voices in the walls

11/03/2025

i can be in a silent room, but my silence will never be your silence, my silence would never be empty. when im alone im never really alone. theres always something there. even if i were in a blank room full of no-one, no people, no pictures no colors.

unknown vlog from a person named emily

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i love living next door to musicians. partly bc it helps me to feel less self-conscious abt my own rehearsal time. some times even i feel a kind of parasocial camraderie .. practice & process r beautiful to me. i feel privileged to witness these small slivers of vulneralbility & devotion .. worship, prayer, repetition of phrases & melodies like chants & ohms.

more than music, more than process, i enjoy knowing that theres life on the block. i like having neighbors, i like living on busy streets. one of my least favorite aspects of gentrified austin is its insistence on quiet. manifest thru condo developments hassling historic venues to turn it down, thru quiet streets ordinances, anti-homeless / loiter laws, and just a general disdain for street culture of any sort. our apartment overlooks the main intersection of the primary throughfare thru our neighborhood, and next to a highschool w no on-site parking (meaning our lot becomes the main supplement for student parking in addition to the total domination of street parking by the kids for a 3 block radius, resulting in tonssss of foot traffic). despite this i consider our spot to be super quiet. during the day its noisy in the ways cities are noisy .. and ofc w the kids as mentioned. but at night its dead quiet. save for the occassional street racer (for whom i save a lil soft spot in my heart).

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well anyways our neighbor installed a subwoofer in their bedroom. which lies adjacent to ours. actually our neighbor has been incredibly respectful abt moderating their noise. they install sound panels in their practice space. keep the tv/music volume to reasonable levels & times. even now w this new speaker system the issue with the subwoofer isnt really volume, or loudness, as much as it is reverberation & synpathetic vibration. sounds are waves & waves are physical.

occasionally we hear the neighbors have sex. which is to say we ~dont really hear it, except for his moaning. the deeper bass-y tenor of his voice carries into the wall & travels the length to our end of the building. luckily it seems that most times they have a very het style of sex which doesnt last more than a minute or two. but now theres this subwoofer, pulsing at abt the same register as this man's voice .. heard thru the wall more than in the air. volume isnt the issue .. just as one moans during sex w.o the worry of it travelling thru a physical medium to the opposite end of the entire gd building, so too has this subwoofer been installed w.o this consideration.

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maybe im lucky i dont experience auditory hallucinations often. even when i do id def classify them as "minor" compared to a lot of ppl's experience. the sparse nature means that when i do encounter them it can b quite jarring. logic & reason abandon me as my brain goes haywire trying to determine whats internal or external .. usually, luckily, the panic only lasts for a fleeting moment. confirmation from whoever im with (usually wifey) abt whether they can also hear what im hearing is often enough to settle down my nervous system .. but that spike of cortisol induced by this ambiguity is unlike any other ive experienced in my lifetime of dealing w chronic anxiety & panic attacks.

many ppl who havent experienced them dont alw realize that these sounds dont just occur inside of someone's head .. i still describe them as "internal" in origin, but often they can be placed by the person experiencing them as originating from the physical space around them, despite not having an "external" source like most sounds we experience. i dont hear footsteps, i hear footsteps chasing me. i dont hear voices in my head, i hear them in the walls. actually one of the most common "first" hallucinations for ppl is hearing voices (maybe more accurate to say 'mouth sounds') specifically originating from within the walls. voices can absolutely be in one's head. but just as often not!

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so imagine the terror & humor felt when hearing the neighbor's bf's moans thru the walls for the first time !! desperately seeking confirmation from laura that she heard it too.. she didnt right away .. then our combined realization abt what we were indeed hearing. its okay to laugh during sex, its funny! especially when its not ur own.

this isnt usually a disruptive thing for us. frankly we just turn up the tv & tune it out or whatever. but now theres this subwoofer pushing waves into & thru the wall. music, a kick drum, is one thing (didnt i just dedicate an entire post to my admiration for those??), and just as they did pre-subwoofer, our neighbor continues to keep it classy by only listening to music in earlier-evening hours. really no bother there. the disruption comes with the low-volume tv listening that ensues for the rest of the night. im sure they watched tv in their bedroom most nights pre-sub. we've just never heard it till the subwoofer. still we dont hear 90% of it! its not a volume issue. what we do hear, reverberating thru the wall, are voices. i checked & laura hears them too. but the tv runs alllll night. the persistence means that the usual momentary assurances that these sounds do exist in space, outside my head, hasnt been effective in calming my nervous system as they usually are. its a frenzy .. do u still hear them?? thats still the tv right?? okay cool .. what abt that tho?? was that the tv, too, right?? or maybe it was outside?? a car?? okay word .. but wait what abt that, did u hear that?? wait now ur alseep 😭

for hours i stay in this heightened state of surveilance. whatever calm or reprieve i find within dissipates quickly. without removing the trigger there is no reprieve. thank god 1am finally the tv is turned off (earlier than previous nights).

honestly this will likely be resolved w a simple conversation.. if the solution is to remove the trigger then that can ofc only be achieved thru a conversation. conflict usually doesnt scare me. i wouldnt say im scared of this encounter either. but how do i explain to someone that i want them to re-arrange their speakers bc i cant tell if the voices are in my head or not?? right?? cant they just turn it down?? well, no, its not an issue of volume !!! in general (and in my experiences) ppl often respond w fear to someone sharing that they experience hallucinations. most people seem to think that indicates a person is scary or dangerous or not of sound mind enough to moderate themselves around others.

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actually the neighbor came by tonight while we were making dinner, and apologized. i left a note on their door this morning very politely explaining what was going on (i didnt mention the hallucinations) and they were extremely understanding & immediately resolved the placement of the subwoofer that was causing the issue. actually now we hear their music more than ever. which i like! but the voices (at least those transmit thru the walls) have dissipated, and i slept great (:

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