Your moments of silence (The Sound Barrier #5)

Summary

---

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.”

---

Transcript

[Alex]

Support for this show comes from Strawberry Me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job or are you stuck in one you've outgrown or never wanted in the first place? Sure, you can probably list the reasons for staying, but are they actually just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from Strawberry Me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your corner. Go to Strawberry Me Unstuck to claim a special offer. Support for this show comes from SC Johnson. We've all been there Choosing not to wear your new white shoes because there's a 10% chance of rain Bending awkwardly over the tiny coffee table to enjoy a sip of your latte, not ordering the red sauce. Those feelings of dread are what we call stainxiety. But now you can break free from your stainxiety or with Shout's Triple Acting Spray that has stain fighting ingredients to remove a huge variety of stains so you can live in the moment and clean up later. Just breathe and shout with Shout Triple Acting Spray. Learn [e-mail].

[Daniel]

It's just a minute. I just finished the third installment of your sound Barrier series, which my cat and I both appear to have loved. So I had to stop doing my dishes to come and record something.

[Alex]

It is the day before Thanksgiving. I was cooking some cornbread while you guys had that section of silence and I heard the sounds of cracking eggs and the mixer going. I heard the brush of my finger against my cheek and I heard the electronic noise of the inside of my headphones.

[Daniel]

It was interesting to me when Noam had us experience silence together. You know, doing my dishes. Suddenly there's nothing. And then I realized 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. And as I sat there for the 4 minutes and 33 seconds, my fridge stopped making noise, which was more interesting to me than it had ever been before.

[Alex]

I got goosebumps afterwards and it just felt really powerful to think about. Like all these people sitting in silence together and what are all of us doing and and how wonderful that was. The 4:33 of silence coincided with the exact moment I began to do my makeup this morning, the pencil going into the sharpener, filing layers away. I heard every stroke of my eyebrow pencil as I swiped my brows to fill them in.

[Dan Pauli]

During my 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence, I was able to hear the quiet patter of spring rain coming.

[Daniel]

Down on the roof and water dripping.

[Dan Pauli]

Down the side of the house.

[Alex]

The scratch of placing the cap back onto the pencil when I was finished.

[Daniel]

The ticking of the wall clock, the buzzing of the fridge.

[Alex]

The pop of my mascara wand going in and out of the tube.

[Daniel]

The trains passing nearby, as well as.

[Dan Pauli]

The water pipes piping water to the kitchen.

[Alex]

The twisting of my highlighter cap opening and closing the wheel rolling in the track of my bathroom drawer.

[Dan Pauli]

I heard my stomach processing the pizza I'd eaten about an hour earlier.

[Alex]

Finally, the smack of my lips after an application of gloss.

[Daniel]

The sounds are always with you, which.

[Dan Pauli]

Usually fade into the background, the soundtrack.

[Daniel]

To your very own life.

[Alex]

Very interesting and almost tactile experience for someone typically irked by the repetitive noises of life. This is Alex in Atlanta, Georgia.

[Daniel]

Hello from Daniel in suburban Melbourne in Australia.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I'm in Toronto. It is dark and early and there is a sliver of orange rising above the city. My partner is in bed, my dog is on the balcony, and this is the sound of my morning. But listening to the silence, I discovered that the sound of peeling yams is actually distinctly different from peeling parsnips. Peeling parsnips was somehow a softer sound, almost comforting.

[Dan Sheppard]

My name is Robin Moore.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I'm going to record the silence here in my kitchen.

[Dan Sheppard]

This is Dan Sheppard in San Dimas, California. Most excellent place to live. We had just gotten a lot of rain and the mosquitoes are back out again. You will hear me slapping my leg to try to keep the mosquitoes away this time of year. 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. I heard goldfinches. We have a couple kinds of goldfinches, the American goldfinch and the lesser goldfinch. Mostly the lesser goldfinches. You might be able to hear the doves. And my next door neighbor, apparently she was a former magician's assistant and she keeps doves in her back garden and you can hear those occasionally.

[Daniel]

Today is November 11th here in Canada. We do Remembrance Day on November 11th and I've participated every year. You go to the cemetery at the corner here in town and watch folks lay a wreath. And at one point they do a moment of silence. My dad was in the Navy, so I like to go over here. It's just interesting. Every other year the moment of silence.

