The most rare thing on Earth?

[NightWatcher]

When is the last time you experienced silence, not just a little peace and quiet but 15-30 minutes of complete silence from any/all manmade sources?

I've been on a ship for the last two weeks and have been exposed to loud engine noises and vibrations...and they're driving me mad. Sometime early next week we'll go in for diesel and fresh water. At that time I'll get away for a few hours of, if not silence but, peace and quiet.

When's the last time you've experienced pure silence? Even back home, like a lot of you, we've got the AC and an air filter running (for white noise).

[ZombieHorde]

1. Whenever I go to the mountains. I live in a town surrounded by mountains. nt

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. Absolute silence and a totally dark night sky

good luck finding either in most countries.

[Bandit]

20. I never thought I could be considered lucky for living in such a place.

We very rarely see the stars where I live and it is not because of smog (we have zero smog). Not many people live near by so very little if any noise if I personally don't create it..Don't even own an air conditioner, and doubt if anyone in or around the city does. The only "noise" I hear in the mornings are the birds singing or the porpoises and salmon jumping. Often we hear whales blowing in front and the gulls make plenty of noise.

[Suich]

3. Funny you should ask...

I just got back from 2 weeks vacation in Merritt, BC. My niece and her family live there. I would sit on the deck and listen to the wind in the trees. At night I sat on the front porch and counted satellites and shooting stars, no sound of sirens, semis, buses, jets or anything.

It made me sad that I can only get that kind of "quiet" once a year when I go there on vacation.

I love where I live but it's noisy...I can see the I5 freeway from my porch and I'm in the flight path for SeaTac airport, not to mention the seaplanes that take off and land on Lake Union 2 blocks away, and 4 doors down from me is a bus route.

There's definitely something to be said for the "sound of silence!"



:hi:

[XemaSab]

4. I think it's part of why I'm a night owl

I like it when it's dead quiet in the house and I can hear the rumble of the trains crossing the bridge a mile away. :D

[Fla_Democrat]

5. each and every evening/night

That's why I live in the sticks. I would say never, but you had the manmade sources modifier there.



:smoke:

[Maru Kitteh]

6. We climb a few times a year.

Not too far above the tree line it all goes away.....

[Divine Discontent]

7. I went many times to the mountains years back living out West, & stayed in a Catholic monastery near

the mountains.... you wanna talk about SILENCE. ;) I've never heard such silence. haha... I was told it would be polite to follow their rules (I'm not Catholic) so I observed silence several hours a day. Talk about an experience feeling like there's no such thing as sound. I suppose it's close to being deaf, because it felt like a vacuum sucked all sounds from even happening. I never slept better...

God bless you, for reminding me of those times.

[NightWatcher]

8. Me and my best friend in highschool wanted to visit a monastery to escape for a month or two

He is catholic and I'm s heathen, so we weren't sure how that'd work out.

[Fumesucker]

9. I used to work on offshore oil rigs..

For some reason I never could fathom they always seemed to put the crew bunkhouse right next to the very large and loud generator.

After a while it gets hard to sleep *without* the noise, it always took me a couple of days to readjust to quiet while I was trying to sleep and a couple to get back into the noisy sleeping.

[thecrow]

10. Camping in Cheticamp, Nova Scotia

The nights are silent, the sky exploding with stars....just the sound of the ocean, which wasn't much because there were no rollers... it was more of a lapping sound, like a lake. Heaven!

[zeemike]

11. The most silence I have ever experienced is in the deep woods

I the winter with fresh snow hanging off the tree branches...it was mystical really.
The snow seemed to suck up every little bit of sound to where I could hear my heart beat.

[pipi_k]

19. One of the neatest sounds in the world

besides crickets and the purring of kitties...

is the sound of snowflakes as they land.


Falling snow can muffle even the sounds of the city :)

[tridim]

24. Yea, first chair lift, backwoods snow boarding on two feet of fresh powder.

There is nothing like it.

The only sound is swoooooooshhhhh... swoooooooooshhhhhh.... swoooooooshhhhhhhh.

[pipoman]

12. Country living is the place I want to be

moved out of the city 8 years ago. We live on blacktop road but from evening until dawn there is very little traffic..The only thing I miss about living in the city is access to high speed internet...satellite will do, but it isn't cable or DSL. The clear night sky and the sound of coyotes and cicadas is very calming. My blood pressure was high when we left the city, now it is on the low side of normal.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. Something that might help save your sanity.

http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-RP-HC55-S-Noise-Cancelling-Earbud-Headphones/dp/B0014II9F0/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1313237808&sr=8-10

[Bluenorthwest]

26. If I was shipboard, I'd buy the best noise cancelling headphones

I could afford. They work really well.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

29. I low balled him.... a cheaper version of the truly good stuff.... if someone makes lion

rechargable quality noise cancelling headphones they are worth their weight in.... well right now not gold but something close to it.

[H2O Man]

14. Yesterday

I did some preparation at The Pond & our cabin. In the evening, I made our meal on the camp fire. Mighty good, I might add.

Our daughters ended up going back to our house. My wife ended up hitting the sack fairly early.

Thus, I sat alone -- from other humans -- with a nice camp fire next to our Pond for many hours.

