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I Keep Hearing The Phone Ring After It Stops

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GwenDR

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This is really weird, and it's bugging me a lot. I get anxious when phones ring, and sometimes, a lot lately, I'll continue to hear it for a while after it stops ringing. I have no history of hallucinations. I keep looking for possible sounds I could be mishearing, but can't find any. But that's still been the most likely explanation.

This morning I was calling the doctor about my kid's medication, and they had this loud and stupid ice-cream truck song for hold. After I hung up when the conversation was done, I could still hear it. It was dim and tinny, but I could definitely hear it. It freaked me out a lot because there's no way I was mistaking something in the room for that dumb song. I have no idea what could be causing this, or what's happening, and am kind of worried.

I don't have the kind of imagination that I could mistake an imaginary tune for actually hearing one.
 
I've actually have this happen often but not really "frequently". Sort of... I here the phone when it isn't ringing. Not exactly the same but similar. I have no other history of auditory stuff. My ears ring anyways... but til you said something I never really thought about it and just chalked it up to messed up hearing (both eardrums scarred and ruptured and I defy hearing tests because I hear both above and below normal range in spite of my ear conditions). Mostly I notice that it happens when I'm running a bath or have finished running a bath... hear the phone ringing and just automatically stop what I'm doing and head for the phone... usually realizing about half or 2/3rds of the way that it's not "really" ringing.

Guess I just thought that my ears combined with how many blows to the head I've had were the cause of it. Hope some others might weigh in on this... no real trauma connection (obvious ones anyways) that I can see.
 
There's also something called phantom ringing or phantom vibration syndrome, where you just randomly hear the sound or feel your phone vibrating out of the blue. Phantom vibration syndrome - Wikipedia
That may even be what's happening to me, but it's continuous for several minutes, and only happens after I'd heard it. So I dunno. Probably not important, but I am going to mention it to my therapist.
 
Before, it was assumed that the hair cells in the inner ear only moved when they were directly affected by sounds. The study has, however, shown that there are after-vibrations in the inner ear. How long the small hairs move after the sound depends on the strength of the sound and its frequency.
--From The inner ear functions like a short-term memory - hear-it.org

That article goes into a bit about how the ear retains vibrations from sound waves for a short period of time, after the waves (sounds) themselves have stopped.

There's also a concept called Game Transfer Phenomena (GTP), which hypothesizes reasons for why gamers often continue to hear the game after they've stopped playing it. That notion is more complex than what you are describing, @Gwen D Renee - but there may be some relevance in it for you.

Dead Link Removed
 
Thanks for the links, @joeylittle , I'll look at those.

The weird time was when I was able to make it stop by pressing my finger against my table, then start up again anytime I lifted it. I thought I'd done that by tapping my computer, but noticed it was happening when I tapped anything, expecting it to stop. but anytime I stopped making it stop, it'd come back.
 
From the gamer article:
“There were lots of examples of players hearing the game music, in the same way as you continue to hear music in your head when you’ve stopped listening,” said psychology researcher Angelica Ortiz De Gortari, who is leading the study.

I'd be just as freaked out if I continued hearing music after it had stopped. That is not a normal phenomenon for me.
 
Out of curiosity, for normal imaginers, would this be unusual at all? I have an entirely non-sensory imagination, but 98% of people have sensation, especially visual and aural, with their imaginations. Is hearing ringing or songs in that situation normal for most people, or would it still be unusual?
 
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