[Dan Pauli]

Has been.

[Daniel]

What I thought was longer than needed, but I think I will think of that differently. Today.

[Dan Sheppard]

I am in downtown Rochester, tucked away.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Behind a wall to not catch the wind. It can be very strangely peaceful and.

[Dan Sheppard]

Still feel kind of natural when you're.

[Dan Pauli]

In the middle of a city, it's wild sometimes.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Was hard not to fill that silence with my own thoughts.

[Gordon Taylor]

I was really amazed by the reaction people had to the room of silence where it seemed super uncomfortable for people to be immersed in absolute complete silence. And that's because 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, you know, like that home base feel of, ah, yeah, now I'm, you know, I'm good. I do that every night. I take my hearing aids out, I'm in complete and utter silence. And then I wake up in the morning totally silent until I put my hearing aids in. And then all of a sudden, I am tuned in. I'm awake and alive with the world that's going on around me. Things are moving and shaking. You can hear just the gentle hum in the room. You can hear yourself walking across the room. You hear everything. It's like suddenly turning a switch and being kind of, well, more awake. I just thought it was fascinating that people are in general uncomfortable with silence and thought, well, I'm not. And I wonder how other very hard of hearing people feel and how the deaf community feels about silence. It must be totally different than the hearing folk.

[Dan Sheppard]

One of the things that you won't hear when you're listening to it 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. It's like a high G. And so sometimes when I'm trying to listen to something quiet, it takes a lot of effort. But I always like to take a moment anyways, when there is some quiet time and try to either focus on that sound to tune it out, or to, like, listen to the world around me.

[Gordon Taylor]

G'. Day, Gordon Taylor from Mullumbimby, Australia. I just hit off the third tee and was walking down towards my ball with my headphones on when Noam started the silence. I think it was when I heard him cough in the studio that I.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Realized what I was hearing was just.

[Gordon Taylor]

So beautiful and unique to me. The early cicadas of spring, the bird life, the wind noise, the rattle of my clubs. And the whole time I thought it was someplace quiet.

[Daniel]

Anyway, I think I'm gonna go take a walk in the woods. Later and listen to the silence in the wood. It.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Support for the show comes from 1Password. It can feel like you don't need to worry about someone hacking your passwords because you're just one person, right? Or one small business. But small businesses are being targeted more and more by bad actors. 1Password is a password manager that aims to help small teams manage the number one risk that bad actors weak passwords According to One Password, stolen credentials are responsible for almost a third of all data breaches. So 1Password gives you a centralized place to make sure your company's logins are safe. It's a simple solution that can be rolled out in app, and it can grow with your company over the years. However complex your security needs get, 1Password is going to stay with you every step of the way. And 1Password's Enterprise Password Manager lets you do way more than just deal with passwords. You can store and share all kinds of sensitive data, and 1Password can even streamline the transition to things like passkeys. Take the first step to better security by securing your team's credentials. Find out [e-mail] unexplainable and start securing every login Support for the show comes from Udacity AI. It's everywhere, especially at work. It can all feel a little intimidating, but that's where Udacity comes in. Udacity is an online learning platform with courses in AI and tech like Generative AI, Agentic AI, Data science, all kinds of stuff. And by courses, they don't just mean passively watching videos or reading articles. You're going to be doing practical exercises and projects that prepare you for the jobs you want. Udacity just launched a master's degree in AI, and that might help recruiters and employers take notice, which might mean a chance at a better job or a better salary and better skills in AI. So check out Udacity today. The tech field is always evolving and you should be too. You can try Udacity risk free for seven days. You can head to Udacity.com unexplainable and use code unexplainable for 40% off your order. Once again, that's Udacity.com unexplainable for 40% off and make sure you use the promo code unexplainable so they know we sent you.

[Dan Pauli]

Guys.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree, Zoe.

[Robin Moore]

This thing weighs a ton.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Kursky.

[Dan Pauli]

Live with your legs, man.

[Daniel]

Santa.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Santa, did you get my letter?

[Robin Moore]

He's talking to you, Bridges.

