It's not you, it's me.

I've been wasting a lot of time. Let's get this right. 'Been trying to find a way to capture how I heard songs before I could hear the full spectrum of sound in both ears. When I first became able to hear in stereo I heard a whole bunch of new things. Every time I played a record I noticed a new pitch or effect or shimmering tone, and tracking the evolution of my ability to hear was a thrill. The one part of the whole process I failed to examine was the process itself. I didn't pay attention to why it took me three weeks before I could hear everything. I never even questioned it. Until now.


So, I've been trying to show you music in my ears. Not going to happen. I have spent a good amount of hours going through all the kinds of music I own, transferring it to mono, then being totally confused because I can hear everything, it just sounds a little less interesting. I expected sections to vanish. They didn't. I was wrong every time.


I'll never be able to hear like I did ever again. Lately, I've been noticing that the more I use the bone conduction head phones, the more sound I've become aware of. I can't just transfer something into mono expecting half the sounds to disappear. I knew this was true when I began to hear what I thought was stereo in the car.


When I began to hear more and more sounds without the headphones, I looked back over the past few weeks. I remembered that on the box that the bone conductors arrived in stated that it took about two to three weeks for them to work in full. It all became simple then.

(I am not happy about this)

The brain has tons of memory, it uses its memory to develop auto responses. There are many things we don't think about because we simply don't have to. The sub-conscience can do a good amount of work while our perception of the situation remains else where. I don't think about it before I open a door, I just open the door. My sub-conscience knew about the door and sent out a dispatch that told my arm to open the door when I got to it. Meanwhile, I was humming a tune trying to decide what I wanted to eat for lunch.


This is a little hard for me to stare in the face; my sub-conscience is/was a lazy fool. He basically gets his panties in a bunch when he hears cool effects, then he decides that the sounds are too much work for him to deal with. Then the little rat hides them from me. That slacker has been trashing all the sound that was too lazy to process.


So, I stormed into his office and slapped him around with bone conduction, he jumped up off his ass, cleaned his office and started filing all his work where it belongs. It took him three weeks to get his act together.


This so explains the rush of discovering new sound.


Why was it so intense learning how to hear all these sounds? Why would I get so emotional? Why did it take three weeks? Why are the sounds that weren't there before present everywhere without the headphones? My left ear didn't magically repair itself, impossible. UGH!

(My poor undeveloped mind, sigh.)

It was always possible for me to hear this way. I just had to realize that it was possible for me to hear those sounds. That is why I can them anywhere now.


I have always said that the best place to hide is in plain sight.


I asked my audiologist about it in an email.

Your theory is pretty good. The brain is constantly assessing sounds as "important/dangerous to me" versus "environmental sounds that I don't need to pay attention to" such as the computer humming or the fans turning. If it's not an important sound to the brain, you won't necessarily be aware of it until you make a conscious effort to listen for it or if it changes in some way that the brain thinks is important and focuses on. Since you've spent so much time thinking about sound and the different ways you are hearing monaurally versus with bone conduction headphones, your brain is hypervigilant to new sounds.Possibly you are becoming more cognizant of sounds since we've started paying attention to your hearing over the past few months and you're more consistently using the bone conducted headphones. It will be interesting to see the benefits you experience when we hook up the processor and give your brain back the sensation of binaural hearing.

I'm a little shocked. Sounds were always there. I didn't know how to hear them.


Does anybody out there know anything more about this?


Tell me.


I don't know if what I'm currently hearing now is stereo anymore.