Unexplainable – “Your moments of silence” (The Sound Barrier #5)

Podcast: Unexplainable
Host: Vox (Noam Hassenfeld and team)
Air Date: December 15, 2025
Main Theme:
This episode gathers listener experiences and scientific insights to explore the many meanings and sensations of “silence.” By revisiting the communal 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence inspired by John Cage and inviting listeners to share what they “heard” in that silence, the episode investigates auditory perception, individual differences in hearing, neurological and emotional responses to sound (and soundlessness), and the mysteries of the brain.

Episode Overview

Unexplainable’s “Your moments of silence” is the fifth installment in the Sound Barrier series. The episode collects stories and audio diary entries from listeners around the world, each describing what they experienced—often with exquisite detail—during a shared moment of recorded silence. The conversations expand to the science of silence, auditory perception, tinnitus, and misophonia with expert commentary, while highlighting the deeply personal, sometimes paradoxical, nature of silence.

Listener Experiences of Silence

Everyday Sounds Revealed by Silence

• Listeners describe how “silence” is never absolute; instead, removing louder noise reveals the subtle soundtrack of everyday life.

  • Alex (Atlanta, GA):

    • Heard kitchen sounds while making makeup: eggs cracking, mascara “pop,” eyebrow pencil strokes, the soft snap of the highlighter cap.
    • “It just felt really powerful to think about...all these people sitting in silence together and what are all of us doing and and how wonderful that was.” (03:28)

  • Daniel (Melbourne, AU):

    • Water running, fridge humming, cat meowing; silence changes as noises come and go.
    • “There is not silence. There’s the water that’s running until I shut it off. Then I could hear my fridge and my cat in the other room demanding my attention.” (02:39)

  • Dan Pauli:

    • Spring rain, water pipes, body noises after pizza.
    • Notable moment: “I heard my stomach processing the pizza I'd eaten about an hour earlier.” (05:15)

  • Dan Sheppard (San Dimas, CA):

    • Birdsong, arguing hummingbirds and doves (neighbor keeps doves as a magician’s assistant), distant trains.
    • “The rufous hummingbird and the Anna's hummingbird, they like to argue and fight so you can hear a little of them in the background.” (08:29)

The Emotional Impact of Shared Silence

• Listeners describe a sense of intimacy, vulnerability, or even tactile awareness during shared silence:

  • Alex:
    • “Very interesting and almost tactile experience for someone typically irked by the repetitive noises of life.” (05:34)

• Some reminisce about ceremonial silences (e.g., Remembrance Day in Canada) and their new perspective on them:

  • Daniel:
    • “Every year the moment of silence...I thought was longer than needed, but I think I will think of that differently today.” (10:19)

• Noam Hassenfeld describes how peeling yams and parsnips sound “distinctly different,” finding soft comfort in everyday kitchen tasks (06:04-07:14).

When Silence Isn’t Silence: The Brain’s Role

The Challenge of True Silence

• Noam Hassenfeld:
  “Was hard not to fill that silence with my own thoughts.” (11:56)

• Gordon Taylor (listener):

  • Profound “true” silence through hearing aids:
  • “For me, I take my hearing aids out and I’m in absolute complete silence. I don’t hear my heartbeat, I don’t hear myself breathing. I don’t hear anything. And that, for me, is quite comforting, actually. It’s my place of being, sort of home...” (12:03)
  • After putting hearing aids in:
    “It’s like suddenly turning a switch and being more awake.” (13:12)

• Dan Sheppard:

  • Tinnitus as a persistent “high G” tone:
  • “One of the things that you won’t hear...is the din of the tinnitus that is in my ears, which is constantly going. And even as we speak, it is this high drone.” (14:12)

Hearing Outside, and Inside, the Head

Expert Discussion: Dan Pauli on Tinnitus and Misophonia

Is There a Connection Between Studying Tinnitus and Developing It?