[Alex]

I'm not of Course he did.

[Dan Pauli]

Right, Santa?

[Noam Hassenfeld]

You know my elf Drewski here.

[Dan Pauli]

He handles the nice list.

[Robin Moore]

And elf, I'm six' three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile, you can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies. Right, Mrs. Claus?

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I'm Mrs. Claus's much younger sister. And at T Mobile, there's no trade in needed when you switch, so you can keep your old phone or give.

[Dan Pauli]

It as a gift.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

And the best part, you can make the switch to T mobile from your phone in just 15 minutes.

[Dan Pauli]

Nice.

[Robin Moore]

My side of the tree is slipping.

[Daniel]

Timber.

[Dan Pauli]

The holidays are better.

[Robin Moore]

AT T Mobile, switch in just 15 minutes and get iPhone 17 on us with no trade in needed.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

With 24 monthly bill credits for well qualified customers plus tax and $35 device connection charge. Credits end in balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Finance agreement. 256 gigs, $830 eligible port in a new line, $100 plus a month plan with auto pay plus taxes and fees required. Check out in 15 minutes or less per line. Visit t mobile.com.

[Dan Pauli]

I'm Dan Pauli and I'm at Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary where I'm the director of the Lauer Tennis Research center and professor at Harvard Medical School.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I might have to do this often because of where you are right now, but I'm just gonna do that again in one second after the siren is gone.

[Dan Pauli]

After the siren, yeah. Which just confirms I work at a hospital.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Exactly.

[Dan Pauli]

I don't know if this is ambulance.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

We'll try this one time and then I don't know if we need to keep doing. But yeah, one more time, if you can just say your name. And the best way to introduce you, I'm Dan Pauley.

[Dan Pauli]

I'm the director of the Lauer Tinnitus Research center at Mass Eye and Ear and a professor at Harvard Medical School.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Okay, so last time we talked was for the Tinnitus episode in the Sound Barrier series.

[Dan Pauli]

Yep.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

And we just got tons of questions from listeners that I'd love to run by you in a sec, but before I get there, I kind of want to ask you a question I had that came up while I was doing this episode. Basically, you have tinnitus, Right. You told me you got it after you became a researcher.

[Dan Pauli]

That's true. Yep.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Yeah. So the other researcher I talked to, Stefan, he also got it after becoming a researcher. And this psychologist I know listened to the episode and told me he got it after working with tinnitus patients years. And I was even Obsessing about tinnitus so much while making this episode that I kind of thought I started hearing things. And I guess I'm wondering, do you think there's anything going on here that's more than just irony that there might be some kind of connection between focusing on tinnitus a lot and getting it?

[Dan Pauli]

Okay, so let me play the skeptic. As researchers, you don't really ever get to choose what you're gonna do research on until you're a little bit older. And number one risk factor for tinnitus is age. So I think there's a. Okay, all right. So, like a little bit of a coincidence there, but I started doing research after the Boston marathon bombings. You know, there were a hundred people standing near those blasts that developed it. Afterwards, you know, I just kind of felt a calling because of wanting to feel useful to something that was like, big and eventful in the city I lived in and the people I worked with. And then I was able to relate to it personally because I went to this wedding of a Scottish postdoc in my lab and the bagpipers and the sound of the music that basically was like the straw that broke the camel's back. I guess after that event, the tinnitus that came from speeding around, loud sounds that normally clears up didn't, and it's still with me. But the brain is always perched right on the razor's edge of being able to produce tinnitus. If you look at the activity of the brain in silence of somebody without tinnitus, it's very active. It's not like the brain is quiescent when there isn't a sound. It's just that that activity that's ongoing isn't being read out by your consciousness as a sound. So really, what distinguishes all this sort of blinking lights of neurons firing from being read out as a percept versus not. What is the line between a hallucination and just the ongoing sort of noise of this massive machine at work? This is the key question of why is there tinnitus? It isn't like a switch that goes on or off. It's probably very subtle. 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? That's not just a philosophical question. That's like, what gives me confidence that we can defeat tinnitus? Because it's not like you have to take this aberration in the brain and turn it back to nothing. You have to. You just have to Disorganize it enough to go back to what it was before you didn't have tinnitus, which is still plenty of activity in the presence of silence. It just isn't being read out consciously as a sound.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

All right, let's get to some of the questions we got from listeners on tinnitus and silence.

