I was listening to music when I put in my earplugs. I put one into my left ear, and suddenly felt a change, but the music was still well-heard. As soon as I inserted the earplug into my right ear, the music quieted down, as if I had turn it down significantly. The decrease in the volume of music was obviously the result of the earplugs, which tend to reduce the noise level by 30dB. I also left like my head was suddenly confined. Not only was my hearing suddenly diminished, I felt myself withdrawing from the outside world. The confinement could have two possible sources. First of all, the air pressure in my ear was changed by the earplugs, almost cutting off the air flow which my ears were accustomed to feeling.

When I spoke, I could hear my voice really clearly, much better than the voices of other people. It felt strange though, as if I were speaking a tunnel. I think that I was able to concentrate on my voice my better than before, for the earplugs blocked the surrounding sounds which are usually mixed in with my own voice when I speak. A friend commented on the fact that I seem to be able to hear everyone, but no one could hear me. With the earplugs, I lost the ability to judge the volume of my voice. Thus I spoke very softly, afraid of yelling, for anything above a whisper sounded like yelling. In addition,

I could hear my own breathing, particularly in a quiet room. Chewing seemed to overpower all the other noises which were prior accessible to my hearing. If I wanted to hear people speaking, I had to stop chewing. When I speak, breath or chew, bones transmit vibrations as sounds. For the lack of background noise, these vibrations became more prevalent. The background noise disappeared for it has much lower intensity and usually frequency than the noise on which we focus. The threshold of some of the frequencies could not reached due to the earplugs.

I work in the preservation department in the library, in an enormous room where no one really talks. Working there with the earplugs felt like I was in a volt. Carpeted floors muffled any echoes of my footsteps, combined with a lack of any other noise created a bizarre sensation. In addition, I am highly prone to day dreaming. The ear plugs greatly exacerbated my condition. Since listening to others required much concentration, I tended to withdraw from the conversation into my own thoughts. Being in the library, and later surrounded by people, I quickly became tired of attempting to hear what other were saying, for it required a great deal of concentration. So, withdrawing into my thoughts came quite naturally.

Despite my tendency to daydream, I obviously had to communicate with people. I got much better at reading lips and just paying closer attention to what the people around me were saying. Thus, I could understand the conversation much better if the person were facing me. I finally understood the importance of facial expressions. When people were not facing me, I had a hard time distinguishing whether they were speaking to me or someone, for I could not interpret the intonation of their voice. Perhaps the earplugs diminished my ears’ sensitive to changes in tone and the intent of the speaker.

I discovered that I was unable to do homework. The absence of any background noise prevented me from concentrating. This was highly surprising, for I expected the opposite effect. I like silence when I study and I was positive that the earplugs would be an asset. A possible explanation is the adaptation to a particular noise level. I guess my brain is used to studying while accompanied by a certain noise level.

The strangest thing happened. I was sitting doing homework in my room and I smelled something really good. I suddenly had a great urge to take out my earplugs and figure out where the smell was coming from. This confused me, for I never connected the sense of smell and hearing.

Wearing the earplugs was eight consecutive hours was very unpleasant. As soon as I put them in, I felt isolated from the rest of the world. Especially when I went outside, I felt removed from everyone else. Since the background noise was removed, to hear anything, I had to concentrate on any specific conversation. I almost felt invisible–a rather strange sensation. I was extremely relieved to take the earplugs out of my ears. I felt like my ear were flooded with all kinds of noises, allowing a new level of stimulation. I took them out in the middle of my biochemistry class. Suddenly the lecture became much more interesting. The professor not only seemed to speak loader but with much greater intonation and power.

Overall, I thought that this was a useful experiment. For a few hours, I experienced the world like it appears to a person with diminished hearing caused by a disorder either with the outer or the middle ear.