[HN Gopher] Can brown noise turn off your brain?
___________________________________________________________________
Can brown noise turn off your brain?
Author : tintinnabula
Score : 162 points
Date : 2022-09-27 18:10 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| omnicognate wrote:
| I've been sleeping with exponentially-smoothed brown noise for
| years. I use a raspberry pi with its hardware random number
| generator because with pseudorandom numbers or compressed samples
| I hear all sorts of artifacts - no doubt at least partially
| psychological, but psychology matters when you're trying to get
| to sleep. Uncompressed samples are fine and can be looped without
| a gap, but that's less fun.
|
| I'm currently looking at building an analogue circuit to generate
| this noise, because electronics is fun and because sampling
| thermal noise (which is brown) inside the rPi's hardware rng,
| having it massaged to white noise and then converting it back to
| brown noise (with a bit of pseudorandom mixed in as the rate
| isn't quite high enough) and back to analogue to go to a speaker
| all seems a bit daft.
| dwringer wrote:
| Interested to know more about your experience with uncompressed
| audio generated from pseudorandom numbers. Do you know what
| PRNG you were using? I would think the simplest common ones
| would indeed be terrible but it could be very interesting to
| study if something like the Mersenne Twister or better could be
| detected as "not truly random" in this way.
| xani_ wrote:
| > I've been sleeping with exponentially-smoothed brown noise
| for years. I use a raspberry pi with its hardware random number
| generator because with pseudorandom numbers or compressed
| samples I hear all sorts of artifacts - no doubt at least
| partially psychological, but psychology matters when you're
| trying to get to sleep. Uncompressed samples are fine and can
| be looped without a gap, but that's less fun.
|
| Well, there have certainly been a plenty of bad RNGs in use.
|
| > because sampling thermal noise (which is brown)
|
| It's not. You need a filter to get pink/brown noise out of it
| omnicognate wrote:
| You're right. I assumed it was brown because it comes from a
| form of Brownian motion, but apparently it's white.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| Any cryptographic pseudorandom number generator (or hash
| function, equivalently) should be completely indistinguishable
| from random noise. Although, frankly I don't think you should
| need to go that far. Almost any PRNG should do it, it's really
| only the simplest ones that have noticeable periodicity.
| omnicognate wrote:
| As I say, it's likely to be at least partially psychological
| but that doesn't really matter. The real test is whether I
| can get to sleep to it.
| mellavora wrote:
| Highly recomend https://syntherjack.net/make-some-pink-noise-
| generator/
|
| which gives four different circuits, they each have their own
| sound.
|
| yes, they are pink, not brown, but pipe the output through a
| spare opamp configured as a low-pass filter and you can have
| "any color you like".
|
| Then pipe that through a low-pass gate and you start to get
| some interesting bloops, and before you know it you are full-
| time building Eurorack modules.
| omnicognate wrote:
| Nice, thanks!
| BatteryMountain wrote:
| Keen to blog about it or upload your scripts somewhere?
| omnicognate wrote:
| The code is a horrifyingly awful bit of C++ and the whole
| thing is horrendously inefficient (rpi heating the room up
| doing arithmetic). I wouldn't want to publish it in its
| current form, and the next thing will be an analogue circuit.
| I might blog about that, though.
| thenobsta wrote:
| Both brown noise and shoegaze remind me a lot of the Safe and
| Sound Protocol by Porges. It's a therapeutic intervention
| designed to increase cues of safety by filtering common music
| into the range of human speech. The creator of the protocol has
| done some research demonstrating efficacy and come up with a
| plausible theory for why his protocol works[1]. Maybe his work
| could add color as to why shoegaze and brown noise is so
| impactful for some people? Not really sure, but seems related.
|
| [1] https://www.emdrwestonsupermare.co.uk/wp-
| content/uploads/201...
| jinder wrote:
| I've used SSP and let's just say I think it's nothing short of
| revolutionary. It seems to be completely changing how my brain
| works and how quickly it gets activated (in the sense of what
| state it is in).
| mckirk wrote:
| For productivity I've also tried binaural sound, and found it can
| help me focus (or at least make me imagine it helps me focus,
| which is close enough for me).
|
| There's a great website that allows you to customize quite a few
| parameters and also adjust the 'wave' frequency for different
| scenarios (from 'sleep' to 'focus'), it's interesting to play
| around with if you have headphones: https://brainaural.com/
| steve_john wrote:
| It's a bit "rougher" than pink noise and resembles the roar of a
| river current or strong wind. Common benefits associated with
| brown noise are relaxation, improved focus, and of course, sleep
| improvement.
| motohagiography wrote:
| While I can't say I've done serious research, I have hacked
| around with synthesizing different noise types using a synth, and
| there is a concept called "entrainment," which I understood as
| getting your brain to focus on reconciling and cohering related
| sound or light stimuli. There are triggers for it, where there
| are just enough sensory cribs to imply coherence that you think
| you can interpret it, but of course since it's random, you can't,
| and that state of expectation absorbs your attention, distracting
| it from obsessive thoughts.
|
| For some people, listening to Bach is like hearing another
| conversation where it becomes hard to form responses to someone
| actually trying to talk to them over the music. That's probably
| true for any music they like, but there may be a level of
| complexity that "entrains" the mind by submitting its buffering
| and cohering mechanisms to rhythmic boundaries that prevent it
| from focusing on other stimuli.
|
| The woo around "binaural beats," is related, where by playing a
| different tone in each ear that is only offset by a few Hz, the
| ability of our brain to tell the difference between them (or not)
| oscillates and we apparently "hear" low frequency beats and
| harmonics as artifacts of this clipping or that do not appear on
| a spectrograph. The relationship of the frequency of this
| clipping or beats is has a sort of backfit horoscopyness about
| how different frequencies "activate" different cognitive
| abilities. However, it's surprisingly less bullshitty than it
| sounds. Since the frequency of the beats resembles natural
| electrical impulse rhythms in the brain during sleep, (owing to
| the beats being literal artifacts of gaps in the brain's
| processing and not of the sounds themselves) there has been some
| very interesting art and research into what messing with what are
| essentially just signal processing limits might mean.