[Uben]

15. Every day!

That's what I like about rural living....the quiet! At night, all you can hear is nature, no cars or trains. I could never live in the city. My wife is from Dallas, and she can't ever live in the city again. Too many people, too much noise and too much traffic. It's even quiet here in the daytime, usually. Thank god I'm a country boy!

[Evasporque]

16. When I go sailing there are moments (frequently)

out on Lake Michigan when all I hear is the hull slipping through the water....
But that is usually interrupted by a jet on approach to General Mitchell in Milwaukee...

But not bad...

some years ago I lived in northern wiscosnin in the woods on a tall ridge line and in the evening or early morning the distant highway would be clear of cars...and the only sound was that of pure nature...birds, critters and lush sound of wind blowing gently through the tops of the oak trees, pines and sugar maples.

THat made you feel very away from civilization.

[ashling]

17. I have had tinnitus (bad) for as long as I can remember

No silence. If it ever got really silent I would know I was dead.

[pipi_k]

18. I'm one of the lucky ones, I guess...

If I want peace from man-made noises I can go outside. It works for a little while until a plane passes overhead (I live near an aviation beacon tower).

Or occasionally I'll hear a train passing in town about five miles away (the sound echoes up the mountain and through my valley).

But for the most part, all I have to do is walk 100 feet or so out to my pond and sit there to watch the fish and frogs and dragonflies in silence except for the birds and the sound of the wind in the trees.

At night, there are the crickets.

Complete silence in the house itself happens whenever the power goes out during a storm. It's eerie and calming at the same time. :)

[ensho]

21. the rarest thing on earth - equality for women

nt

[bigwillq]

22. Gays, too (nt)

[tridim]

23. Just total f'ing silence, two can play at that game smart guy.

We go pancake's house?

I live with my 4 month old nephew who has been crying non-stop for the past 5 days. Teething I think.

[wizstars]

25. when I go spelunking and get deep into a cave,

the silence can be deafening, and the darkness can be blinding! I love it down there!

[Bluenorthwest]

27. Constant noise can be harmful to your hearing

When it is annoying you, that is reason to take note. Lots of us lose hearing from work, in all manner of occupations. If that is a part of your job, you should think about being proactive with it. Seek advice and protection for your ears. Just as you would for your eyes if the light was too strong.

[zalinda]

28. I will never hear silence again

I have tinnitus, along with deafness in that ear, so no matter where I go, the noise goes with me.

zalinda

[tjwash]

30. I haven't had peace and quiet since my kids were born.

:silly:

[pipi_k]

32. And if you ever do, be afraid....

It means they're up to something

:scared:

[shireen]

31. very few times

and every one of those moments were in the midst of nature, and overwhelmingly beautiful

[csziggy]

33. 30+ years ago when we first bought this farm

Day or night it was very quiet aside from the wildlife noises. I could hear the bull alligators booming in the swamp in the spring, the whoosh of the wood stork flock flying overhead, the screams of the red shoulder hawks, and the barking of the foxes in the spring. If a fawn got in trouble in the bottom pasture, I could hear it bleating in the house at the top of the hill. We could hear the turkeys calling in the woods and listen as they progressed up the hill. A dusk and in the deep night I could hear the bats echo location as they hunted for insects. The conversations of the barred owls were noisy enough to wake us and the call of the pileated woodpeckers were startling in the daytime.

Some evenings I could hear the traffic on the interstate, five miles away, or the trains on the tracks along US27, nearly ten miles away. Maybe five or six vehicles a day came up the dirt road in front of the farm. Notably noisy were the trucks pulling a stock trailer with horses, going from the main part of the plantation to the southwest to their cattle area to our northeast. I could hear that rattletrap coming five miles away when it turned off the paved road onto our dirt road!

Now the farm to the south and the plantation to the east has been developed and have a bunch of houses. The road in front of the farm is paved. On quiet evenings I can hear numerous air conditioning units running, even when the weather is perfect, most of the people do not open their windows to let fresh air in! Any day of the week at any time, there is someone mowing or tuning up a car or a garbage truck driving around or some other motor noise.

People constantly play music loudly - there is a new garage band that seems to practice down the hill every Wednesday and Saturday - set off illegal fireworks even when there are no holidays, or have parties at which a main recreation seems to be hooting and hollering for no apparent reason.

I thought it was annoying when the various farmettes had livestock. Now we've traded the flock of guinea hens that used to live a mile down the road, the cattle that lived two miles away, the donkeys that lived four miles away, and the occasional loose peacock for dogs that bark when their owners are away, their owners are home, or pretty much bark constantly because they have nothing better to do. And there are the times when they are running loose and on my property and they are barking at my horses, my cats, and me.

We still get some of the wildlife noise, but it is harder to separate them out from the general background din. I miss the quiet.

[Lyric]

34. We get plenty of that here.

I live in a small city. There are sources of "city noise", of course, but it tends to die down nicely at night. :)

[Lorien]

35. 2004 when hurricane Charley knocked the power out for two weeks

My neighborhood - a stone's thrown from downtown Orlando- was black as ink at night and dead silent. Cars didn't even come down the street because too many big trees were blocking it. The absolute silence and heat made sleeping difficult. Only then did I realize how accustomed I am to the white noise of modern city life.