When I took my police training, the academy was on the western end of a community college that was perched on a ridge in the mountains. On the eastern end was a building containing the student lounge for the college. In that lounge was a juke box that was always playing something. There was a deaf guy attending the college, and whenever he went into the lounge he would start dancing in time with whatever song was playing, and that kinda creeped some folks out, because they knew he was stone deaf, and could not hear it. So a young lady asked him about it one day, and his response was that he could feel the music - he was dancing in time with the vibrations of the sound coming from the juke box.
Now me, I've always been hyper sensitive to sound. I can hear things most other people can't. I don't know if it's an actual,hyper-sensitivity, or if I just learned young to concentrate and filter extra sounds out until I got to what I was trying to find and then internalized that habit, or what. Anyhow, I have to sleep in a room full of noise. If I don't I hear every little thing, and every little noise outside the house has to be investigated. Every little noise in the room I'm sleeping in will wake me up and place me on alert. None of that is conducive to a good night's sleep, so I drown out the noises with a TV, or a fan, or a radio, or ANYTHING I can make expected noise with to drown out the unexpected sounds.
I think there is a good chance I can hear things that I can't hear. For example, back when I got back from Nicaragua, I stayed in the woods in WV for several months, away from people. One morning at about 4 AM a cousin and I were sitting in his kitchen drinking coffee and fixing breakfast when I made the observation that there was someone directly behind me, on the other side of the wall. It was 4 am for crying out loud, in the middle of nowhere - who in the hell would be creeping out there at that time? He scoffed, chalked it up to my paranoia, and we went on with life. He pointed out that the only thing on the other side of that wall was a car parked at the house end of the driveway. As soon as it got light enough to see, we went outside, and lo and behold there was a McDonald's bag on the ground by the car's tire, and an ass print in the dew on the fender of it. Someone HAD been there.
I don't know how I knew. I didn't hear anything at a conscious level, I just KNEW. The only thing I can figure is that I picked up on sounds that were below the threshold of regular hearing. It wasn't the first time I just knew, and wouldn't be the last, but he learned to pay attention when I said something was amiss.
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Now me, I've always been hyper sensitive to sound. I can hear things most other people can't. I don't know if it's an actual,hyper-sensitivity, or if I just learned young to concentrate and filter extra sounds out until I got to what I was trying to find and then internalized that habit, or what. Anyhow, I have to sleep in a room full of noise. If I don't I hear every little thing, and every little noise outside the house has to be investigated. Every little noise in the room I'm sleeping in will wake me up and place me on alert. None of that is conducive to a good night's sleep, so I drown out the noises with a TV, or a fan, or a radio, or ANYTHING I can make expected noise with to drown out the unexpected sounds.
I think there is a good chance I can hear things that I can't hear. For example, back when I got back from Nicaragua, I stayed in the woods in WV for several months, away from people. One morning at about 4 AM a cousin and I were sitting in his kitchen drinking coffee and fixing breakfast when I made the observation that there was someone directly behind me, on the other side of the wall. It was 4 am for crying out loud, in the middle of nowhere - who in the hell would be creeping out there at that time? He scoffed, chalked it up to my paranoia, and we went on with life. He pointed out that the only thing on the other side of that wall was a car parked at the house end of the driveway. As soon as it got light enough to see, we went outside, and lo and behold there was a McDonald's bag on the ground by the car's tire, and an ass print in the dew on the fender of it. Someone HAD been there.
I don't know how I knew. I didn't hear anything at a conscious level, I just KNEW. The only thing I can figure is that I picked up on sounds that were below the threshold of regular hearing. It wasn't the first time I just knew, and wouldn't be the last, but he learned to pay attention when I said something was amiss.
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Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’