|
| Max Richter's "Sleep" concert was designed using similar
| principles, but instead of synthesized tones, the sounds are
| composed and performed live in music over 8.5 hours.
| (https://www.maxrichtermusic.com/albums/sleep/) Once it clicks
| that you can create these massive washing harmonic effects that
| overwhelm the senses with classical instruments and live
| musicians, the cult of Wagner starts to make sense. (e.g. the Das
| Rheingold Prelude).
|
| People use white noise generator programs to put babies to sleep,
| and I think there is a lot of interesting art to be made using
| the entrainment concept that runs through brownian and 1/f noise,
| to wall of sound music.
| almog wrote:
| Paywall bypass: https://archive.ph/6QTJB
| darepublic wrote:
| Nice but I believe the handler to turn on sound didn't get
| brought over.
| c_o_n_v_e_x wrote:
| >Rain On A Tent * If you have trouble falling asleep, try
| spending a night under a tarp tent listening to the sound of the
| rain.
|
| As someone who spent a lot of time camping while growing up, I
| could not think of a worse sound for trying to fall asleep...
| namely the large drops that come off trees at just a slow enough
| "rhythm" to be torturous.
| dekhn wrote:
| Also with the implication you're going to end up waking up in a
| wet sleeping bag!
| Tronno wrote:
| The whole point of tents is to protect you from the elements.
| Sounds like you had a poor quality tent, or it was set up in
| a low spot that pools water.
| infradig wrote:
| Maybe he was referring to something else.
| jollyllama wrote:
| The worst are tracks that have "nature sounds" aka bird calls.
| Those make me very wakeful.
| stinos wrote:
| Yeah camping in areas where female Tawny Owls are screaming
| through the night quite isn't my favorite thing to do.
| burntwater wrote:
| Considering that bird noises are most associated with
| morning, the sun rising, and when you should becoming awake
| and alert, having bird sounds in tracks meant to be
| "relaxing" has always seemed backwards to me.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Same, also flapping tarp in the wind. I go to great efforts to
| stop this happening.
| hinkley wrote:
| I think literally only Totoro finds 'big rain splat' to be
| enjoyable.
| pigsinzen wrote:
| As someone who has also spent a lot of time camping, rain
| hitting the tent of a roof, a metal roof, or even a tarp over a
| hammock is hypnotic and I love sleeping to it.
|
| It's one of my favorite sounds and puts me in an amazing
| headspace.
|
| Maybe there were circumstances which led to us each
| experiencing the same type of soundscape completely different?
| olyjohn wrote:
| It depends on the rain for me. A nice steady rain with small,
| well-dispersed droplets makes a wonderful sound.
|
| Giant droplets accumulated on branches, falling off of a tree
| onto the roof of your truck, falling at random intervals,
| something like 5-30 seconds apart. Sounds more like someone
| tapping on the roof. That will keep you up all night.
| afandian wrote:
| I used to live in a canal boat, 3mm steel roof. The sound of
| rain on that, so long as you had a fire going, was very cozy
| and enjoyable. But I think on a psychological level a large
| part of the comfort is the relief of being sheltered.
| swayvil wrote:
| Is there a visual equivalent of brown noise?
|
| White noise static?
|
| Blinkenlights field?
|
| This? https://vimeo.com/313049496
|
| Smell? Tactile? Thought?
| 10g1k wrote:
| Traditionally, the brown noise, or the brown sound, was an
| indication that you might have gotten more than you bargained
| for.
| fortran77 wrote:
| There's a related trend of listening to key brain wave
| frequencies, with the claim it can push the brain into more
| focused states. And there is a small bit of evidence it might
| work.
| tgv wrote:
| I doubt it. Like noise, it might reduce sensitivity to stimuli,
| though, which can reduce distraction and thus make it easier to
| focus your attention as a side effect.
| calrain wrote:
| It sure helps with my tinnitus
| hartator wrote:
| One night ago, I tried a new thing.
|
| I slept with the new Airpods Pro with noise cancellation on. I am
| trying to escape road noises. E.g., random car noises, sirens,
| tyres screeching, etc. Noise cancellation on these are crazy
| good. However, it was actually worse to find peace. I keep trying
| to guess if I am still hearing noises when it was actually fully
| quiet. It was a bad night.
|
| Yesterday night, I just make the A/C runs its fans all night.
| Which I guess is very similar to brown noise. Found peace
| immediately. And I was able to ignore almost road noises during
| the full night (despite being the same as the previous night). It
| was a surprising restful night.
| bityard wrote:
| > Yesterday night, I just make the A/C runs its fans all night.
|
| If you run it every night, and if you're doing it just for the
| noise, understand that your next month's electricity bill is
| going to be quite... shocking.
|
| We used to run box fans at night in our bedroom when we lived
| in apartments to drown out the sounds of neighbors and traffic
| noise. We continued the tradition when we bought our first
| house. One day I decided to get some real data on what our
| energy spending was and plugged a box fan into a kill-a-watt. I
| don't remember the exact number but it was high enough that the
| very next day I bought a "white noise machine" for every
| bedroom in the house and our monthly electricity bill dropped
| IN HALF. Basically paid for themselves in the first week.
|
| The best white noise machines are made by "LectroFan". These
| used to cost $15 on Amazon, now they are $50. Whichever brand
| you buy, the most important thing is to get one with a good-
| size speaker so that it can reproduce lower frequencies
| decently.