[Dan Pauli]

Yep.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

The first one I wanted to get into was a question about misophonia. Can you tell me a bit about misophonia? Like, what it is, how it works?

[Dan Pauli]

Sure. 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. It's like extremely unpleasant. So chewing, burping, coughing, sometimes like tapping on the keyboard or clicking a computer mouse will be triggers. So these are often sounds that when they're experienced by someone on the other end, they're like, ah, yeah, yeah, extremely irritating.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I don't know. I've felt like I've had something like misophonia for a long time. I remember as a child when I would hear certain types of mechanical noise, like a fridge or an AC unit. It's hard to describe. It sometimes sound like it was angry and I would kind of freak out as a kid. Is that sort of what misophonia is? This sort of like profound fear, discomfort, response to sounds?

[Dan Pauli]

Look, I'm a neuroscientist, so way I look at it, of all the senses, the auditory system has a really strong interconnectedness with the limbic systems. So limbic system regulates mood and emotion. It also is surveilling the environment for threats. So imagine all of these bridges between the hearing parts of the brain and the limbic parts of the brain. If the weights are changed slightly on them, they can quickly take on an emotional significance. It seems, in a way, almost like arbitrary. Like, why does listening to the sound of a refrigerator sort of elicit this sort of emotional reaction? But the hearing system is the watchman of our bodies. Right. It is doing 24 hour surveillance. And so of course, it sort of has a privileged connection with the parts of our brain that are assessing threats, because that's what we depend on the auditory system for, threats that our other senses might not catch, threats we might encounter while we're sleeping. So it's a good thing that the auditory system is so heavily interconnected with brain systems that evaluate threats. But it's also a vulnerability.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

That just makes me think of what you said last time about how people with tinnitus have a whole brain problem that it's not necessarily just hearing a sound, it's actually that that sound is maybe getting hooked into their other emotional centers of their brain. I wonder if you think there's a way of connecting them or thinking about them in the same way in that regard.

[Dan Pauli]

Yes. I mean, what makes them different is that in tinnitus it's a sound that doesn't exist in the external world. In misophonia it is so about an actual physical sound. So when you think about their upstream, how are they elicited? They couldn't be more different, but they become very similar when you think about the common relationship they share between this emotional response to activity that's flowing out of the auditory centers of the brain.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Yeah, yeah. Someone else wrote in and was talking about, rather than trying to get rid of tinnitus, trying to embrace it. Has that ever been a conversation you've had to maybe even try to see the beauty in tinnitus?

[Dan Pauli]

You know, I think about like those guitar cases that like as somebody has owned a guitar for a while, like it just accumulates dings and dents. I mean, as we age, our bodies accumulate injuries and the world has acted on it. It is me and this is my guitar case. It's not brand new. So I really love the spirit of that suggestion. 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. You're going to come to hate it. If you understand that it is being produced by you, it is a part of you that's nice. I mean, I think I say all this like I'm a researcher because I don't accept that tinnitus.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Right.

[Dan Pauli]

I don't think that people should have to get used to it. I think there is a way to silence it. And I am totally hell bent. Like it consumes my every waking professional moment of like, how are we actually going to be able to do this? So I don't mean to just offer the glib advice of like, try to embrace it. But at the same time it's a good approach. In the absence of some wonderful therapy that my lab or a clinician will come up with, you gotta use the tools available to you. That's the one that we all have.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I was talking to a musician I play with who told me that he's had tinnitus for a while because of playing loud Music without earplugs. And he told me that when he thinks about his tinnitus, it shows him how much of what we hear is kind of like a trick our brain is playing on us. And it reminded me of what you said last time we talked. You said the brain doesn't have direct contact with the physical world, so everything we perceive as consciousness is constructed from the activity of our brain.

[Dan Pauli]

Yeah.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

And I guess I just wonder, does working on tinnitus make you amazed or surprised or humbled by what the brain can do?

[Dan Pauli]

Oh, my gosh, yes. Yes.

[Robin Moore]

Yeah.

