A Thin Volume

I've heard it intermittently for years; always unmistakeable, the same pitch at a noticeable and annoying volume.

intersting phenomenon. maybe you hummers are just aliens who have infiltrated the wolrd of humans successfullly!. ok seriously, perhaps it's got to do with sensitivity or people who are open to "energies " and vibrations, spirits and so on. havent looked on the website you posted. maybe i should have a look insyead of rambvling about things i know nothing about

I first heard the humming about thirty years ago, and thought it was army lorries moving off somewhere as we lived near any
army depot. I could still hear it an hour later and thought it strange, so went outside to listen better. It sounded just the same, inside or outside. I have tinnitus now with lots of high frequency sounds, but if I listen carefully, I can still hear that distant hum of heavy traffic. I had no idea that other people could hear this too, and actually decided that it must be a form of tinnitus.
I can hear other sounds too, which other members of my family seem not to, like some lights and other electrical items like video recorder when it's not doing anything, etc. Used to hear my neighbour's washing machine which nearly drove me and him mad. Me because I could hear it, and him because he couldn't.

Yes, I also hear other things, such as audio equipment when on standby (low freq hum) or lights - flourescents buzz all the time and ordinary bulbs start to as well when they are about to blow.

One of the side effects of this is that conversation in restaurants / crowded areas is virtually impossible for me. I pick up "everything" in the background - conversations, that is - which tends to drown out the conversation with my companions. I then end up straining to hear, and have a resultant sore neck and shoulders because of it.

I first experienced the hum in August 2005, right after we moved into our house in West Cumbria, not that far from the Solway Coast. It scared me at first, but I have learned to live with it over the past 3 years. I'm 42, and I have heard it is quite common in people my age and older. It tends to come and go, and I can go for several weeks (sometimes months) without hearing it, or at the very least, it's so weak that it won't bother me. Then there are other times when it is so disturbing that it keeps me awake. It's like a distant revving engine and more pronounced in my left ear than my right, low frequency, monotone, etc. My husband does not hear this noise at all, and my friends and other family members have never noticed it. I also don't hear it when I leave West Cumbria and travel to other parts of the UK, and we travel to the U.S. quite often and I never hear it there. To my relief, this would suggest this is not an internal cause (nothing wrong with my ears or brain!). I've had several theories put to me as to its cause, ranging from the submarine signals to water treatment works to bats to shifting sand dunes (!?!) What I'm trying to say is don't panic and you are not alone. In fact if you join the 'hum forum' on yahoo, you will see there are many others like you (I was a member for a while, but then it got too much traffic and I left).