| rjh29 wrote:
| I got used to running the fan over summer and loved the
| comfort it provided. I usually wear earplugs to sleep and it
| was nice to have something just constantly blocking out
| traffic and neighbour noise without any effort. Now it's
| getting colder I was looking at buying a LectroFan to do the
| same thing. Based on your comments even at $50 they seem
| worth it, so thanks for the recommendation!
| hartator wrote:
| > If you run it every night, and if you're doing it just for
| the noise, understand that your next month's electricity bill
| is going to be quite... shocking.
|
| If it's just the fans, shouldn't be pretty economical? I
| thought also circulating the air was a net positive anyway.
| hammock wrote:
| Running Bluetooth through your brain all night probably isn't
| great either
| hartator wrote:
| Never thought about that. Isn't Bluetooth very low power
| compared to a cell phone or even if a microwave is running
| nearby?
| hammock wrote:
| Yes, it is low power, and it's also inserted a centimeter
| or so inside your ear canal, while a microwave is typically
| at arm's length
| hot_gril wrote:
| And it's inserted for much longer.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Unclear if airpod pros use bluetooth at all if they are not
| playing any audio just doing noise cancelling. I suspect they
| don't, and just ping the phone at intervals to stay
| connected.
|
| But either way, the health impact of a bad night's sleep is
| going to be so so so much worse than whatever small or
| nonexistent effect bluetooth has
| marktangotango wrote:
| > It was a bad night
|
| > It was a surprising restful night.
|
| Is not a night of bad sleep often followed by a night of good
| sleep?
| hartator wrote:
| > Is not a night of bad sleep often followed by a night of
| good sleep?
|
| For me, usually bad nights are more common than good nights.
| r00fus wrote:
| Aren't AC/fans/etc considered white noise?
| ceravis wrote:
| As a complement to the adjacent comment thread on Shoegaze music,
| I find a similarly dense, soothing, blanketing effect from some
| recent noise/drone music genres (especially on good headphones,
| or out loud with a subwoofer), for example:
|
| The pulsing deep noise of Tim Hecker's _Piano Drop_ :
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlfwZDR_1Hg
|
| The gradual crescendo to a wall of noise in Abul Mogard's _Like
| Water_ :
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4taaOwvzDMY
|
| Conflicting tension + blanket of sound in Siavash Amini's _The
| Wind_ :
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9Fut9yEYgQ
|
| NB: All of the above have a significant low frequency component
| that may be missed on desktop speakers or low quality
| headphones...
| ceravis wrote:
| For those wanting to generate some sounds like the above, I
| made what is effectively a noisy synthesizer / visual demo a
| while back that can be played note by note on a PC keyboard (or
| will play itself if left untouched, see attached readme). But
| to get it into "wall of sound" territory you need to hold down
| the up arrow and/or space bar for quite a while to speed up the
| bike until the visuals start distorting:
|
| https://acatalept.itch.io/eternalapex
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| How about Dream Pop from groups like Still Corners and their
| song The Trip?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m2Lr_HqCfg
|
| I find it very relaxing. I like how the beat seems to subtly
| change in different parts of the song - it could be an auditory
| illusion.
| prox wrote:
| Everything by Carbon Based Lifeforms is also very soothing,
| albums like Interloper, World of Sleepers, Hydroponic garden
| also really give me that feeling and with just a bit more beat
| and melody that I love.
|
| The first track of Interloper just soothes me real quickly:
|
| https://youtu.be/-9pgIVcB3rk
| [deleted]
| mellavora wrote:
| I used to play with binaural beats. I knew I had the right
| frequency when I could almost hear what the voices inside the
| brown noise were saying :)
| BatteryMountain wrote:
| Haven't played with them for a couple of years but can remember
| my "sweet spot" was when it sounded like the sound is coming
| from the center of my brain, not from from a left or right ear,
| not from the environment. It's a weird physical feeling, almost
| the same feeling I get from a small dose of psilocybin. Head
| feels slightly heavier too, esp near the backside. Eventually I
| stopped playing with binaural beats because I felt it does
| affect my brain in some way but I didn't know if it was good or
| bad, but my instinct at the time told me to stop.
| imdsm wrote:
| Anecdote: have found brown noise great -- same effect as white
| noise but not grating on the ear
| samson8989 wrote:
| We should reduce noise controls, because people actually work
| better with more noise.! Or maybe not.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| At first, I was "of course!"
|
| Then, I noticed it said "noise."
|
| In all seriousness, I like to listen to "ambient techno," which
| can often be much like brown noise, during my morning walks.
| jcfrei wrote:
| I know this isn't very professional but Trey Parker and Matt
| Stone co-opted the term Brown Noise back in 2000 in the South
| Park episode "World Wide Recorder Concert". Maybe Brownian Noise
| would be a better and more accurate description?
| hot_gril wrote:
| The South Park episode is the first thing I thought of reading
| this title, honestly.
| rewgs wrote:
| Brown Noise is a technical term, along with Pink Noise, White
| Noise, etc.
| georgyo wrote:
| Parker and Stone were just making fun of it and did not coin
| the term Brown Note.
|
| The term is from the 1970s military research.
|
| As with many South Park episodes, the topic they are making fun
| of is usually based on exaggerated facts. It's what makes their
| show still funny even after several decades.
| briankelly wrote:
| Brown note, actually, not noise.
| jcfrei wrote:
| They refer to it as Brown noise: https://southpark.fandom.com
| /wiki/World_Wide_Recorder_Concer...
| CharlesW wrote:
| Yes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_noise
|
| https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/The_Brown_Note
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I've read using noises to aid sleep systematically leads to some
| sort of damage. Does it?
| greymalik wrote:
| From TFA: " There isn't likely to be any danger in listening to
| BROWN NOISE for, say, eight hours at a time, Dr. Berlau said,
| unless someone plays the sound at unsafe volumes (listening to
| noise above 70 decibels over a long period of time can damage
| your hearing)."