[Dan Pauli]

You know, it seems, like, so ineffable, you know, just like, how does the brain work? You're like, good luck figuring that out. You almost need a foothold. So tinnitus is so, you know, you would never design a brain that way. You think, like, why? Like what? But it's one of those flaws that, like, you know, there's that line that medicine is the great tutor of biology, that by studying these sort of exceptional cases when the human body doesn't work as it should, that you actually figure out how it manages to work at all. And so, yeah, studying tinnitus gives me a foothold to study those operations and appreciate them more, Because to know that it can fail in this very specific mode gives me an insight into how it works normally. It fuels a huge amount of the research we do in the lab. It makes me appreciate that it works, you know, 99% of the time.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

This was the fifth installment of our sound barrier series. We might keep putting these out once in a while, so let us know if you have any thoughts or suggestions or questions you want us to look into on the science of hearing. We've also heard from a few teachers who've wanted to use some of the stuff from our series for their students. If you're using any of our episodes in the classroom, please let us know. We'd love to hear about different ways you're using them. And if you need resources, we're always here, so feel free to give us a shout. This episode was produced by me, Noam Hassenfeld. I also wrote the music editing from Jorge, just with help from Joanna Solotaroff, who's also running the show. Mixing and sound design from Christian Ayala and fact checking from Melissa Hirsch. Sally Helm is trying to take over the sky. Amy Padula is trying to take over the sea. Meredith Hoddenott is our senior supervising producer. Julia Longoria is our editorial director. And Bird Pinkerton took off toward the platypuses. Where's Platy. She yelled. Where's Platy? Finally, one of the platypuses pointed toward a hole in some tree roots by the river. And just barely sticking out of the hole there was a small guitar. Thanks to all the listeners who sent in emails or voice memos for this episode. Brett, Haley, Alex, Daniel, Daniel, Dan, Alessandro, Jay, Robin, Glen, Gordon, Sarah, David, Mary, Brad, and so many more of you that we didn't get to feature. Every sound in the first half of this episode came from your recordings. I really can't tell you how much it means to me that you listened so carefully and that you wrote in with such thoughtful and generous messages. Thank you. Thanks also to Vartika Sharma and Paige Vickers for the artwork for the Sound Barrier series. Thanks as always to Brian Resnick for co creating the show along with me and Bird. And if any of you out there have thoughts about the show, send us an email. We're@ unexplainableox.com you can also leave us a review or a rating wherever you listen. It really helps us out. And if you're into supporting the show even more and all of VOX in general, join our membership program. You can go to vox.commembers to sign up and during the holidays this year, your membership actually goes further. When you join VOX as an annual member, we're going to gift a complimentary membership to a reader facing financial barriers. You can read more about all of this at the same site. Vox.commembers unexplainable is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network and we will see you next time.

[Robin Moore]

Support for this show comes from Amazon Ads. Every business owner has been there. You put a significant amount of money into an ad buy and then wonder did those ads actually have an effect? Luckily, there's Omni Channel metrics from Amazon Ads. Omnichannel Metrics helps advertisers understand how their Amazon ads campaigns drive sales both on and beyond Amazon. While campaign are still mid flight. OCM measures performance across streaming tv, video, audio and display, helping you understand what's driving results across the full funnel. Using Amazon Shopper panel data plus third party signals, you'll be able to see beyond Amazon product sales units sold and roas. Whether customers buy on Amazon or at a brick and mortar store, you'll understand the full impact of your campaigns. Measure comprehensive sales impact to better understand purchase behavior and drive greater efficiency, effectiveness and roi. Tired of guessing where your ads are actually driving sales? Capture the full impact of your media spend with Amazon Ads. Omnichannel Metrics head to advertising.Amazon.com to learn more. That's advertising.Amazon.com.

[Alex]

The American Express corporate program is more than a card. It's a complete solution. Apply for the right card for your employees, from everyday spenders to frequent travelers. Issue virtual cards to suppliers or project teams for added security and flexibility. Simplify accounts payable with American Express one AP helping your company automate supplier payments. The AMEX corporate card program grows with you. Terms apply, enrollment required and fees may apply, including an auto renewing monthly platform access fee. Suppliers must be enrolled and located in the United States.