Problem: I’m being driven mad by voices speaking to me thru white noise. Need white noise to sleep
Psychiatrist today suggested:
- normal human speech has typical rhythm, cadence
- fans, white noise audio files are always looped, rhythms in it
- brain is hearing those patterns as human voices
- I need to introduce staggered rhythms to disrupt
Possibilities:
- Willie Nelson, William Shatner speak with atypical cadence. Play at same time as white noise
- phone app that vibrates atypically
- machine in room that generates atypical rhythms, vibrations
Options, ideas? I’d like not to go further insane
Dunno about staggered cadence but when I’ve been hearing voices I’ve found listening to very boring Buddhist dharma talks on podcast to help. They block out the voices and the dull, drone of the bikkhu lulls me to sleep.
Worth a try?
Very specific, wouldn’t have considered Buddhist podcasts. =) I’ll try to find some.
By the way: I read your comment about hearing voices. I’ve heard voices since childhood, was minor, infrequent. But recently stress, trauma I was having hearing voices all the time, speaking clearly. Persecution, terrorizing. Felt like I was going insane
I use TMSoft’s White Noise which runs on most platforms, or stream. It has plain white noise, yes, but it also has a wide range of other sounds that you can use (brown noise, railroad, city street, stream, etc). You can also upload your own sound, get sounds/mixes from other users, or make your own mix.
My personal mix has a mild background of pink noise, with both a thunderstorm and some rain mixed in: the pink noise filters out common background, the rain helps with masking as well, and the thunder helps me sleep through bass sounds like lawn mowers and trucks.
Yes! Exceptional nerdy tech. Thank you
Do you find the sound of rain and distant thunder relaxing? If so there are plenty of recordings on YouTube and YT music that are hours long and not loops. Search for keywords with “rain forest”.
That’s what I’ve been using. My favorite youtube channel is “relaxing white noise.” Unfortunately cuz all I can find is continuously looped audio of rain, ocean, etc, it’s the continuous loop causing the problems.
Update 2 days later: Many useful comments. I now have text doc filled with apps, software, podcasts, etc to research, try out.
This posted question was weird, obscure. Could’ve been ignored, ridiculed. Barely slept in 4 weeks cuz hearing voices. Desperately hoping against hope.
So, small group of random internet strangers taking question seriously, offering constructive solutions instead of ridicule? You’ve helped a lot. Thank you.
For some reason, listening to Knowledge Fight helps me sleep
It’s like falling asleep while two friends are talking on the other end of the room.
Plus Dans voice was built for lullabies.
That remind me: Gary Stadler lullabies I listen to. Very good. So new options, yes
Man, so many podcasts are awesome. Ty
Why not just a second white noise, or other white noise adjacent sound? Even if they’re both looped they’re not going to have the same loop length and that will be a changing rhythm that way.
Been listening to combo of three audio files, white, pink and grey noise to block out all frequencies. 2 are youtube videos, and designed white noise loop I created in a sound editor program .
No matter how varied each sound source is, even in combo, there will be pattern variations that become predictable on repeat.
Kinda like how fremen walk on the sand in dune. Have to walk with no pattern, to not attract sandworms.
Ocean sounds don’t exactly have a specific rhythm, and are a popular white noise that people have used to go to sleep.
Not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, butI have a free app called White Noise lite (Android) that let’s you ‘remix’ multiple white noises by combining them. You can add up to 5 different noises at once, with customized settings that include variance. Here’s some shots of what that looks like in the app:
Perfect, free even better. Will definitely look into that.
wtf