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| But what if I listen to them every single night for years
| (although just for half an hour at a time)?
| NoGravitas wrote:
| The only consequence I can think of is that you might find
| it harder to go to sleep without them for a while. That was
| my experience with always using a mechanical background
| noise generator throughout my childhood, and then not.
| bityard wrote:
| > a mechanical background noise generator
|
| What is this? A fan?
| kypro wrote:
| I think this what's behind the appeal of Shoegaze music and why
| some people get it and others don't. There's something very
| comforting to me about the fuzzy evolving sounds you hear in
| Shoegaze music. As someone with a loud anxious mind who's also
| prone to auditory sensory overload I find certain sounds such as
| those found in Shoegaze music shuts this all off.
|
| If I'm out in public and I'm feeling anxious there's really
| nothing that makes me feel at ease quicker. My mind kind of melts
| away with the music. I guess it sounds like how putting a blanket
| over my brain might feel.
| RugnirViking wrote:
| Do you recommend any songs or artists? I've never heard of
| Shoegaze music, but I might have a listen over the next week.
| Always nice to find new stuff
| bilekas wrote:
| kinoko teikoku long goodbye
|
| Is a top choice and rare enough - you can find it on spotify
| now though !
| resputin wrote:
| Here's a great flowchart that I saved years ago as I was
| first exploring the genre.
| https://i.redd.it/rxrtulf0m5631.jpg
|
| The three classic albums of the genre
|
| Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
|
| Souvlaki - Slowdive
|
| Nowhere - Ride
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Love "Machine Gun" from _Souvlaki_ :
| https://youtu.be/SQ6pHlVKW9w
| ceravis wrote:
| This is a rather different style than the original, but
| Mum does an amazing cover of Machine Gun:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii2wxG647ds
| bamboozled wrote:
| If listening to "Loveless" from My Bloody Valentine, make
| sure your volume is low, especially if wearing headphones,
| you've been warned. My ears will never be the same again,
| thanks. Wow.
| laurex wrote:
| The loudest show I've ever been to (and I've been to
| metal, noise, and other kinds of loud-oriented shows) was
| MBV, where you could actually feel the sound almost like
| a wave against your whole body. So I think Kevin Shields
| would disagree with this advice. :D
| zeppelin101 wrote:
| This is why I never went to see them in concert. I love
| this band but I don't want to damage my hearing.
| partomniscient wrote:
| If you like those, and you haven't yet heard Flyying
| Colours - Wavygravy, it's linked here for you:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9wnpiiMUJs
| dr-smooth wrote:
| There are some great recommendations here for classic 90s
| shoegaze. I recently found a more current band that is
| playing some great shoegaze: Deserta. Love these guys!
| dvschnitz wrote:
| Not op but my favorites are Slowdive, My Bloody Valantine and
| Ride.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| The Canadian sweethearts Alvvays are excellent. There's more
| to PEI than potatoes!
|
| https://youtu.be/eH5mqLjwg6U
|
| Paul's Boutique represent.
| kypro wrote:
| Bands like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive is probably a
| good place to start.
|
| If you're asking for my recommendations though, when I'm
| anxious this song is probably my favourite,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ4Mn2X-Wm4
|
| Put some good earphones on, turn it up, and just let your
| mind shut off as the fuzz and noise slowly builds. The part
| around ~3.45 is almost orgasmic to my ear, but I'm on the
| spectrum and I'm quite sensitive to audible sounds so perhaps
| others don't hear it quite like I do.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Lately when I'm anxious I find this one to be amazingly
| calming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnDcJMKCTLM
|
| The combination of the music and the jellyfish floating by
| in that video.
| N1H1L wrote:
| I would add Mazzy Star, and a lot of Jangle pop to the list
| too. Thurston Moore's album _The Best Day_ is another great
| recent addition to the jangle pop genre.
| FumblingBear wrote:
| A general starting place will be My Bloody Valentine's album
| Loveless which is usually agreed to be the album that
| kickstarted the genre.
|
| There are a lot of different directions you could go from
| there, but personally, one of my favorite releases is Guilty
| of Everything by Nothing as a more modern take on shoegaze.
| (mid 2010's vs 90's)
|
| Additionally, there are some critically acclaimed releases in
| extensions of the genre like post-metal with Deafheaven's
| album Sunbather being a great entry into that particular sub-
| genre.
|
| Hope that gives you a bit of a starting off point!
| trentearl wrote:
| Spacemen 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWhH8NPtQlI
| nkozyra wrote:
| Two pre-shoegaze recommendations:
|
| Cocteau Twins
|
| Talk Talk (Laughing Stock and Spirit of Eden, post-synthwave)
|
| This all falls under dream pop and while I don't think it has
| much in common with noise's effect on the brain, it can be a
| little disorienting due to the depth and variance in sound.
| replwoacause wrote:
| I haven't heard of this genre before. Are there a few tracks or
| artists you could recommend I start with?
| icelancer wrote:
| My intro was Airiel - The Release.
| mckirk wrote:
| Every Noise[1] has you covered: https://open.spotify.com/user
| /particledetector/playlist/330i...
|
| (Though it's just an algorithm and sometimes can have
| opinions on what constitutes a genre that active listeners of
| the genre might disagree with.)
|
| [1]: https://everynoise.com/engenremap-shoegaze.html
| replwoacause wrote:
| Thanks!
| jerry1979 wrote:
| I came across this Nothing album the other day, and it seems
| on point to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHtCSu_P_Ow
| replwoacause wrote:
| Cool thanks, will check this out.
| somedude895 wrote:
| Mazzy Star - Fade into You:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4m5jQy5A2U
|
| The live version serves well to show you why it's called
| Shoegaze :)
|
| My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyYMzEplnfU
|
| Quintessential shoegaze song
|
| Ringo Deathstarr - Sweet Girl:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0Mgv2mn-Lg
|
| One of my personal favorites
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That Mazzy Star performance ... in Silicon Valley, ha ha.
| Playing a floppy-disk-throw from Google HQ -- well, were
| Google there in 1994 (I guess that would be Silicon
| Graphics or some such).
| replwoacause wrote:
| Great, thank you! I am checking these out now.
| __david__ wrote:
| My first intro was The Jesus And Mary Chain's Psychocandy.
| The mix on "Taste the Floor"[1] is so crazy--the guitar is so
| loud it begs you to turn up the volume to "hurt your ears"
| levels (phone/laptop speakers will not do this justice). I
| swear I've lost hearing due to my love of shoegaze...
|
| A more recent version of this kind of noise rock is The
| Raveonettes [2].