• Noam Hassenfeld asks if focusing on tinnitus may “cause” it, as several researchers developed it during their work (21:03).
• Dan Pauli (Harvard, Mass Eye and Ear):
  • Principal risk is age, but personal stories (e.g., after Boston marathon bombings or loud bagpipes) show how external sounds and personal experience intertwine (21:39).
  • The brain is always “perched right on the razor's edge of being able to produce tinnitus… The brain, in silence… is very active. It's not like the brain is quiescent when there isn't a sound... What distinguishes activity in the brain during silence that is just not perceived as anything versus the activity that is perceived as this never ending sound?” (22:39–23:41)

Misophonia: Emotional Reactions to Ordinary Sounds

• Listener question: What is misophonia and how does it relate to tinnitus?
• Dan Pauli:
  • “Misophonia is a condition where certain sounds elicit a very powerful, very negative emotional reaction. Irritation does not do it justice. It's closer to almost like anger or like rage.” (24:21)
  • Often triggered by chewing, burping, tapping, keyboard clicks, etc.
  • The auditory system’s connections to the limbic system (emotion, threat detection) make us “wired” for emotional responses to sound. (25:30)

Are Tinnitus and Misophonia Related?

• They originate differently—tinnitus is internal, misophonia external—but both tap into how the brain’s emotional centers process sound (26:38–27:29).

Embracing or Resisting Tinnitus

• Some suggest embracing tinnitus as "part of yourself":
  • Dan Pauli: “If you experience it as other, you experience it as being assaulted by it, it’s irrepressible. I want to oppress it. It is an adversarial relationship. And of course it’s going to bother you. ...If you understand that it is being produced by you, it is a part of you, that’s nice.” (27:46)
  • But he’s also “hell bent” on finding an ultimate cure:
    “I don’t think that people should have to get used to it. I think there is a way to silence it.” (28:32)

The Brain’s Marvels and Mysteries

• Studying tinnitus makes scientists “amazed, surprised, humbled” by the mind’s complexity:
  • "Medicine is the great tutor of biology... By studying these exceptional cases when the human body doesn't work as it should, that you actually figure out how it manages to work at all.” (29:43–31:03)

Notable Quotes and Moments

• “There is not silence. There's the water that’s running until I shut it off. Then I could hear my fridge and my cat in the other room demanding my attention...” — Daniel (02:39)
• “For me, I take my hearing aids out and I’m in absolute complete silence. And that, for me, is quite comforting... It’s my place of being, sort of home.” — Gordon Taylor (12:03)
• “The brain is always perched right on the razor's edge of being able to produce tinnitus. ...What distinguishes activity in the brain during silence that is just not perceived as anything versus the activity that is perceived as this never ending sound?” — Dan Pauli (22:39–23:41)
• “Misophonia is a condition where certain sounds elicit a very powerful, very negative emotional reaction. Irritation does not do it justice. It's closer to almost like anger or like rage.” — Dan Pauli (24:21)
• “If you experience it as other, you experience it as being assaulted by it, it’s irrepressible. ...If you understand that it is being produced by you, it is a part of you, that’s nice.” — Dan Pauli (27:46)
• "Medicine is the great tutor of biology... By studying these exceptional cases when the human body doesn't work as it should, that you actually figure out how it manages to work at all.” — Dan Pauli (29:43–31:03)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Listener submissions: 01:22–15:31
  Varied global reflections and rich sensory descriptions during silence.
• Expert discussion (Dan Pauli on tinnitus/misophonia): 20:27–31:03
  Science of tinnitus, misophonia, neurological insights, and the emotional impact of sound.
• Notable transitions & host commentary: 06:04 (Noam’s morning kitchen), 11:56 (Noam on thought-filled silence)
• Community and science hybrid: 09:44–10:19 (Remembrance Day, ceremonial silence)
• Calls for continued listener participation and education: 31:03

Final Thoughts

The episode deftly combines personal narrative, scientific context, and philosophical exploration, making palpable the paradox of silence: that it is filled—with memories, anxieties, nature, bodies, and brains. The “quiet” is never empty, and this episode uncovers both the comfort and the challenge embedded in hearing, or not hearing, both our environments and ourselves.

For teachers, students, the hard of hearing, and the merely curious: this episode is an evocative meditation on perception, inviting further participation and reflection on just what it means to “listen.”