone? Who was it trying to call?

Now, here’s another way to think about it: When I’m all alone, I hear things that aren’t there. Things that aren’t creepy or scary. So I’m wondering if, when space travel becomes ‘fairly normal’, and some people are traveling by space ship but don’t have constant contact with ‘base’, will they hear things that aren’t there? Would it creep them out? Would they inform base of it at their next contact? Will science have an explanation for this strange brain activity by then?

How long has the ‘human’ brain been doing this? Did the brain of an ancient person entertain itself with birdsongs or the chattering of small animals (think squirrels)?

Okay, confess. What does your brain do when you’re all alone and not paying it much attention?