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCtPz-guwO8
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa7JfWsMxgs
| MisterTea wrote:
| > As someone with a loud anxious mind who's also prone to
| auditory sensory overload I find certain sounds such as those
| found in Shoegaze music shuts this all off.
|
| This is one of the main reasons for my love of extreme metal
| and other abrasive, noisy or drone genres. There are even
| shoegaze black metal bands (blackgaze) such as Andavald. The
| cacophony of the music drowns out the mental noise and I can
| focus on what I'm doing. Happy, up beat stuff, or clear vocals,
| seal focus and becomes an annoying distraction. Though
| classical music or certain instrumental music is soothing to me
| as well.
|
| I remember reading that von Neumann was a fan of turning on the
| TV or radio to very loud volumes when he was working at home.
| Likely to achieve the same effect.
| pizza wrote:
| > I remember reading that von Neumann was a fan of turning on
| the TV or radio to very loud volumes when he was working at
| home. Likely to achieve the same effect.
|
| There is a whole genre of YouTube videos that is just
| somebody walking in the rain in a cityscape for 3+ hours. I
| put the video on on my TV, to get both a sense of calm and
| also a sense of exploration/movement. Something about the
| coffee shop ambience videos just no longer tickles my mind.
| It's best to pair with reeally slow, long music, such as
| Subaeris - The City in Rain (56 minute long ambient
| "dreampunk" song). There's typically a moment in this process
| that I feel my mind de-tense.. allowing the real work to
| begin
| [deleted]
| laurex wrote:
| Putting aside the troll vocals and terrible underlying
| philosophies, some Black Metal has similarly lovely guitar
| soundwashes as well. It's an interesting paradox.
| z9znz wrote:
| Not black metal, in the past I found it easiest to take an
| afternoon nap with Metallica, Iron Maiden, or Yngwie
| Malmsteen.
|
| Later, djent style metal did the trick (preferably with the
| least amount of "troll" vocals). - such as
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyBrxxUWO28
| nighthawk454 wrote:
| fascinating, I like all those artists but would've never
| tried sleeping to Metallica or Yngwie. I take it the fast
| tempos and high-energy don't keep you up?
| z9znz wrote:
| I think there's some mechanical nature to the rhythms,
| and the chords tend to be complex enough that something
| is going on that keeps my subconscious occupied and makes
| it easier to lose awareness (and fall asleep).
|
| Or maybe it's me. I fell asleep for a minute or two in a
| stadium while Rush was playing Time Stand Still as a
| college student (so age wasn't a factor ;) ).
| ycombinete wrote:
| I definitely get this with guys like Alcest, Summoning,
| Insomnium, Lustre and (to a lesser extent) Agalloch.
| titoasty wrote:
| This. Exactly this.
|
| I'm more into post-rock (gy!be <3) but I totally relate to your
| feeling. This massive/overload wall of sound blanketing your
| brain.
|
| Even if there's nearly no lyrics in post-rock, it is strictly
| impossible for me to work while listening to it.
|
| And shoegaze/postrock are something you have to enjoy with
| headphones. The work on stereo is always phenomenal. (I wonder
| if some bands used binaural beats to go further this way. kinda
| reminds me I-doser ;) )
| fipar wrote:
| I agree completely.
|
| While not Shoegaze, the first time I realized my inner dialogue
| had stopped _completely_ for a few seconds was after the first
| time I listened to Washing Machine (the song, not the album,
| though I was listening to the album in full) by Sonic Youth. Up
| until then I had never though that 'd be possible: I always
| assumed we all had an inner dialogue going on all the time (I
| later learned some people don't have this at all, which I find
| intriguing, probably as intriguing as they find that some
| people always have one!).
| themaninthedark wrote:
| I have an inner dialogue, or at least I think I do. When I
| picked up meditation, I think I learned how to have it stop.
| Or at least so I don't notice it is occurring. It feels like
| instead of some of my brain resources being devoted to
| thinking or analyzing all my focus is shifted on the state of
| me, skin temperature, wind feel, sounds.
| fipar wrote:
| Interesting, I was picking up meditation too around the
| time I had this experience, though I was not
| (intentionally) meditating while listening to the record.
|
| To this day, I don't know how to stop the dialog reliably,
| but I know some activities and some music that help me do
| that (Metal Machine Music from Lou Reed works great for me,
| for example).
| drcongo wrote:
| My inner dialogue is stronger than any attempt at
| meditation, it thrives on me even trying.
| boringg wrote:
| Is shoegaze just another term for drone music?
| CollinEMac wrote:
| They're different genres but have some similarities.
|
| https://www.last.fm/tag/shoegaze
|
| https://www.last.fm/tag/drone
| rob74 wrote:
| For more elaborate noise generators (I think it also has a brown
| noise generator hidden somewhere) you can always go to
| https://mynoise.net/ - I used to use that site a lot when I was
| still working from the office, and since my company now also has
| a "return to office" policy, I guess I will be using it more
| again in the future...
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Another vote for mynoise.net.
|
| That site gives off strong "small web" vibes (good thing), and
| is clearly a product of passion (or at least, a product of
| competence in the field of sound/signal processing). My
| donation to get access to the full range of generators was
| worth every penny.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I used this enough that years ago I paid them money just
| because I got so much use out of it. Haven't used it in a few
| years though, as lately I've been listening to more music than
| noise.
| 48cfu wrote:
| Thank you for this
| mod wrote:
| I keep this in my .bashrc
|
| alias brownnoise='play -n synth brownnoise synth pinknoise mix
| synth sine amod 0.3 10'
|
| It sounds like waves gently coming ashore.
|
| I'm sure I collected it somewhere here on HN, because I don't
| know anything about how the command works.
|
| Edit: I have these, too, and I like them all:
|
| alias whitenoise='play -q -c 2 -n synth brownnoise band -n 1600
| 1500 tremolo .1 30'
|
| alias pinknoise='play -t sl -r48000 -c2 -n synth -1 pinknoise
| .1 80'
| duncancarroll wrote:
| Wow these are great, thank you
| ineedasername wrote:
| Not in front of my Linux box right now, are these tools built
| in or part of stand repository?
| [deleted]
| mod wrote:
| These are just using the 'play' command, the aliases are
| just so I don't have to remember the arguments.
|
| Play is a standard package from your package manager
| tzot wrote:
| They'd probably be better searching for _sox_ , not
| _play_.
| [deleted]
| nannal wrote:
| It's part of SoX which may be in your repo depending on
| which distro you use.
| disabled wrote:
| Personally, I just use brew to install SoX on Ubuntu.
|
| brew is a really nice package installer that works with
| both MacOS and Linux.
| kzrdude wrote:
| sox is in the default repository (for example
| jammy/universe). And it will be suggested as an install
| if you try to run play when it's not installed.
|
| So brew, any "killer apps" on brew for linux? What's nice
| to get from there?
| philshem wrote:
| MacOS users can get get "play" by installing SoX (Sound
| eXchange) brew install sox
| mod wrote:
| Thanks, I should have realized searching for "play" in a
| package manager was going to be a poor user experience.
|
| I think it must be installed by default in my distro.
| mike_hock wrote:
| Weird. I keep seeing this site shoved into discussions on HN
| even when it's barely relevant.
|
| Like here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32989585#33015979
|
| That post was about an HDD clicking noise generator. Almost as
| if a badly designed bot reacted to the keyword "noise."
| SirSavary wrote:
| Someone asked if anyone knew how to make a certain noise and
| another user replied with a solution. How is that not
| relevant?
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The specific link is to a data centre noise field, which
| seems more relevant than not if someone is asking for
| software generated HDD clicks.
| austinjp wrote:
| Dude. The site is great, and people mention it from sheer
| good will.
|
| For anyone who visits, consider donating!
| czx4f4bd wrote:
| It's pretty extreme to insinuate that users are bots with no
| evidence. I checked both users' accounts and find it
| incredibly unlikely that either is a bot.
|
| shmerl, the user who mentioned mynoise in that link, has
| 11,234 karma and has had their account since 2011. rob74, the
| user you're responding to, has 5,923 karma and has had their
| account since 2016. Both are recently-active users with a
| history of real comments that don't mention mynoise.
|
| Perhaps you are seeing this site mentioned frequently because
| users enjoy it and it fills its niche incredibly well. I
| previously came across it searching for a Shepherd tone
| generator and have found that it offers the best balance
| between tweakability and ease-of-use.
| f1shy wrote:
| I discovered mynoise.net some years ago. As I lived near a
| church where the bells would be active every 15 minutes... It
| really helped to not listen to them.
|
| The downside: the alarm clock was also less audible in the
| morning! :D
| dekhn wrote:
| I really like https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/pureBinauralB
| rainwaveGener... which I can listen to for hours to mask
| external sound.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I'm surprised there's any churches left still doing that
| frequency. Is it a touristy thing or something? Definitely
| would have thought most at this point are down to hourly or
| even just once at noon, with an awful lot more silent but for
| special occasions like weddings.
| f1shy wrote:
| No. Pretty normal in Germany...
| cafard wrote:
| It seems to be pretty common in Washington, DC. Offhand, I
| can think of St. John's Episcopal at 16th & H Sts. NW, St.
| Matthew's [Catholic] Cathedral on the 1700 block of Rhode
| Island Avenue NW. I think that the First Presbyterian
| Church at 16th & Kennedy NW does. All this is from just my
| regular commuting or running routes, so I suspect one can
| find quite a few more examples.
| varispeed wrote:
| I have this problem that when I know that the such ambient
| noise is synthesised in any way, then my brain simply rejects
| it as if I knew it is a placebo so it no longer works.
|
| Similarly if I listed authentic recorded ambient noise, once I
| recognise a loop point, it becomes extremely annoying.
|
| That's why I can't use tools like mynoise.net.
|
| I had a couple of solid 8 hour recordings from a cafe or
| office, but after a couple of listens I kind of learned it is a
| recording and they no longer work. Basically rather than
| focusing on doing work etc. my brain is listening for faint
| phrases, whether I heard it before etc.
|
| The workaround I found is that I just have a window open so I
| can hear street noises, but this is going to be troublesome
| during the winter.
|
| I am planning to start making recordings so maybe if I have a
| solid month worth of ambient noise, I will be able to trick
| myself it is not a repeat if it takes a month for a full
| rotation.
| zalo wrote:
| There are mechanical ambient noise generators that generate
| sound via fans and rushing air in a special cavity; a popular
| one is the Marpac Dohm.
|
| I've considered 3D printing custom shells for it to further
| tune the sound profile to achieve the brown noise ideal.
| cal85 wrote:
| Your case sounds a bit extreme (perhaps it has an element of
| nocebo through overthinking it?), but I do share this problem
| to an extent.
|
| If you like ambient music, I love Brian Eno's 'Reflection'
| album and use it for a similar purpose as noise. But I
| eventually got sick of hearing it again and again,
| recognising the same bits... Then I found he has also
| released the original endless generator (from which the album
| is just an hour-long recording) as an iOS app. It's
| wonderful. It's just endless Reflection, never repeating,
| always sounding new, but always sounding like Reflection.
| Expensive but worth it, if you liked the hour-long recording.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I can hear Shepard tones [1] in songs now. I remember the
| first time I heard it in a song, I was blown away, confused
| as to what I was hearing.
|
| Later when it was pointed out to me that is is "a thing" I
| started to recognize them in other songs. I sort of miss
| being naive.
|
| There's a line from one of Feynman's books where he is
| arguing with an artist friend who dislikes how Feynman
| (science generally) dissect a rose rather than just admiring
| its beauty. Feynman is incredulous as to how knowing _more_
| about a thing can take away from its beauty. (I may be
| slightly mis-remembering this exchange.)
|
| That always bothered me because I felt that naivete is a
| thing you lose with knowledge and that is not always a good
| thing.
|
| Walt Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" [2]
| instead resonated with me.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone
|
| [2] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45479/when-i-
| heard-th...
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| Shepard tone is popular for building suspense. The
| soundtrack for the movie "Dunkirk" leverages a pretty
| identfiable shepard tone for anyone interested in hearing a
| quick example.
| swayvil wrote:
| One's a sensation, the other is a mental model of the
| sensation. Big difference.
|
| You can direct your attention at one or the other. Maybe
| both to a degree but concentrated deep focus demands
| exclusivity.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I like listening to rain or surf (or the combination of the two)
| - seem to contain a lot of brown noise.
| [deleted]
| wizofaus wrote:
| It sounds like distant highway traffic... isn't there normally a
| premium on houses where you don't have that sort of background
| noise all the time?
| moffkalast wrote:
| Much like an alarm clock, some sounds are best heard only on
| demand.
| civilized wrote:
| I use a baby sleep sounds app to help my kid sleep (and soothe
| myself in the long process).
|
| It has many options, most of them worse than nothing.
|
| The only good one is airplane, which sounds _exactly_ like brown
| noise.
| mellavora wrote:
| best "baby sleep sounds" is when their head is curled up
| against your chest. And you both drift off. Bliss.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I am too heavy a sleeper to co-sleep with an infant. I will
| not wake-up if I roll on top of one.
| nativespecies wrote:
| 10000% effective for me in order to sleep. I live in a loud
| neighborhood with very rude neighbors who play loud bass. Brown
| noise (albeit cranked very loudly via a Lectrofan brand machine)
| keeps low frequency nuisance at bay. It can't block out the
| physical aspects of loud upstairs neighbors stomping or loud cars
| rumbling past, but it has really saved my sanity and blocked 90%
| of the noise.
|
| White noise on the other hand doesn't really do it as much for
| me, but is helpful for blocking out people talking, higher
| frequency sounds, etc.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Same, I live by a busy road. Can't sleep without it.
| afandian wrote:
| These 3M 1100 earplus are magic. (You can get them at Screwfix
| in the UK.)
|
| https://www.3m.co.uk/3M/en_GB/p/d/b00017649/
|
| I always keep a few spare packets in my bag. On a few occasions
| (usually conferences) people have been grateful for them.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| I'm a big fan of Flents Quiet Contour:
| https://flents.com/collections/ear-plugs/products/quiet-
| cont...
|
| I've never tried the 3M 1100s, though.
| switch007 wrote:
| Agreed. I tried quite a few different ones before settling on
| these. I've used them for 10 years
|
| You can usually get a box of 200 pairs for ~PS20 on Amazon.
| drited wrote:
| 3m Peltor x5a also very good.
| levymetal wrote:
| After using foam earplugs daily for 5 years my inner ears
| became very sensitive to the point that plugs caused extreme
| pain.
|
| After a bit of research I found these
| https://www.happyearsearplugs.com/
|
| These don't go into the ear as far so aren't painful. I feel
| the reduction in noise isn't as good, but the frequency
| response is much more even. I wear these under noise
| cancelling headphones to watch TV and listen to music in
| total isolation. You do lose a bit of fidelity but it's still
| very liveable.
|
| Also, I get about 6 months to a year out of each pair which
| is less wasteful than foam earplugs.
| ypeterholmes wrote:
| Glad to see more attention being paid to the psychological
| impacts of noise. Our cities are full of noise pollution- car
| alarms, motorcycles with tricked engines, the list goes on. These
| things are detrimental to health.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Car alarm ban in new models seems like a no-brainer. They
| create a nuisance and don't even work as intended. There are so
| many silent ways to notify the owner of potential theft. I
| don't mean with fancy smartphone stuff necessarily, I mean via
| the RF key fob everyone already carries. Some vibrate.
|
| What's funny is CA outlawed ICE cars by whatever year but
| didn't touch car alarms. And a while back they mandated that
| truck reverse beepers be _even louder_ than elsewhere, which is
| a trickier situation than car alarms, but I 've noticed Amazon
| vans with white noise reverse sounds that do the job well.
| standardUser wrote:
| I hope they ban clickers that use the _actual car horn_
| instead of a mild beep (or even better, haptic feedback!).
| The noise we use to say "yes, the door is locked" should not
| be the same noise we use to say "WATCH OUT OR WE MIGHT DIE!"
| LocalH wrote:
| As long as we allow modern capitalism to be the driving force
| of society, these harmful things will never go away
| jtbayly wrote:
| I think you mean to say as long as humans continue to
| prioritize other things over these things, these things won't
| change.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| As opposed to what, a centralized economy? Because that went
| well for the people who have suffered it...
|
| Maybe when the AGI overlords land they'll know how to plan an
| economy properly.
| cududa wrote:
| I thought I had insomnia for a decade, until the pandemic and
| moved to a quiet suburb. I now routinely sleep 9 hours a night.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yup, both for me and our cat, who calmed down amazingly
| moving from a dense houserow on a main-ish street to a house
| set 50m back from a very quiet road. Almost a different
| personality, and almost none of the anxiety cats usually show
| of moving. After one night hiding out, he was like "this is
| great!".
|
| We also feel like moving again, because the soundscape has
| gotten so loud from highways 5-10km away. It's just steadily
| gotten louder in the background, but in the first months of
| the pandemic shutdown we could hear nature dominant again --
| it was just bliss! Now, it's all come roaring back louder
| than ever, Amazon is building a warehouse 7km away...
| Definitely wanting more quiet . . .
| kossTKR wrote:
| Interesting and i kind of agree, but what about a girlfriend
| / wife?
|
| I feel like scuffling about in one's own bed is ultimately
| what wakes me up sometimes and i haven't really found a
| solution that isn't sleep in separate rooms.
|
| I already do like to sleep with white noise and earpieces.
| rocketbop wrote:
| Here in Germany it's common for couples to have a duvet
| each. I don't like that but I do the size of the bed hugely
| affects my sleep. Even an extra 20cm can make a difference,
| maybe you could try going oversized.
| gknoy wrote:
| Consider having separate top-sheets + blankets, perhaps
| with an over-layer blanket over all of it. Then, your
| partner's tossing and turning will jostle the bed, but
| won't pull on your cocoon of blankets (and vice versa).
| IWillForgetThis wrote:
| Or even separate twin xl mattresses (and box springs if
| applicable) with a strap kit and shared king fitted
| sheet. My wife and I did this about 2 years ago and it's
| been great. She wanted a traditional mattress and I
| wanted to diy a memory foam mattress with a 6" layer of
| memory foam* (2-4 is normal). I sink into my viscoelastic
| cocoon every night and she sleeps on top of a normal
| mattress.
|
| *Note that this is usually considered uncomfortable and
| possibly bad for your back. I'm a side sleeper who always
| had elbow and shoulder pain in the morning and it worked
| for me, but do your research if you ever decide to diy a
| mattress. It also weighs about as much as a dead moose.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| A memory foam mattress that isolates your partner's
| movements can help.
| ajb wrote:
| But, foam mattresses can also by much hotter (actually
| more insulating) than spring mattresses which will also
| disturb sleep, so make sure you check that before
| switching.
| diydsp wrote:
| having recently been mattress shopping, note that
| boxspring/whatever else you have under the mattress can
| have a huge impact on the isolation from left/right of
| the mattress. I also recommend Consumer Reports' mattress
| reviews. Our mattress had excellent isolation in the
| store, but at home, on our adjustable platform, isolation
| is much lower! The adjustable platform sways left and
| right quite a bit.
| bamboozled wrote:
| I moved to country where the o my noise I hear at night is a
| bubbling stream. Still get insomnia. So YMMV
| agumonkey wrote:
| on the other hand, the subtle noise of nature has a deep
| calming reach that I still find surprising
| BrainVirus wrote:
| I think a lot of people here need to read A Hunter-Gatherer's
| Guide to the 21st Century. Too many simplistic "hacks" are being
| proudly discussed without thinking about higher-levels issues and
| consequences. Yes, you might trick yourself with a noise
| generator. However, you should ask yourself _why_ there is a need
| for trickery in the first place.
| switch007 wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/24/a-hunter-gathe...
| I stumbled across this scathing review of the book while
| researching it. They didn't hold back
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| > However, you should ask yourself why there is a need for
| trickery in the first place
|
| Because my upstairs neighbors are assholes.
| adwi wrote:
| Recently discovered iOS has implemented built-in background
| sounds: Settings-> Accessibility-> Audio/Visual-> Background
| Sounds.
|
| "Dark Noise" sounds a lot like brown noise to me. Super useful.
| mft_ wrote:
| OT, but almost every time I learn of a new feature of iOS these
| days, it seems to be hidden away in 'accessibility'; most
| recently the 'double tap' feature (which sadly doesn't work
| well).
| arcturus17 wrote:
| Yea I don't understand why this is so hidden. It also has a
| really bad UX - you need to go into different submenus and
| activate different permutations of toggles to get it
| working...
| teejmya wrote:
| I recently found this as well, via the Control Center item
| called Hearing.
|
| There are some other interesting features behind this icon in
| Control Center as well: Live Listen, and noise levels for
| headphones, to name a few.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I was legitimately looking to have major renovation done on my
| condo (triple glazed windows, sound insulation added elsewhere,
| etc) before I got a white noise machine. Before, I'd be woken up
| at 730am (following a 2am prod deployment) by some jackass
| cranking a leaf blower the very second the noise ordinance
| allowed. Now I usually sleep peacefully to my alarm. I don't
| really care whether there's scientific evidence of it working,
| it's saved my sanity.
|
| Two things to look out for: 1. Make sure it's a _non-looping_
| white noise machine. The looping ones drive me crazy 2. Mine can
| play lower frequencies which really help block out external
| noise.
| dr-smooth wrote:
| Agreed on the looping. I had a cheap white noise machine in the
| 90s, and once my brain identified the loop, I was locked into
| it and couldn't fall asleep.
|
| But it's not as bad as hearing _somebody_ in your white noise:
| https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/mehrar
| matai_kolila wrote:
| Drowning out inconsistent noise with generally predictive noise
| seems pretty intuitive to me, and I think the article touches
| on this simple explanation.
|
| Nothing special or magical is happening in our brains, just not
| hearing interruptive sounds helps us not get distracted or
| awakened.
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| I find rife frequencies to be useful for this too. Back ground
| noise. No music. And hey if they work, better health. Spooky rife
| on YouTube is good for a whole slew of tones.
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