A question of voices

[Patrick Allen]

On a recent 2 handed trip on a friend's wooden boat some really weird stuff happened. On the second night as I lay awake in my snug little berth I could hear the usual noises of gurgling water rushing by and the occasional rattle and tap. But amongst all this ambience I could hear indistinct voices and murmuring. Strangely, these sounds weren't troublesome in anyway but were friendly and calming. I became used the noises and actually looked forward to my next off watch to lay down and see if the voices and noises were still there - which they were - day or night. Now... am I mad?....is this sound common on a timber yacht?.....has anyone else heard anything like this?
Pat

[emichaels]

How many beers ???

[Hughman]

I could hear indistinct voices and murmuring. - day or night.

Merfolk.

[Lew Barrett]

We used to have a 28 foot lightly built cruiser with a forward V berth and I'd hear water lapping on the hull all night, so much so that it could become distracting. In our current boat, I rarely hear water lapping the hull as a transmitted sound, and don't recall hearing voices through the hull...ever.
What I take from this is that each boat is a bit different. Now, about those voices.....

[Thorne]

Richardson Bay out here has the singing toadfish -- perhaps some are vacationing down there?

;0 )

Toadfish's steamy love life is revealed

Singing fish sometimes let meek males join a menage a trois


David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor (dperlman@sfchronicle.com)
Thursday, December 18, 2003
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http://www.sfgate.com/g/av/movies/2003/12/18_t/fishum_t.gif (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/18/MNG0K3PPQ71.DTL&o=0) http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2003/12/18_t/ba_toadfish18_t.gif (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/18/MNG0K3PPQ71.DTL&o=1) http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2003/12/18_t/mn_humfish-views_t.gif (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/18/MNG0K3PPQ71.DTL&o=2)


Most Sausalito residents know the humming toadfish, whose loud and incessant underwater droning all summer long keeps angry shore dwellers and houseboat residents awake for nights.

The sound -- a perfect A-flat -- was a mystery for years, blamed by some conspiracy theorists in the 1980s on secret experiments by the Army Corps of Engineers lab on the city's waterfront, on the local water treatment plant or even on extraterrestrials.

Then, a San Francisco marine biologist recognized it as the annoying sound that he'd heard as a graduate student studying fish and trying to sleep on the beach in Baja California: It was the sex call of a species known as the plainfin midshipman.




http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/18/MNG0K3PPQ71.DTL

[Patrick Allen]

Thanks Thorne
That goes a short way to an explaination but its a long way to NZ. They must be very loud singers or good swimmers. Also my wife and a crew member has heard the same thing at different times and in each case the other person had no prior knowledge of the others experience. None of us 'hearers' hears this at home - only on that boat. Still interested to know if this might happen more on timber boats.
Pat

[Mike Keers]

I did a 32 day solo trip to Hawaii a few years back and had the same experience. I found it curious and commented in the log and my private journal. There was a discussion about this in Latitude 38 (San Fran sailing rag) a coupla years ago, to which I contributed my experiences to the discussion. There has been much written about auditory 'hallucinations', especially as it applies to singlehanders. Richard Henderson had quite a bit to say in his "Singlehanding' book as have other voyagers and sailors. This is a known phenomena, altho the cause isn't clearly understood.

While at first it was just indistinct voices and murmuring while laying in the V-berth forward, after several weeks I experienced very loud and distinct noises while wide awake puttering about the boat in the day, like phones ringing, loud voices like a radio or TV was on, or hearing my name distinctly called, either from the cockpit if below, or from below if out on deck. It was so realistic I used to rush below or on deck until I realized it was 'hallucinations'. Had I not been prepared for this by reading about it before hand, I'm sure I would have thought I was losing my mind. I kiddingly referred to it in my journal as 'voices of drowned sailors calling me from Davy Jone's Locker'. Creepy, thinking of it that way. :eek:

By the time I was within several days of landfall, I just chuckled and ignored it. Upon hearing a very loud engine noise one day while sitting below reading, I brushed it off as yet another hallucination until it became so loud I had to acknowledge it--I went out in the cockpit and there was a large helicopter hovering about 100 feet up..this seemed unlikely since it had come up from behind me, and it was a coupla thousand miles of open water, we exchanged waves, and the chopper flew off to the west, Hawaii being several hundred miles further on. I later found out there were Navy maneuvers offshore, and apparently the chopper was flying between the fleet and the islands.

Speculation on the causes theorizes it could be sensory deprivation (or at least deprivation of normal land-bound stimuli) or perhaps the motion of the boat affects the ear canals and balance or whatever. I found it a very interesting phenomena and was pleased to experience it after having read about it.

And no, I was cold sober the entire trip, not a drop of alcohol or any drugs aboard. (sigh) ;)

[Thorne]

I was being funny, but seriously I don't know what might make that sort of sound.

Used to do a lot of mountaineering, and once I did an 8-day solo trip offroute (no trails) in the Northern Cascades. By the end of the trip my ears were trying VERY hard to turn natural sounds into language -- brooks REALLY babbled, winds REALLY howled, etc.

Strange experience...but not applicable to yours unless you were singlehanding.

[ahp]

About 100 years ago there was an American writer, Stuart Edward White, that wrote about camping in the north woods. He claimed it was common for those camping near a rapids to hear, at night "les Vourageurs" the voices of the French traders working their way up the rapids with their canoes.

[Patrick Allen]

Interesting..... it seems that solitude and background noise can cause auditory hallucinations.

[brad9798]

Hallucinations ... very common, actually. Especially when alone for periods of time.

Not limited to the sea ... stay inside your home for a couple of weeks alone ... you will experience the same thing(s).

Or, perhaps you are weany off the Zoloft too quickly! :D

[Tom Robb]

The brain/mind is a pattern perceiving machine and when there is no pattern to be found, it will make one.
So I says to SWMBO, "She looks just like Diane." SWMBO says, "No she doesn't."
I perceived a pattern that she did not.
Random noises begin to make sense.
Or perhaps it was merfolk....

[Thorne]

Another thing to consider is that today many of us spend 90% of our waking time completely immersed in a sea of communication and language -- and we can go into withdrawl when we "get away from it all"...

;0 )

I don't watch TV, getting most of my news from the daily newspaper (at breakfast) and radio (when commuting). The rest of the time I tend to listen to silence, or at the most streaming audio from the internet with no ads or announcers.

This means that I'm less likely to suffer the auditory hallucinations than others -- but it has been years since I spent more than 48 hours totally alone in the wilderness. Onboard my old San Juan 21 I usually monitored the VHF radio and so even when singlehanding was exposed to voices and communication.

I'd guess that this sort of thing might be more common now than in the past, as our ancestors had a much more audio-communications-free (or -deprived, depending on outlook) existence, and were more used to spending time alone.

[Bobcat]

My wife, who worked for years for her father, a salmon troller with a wooden schooner, used to listen to the whale when down below. I suspect you heard sea life of some sort or another.

[ishmael]

My take is going to be a bit odd, but what else is new. You may well be hearing spirits. I'm not at all sure how it works, but I think objects perhaps boats especially, things that are around water, can acquire the spirit of the people who are on them. It may be as simple as a recording process not in our ken, or more complicated.

Hey, they sound friendly. Be glad. Offer the spirits a libation next time aboard.

[Patrick Allen]

Hey Ishmael
Yep they are friendly. I reckon the spirit theory is closest yet. All the scientific explanations can be argued against for one reason or another. Such as place, time etc.

[NealmCarter]

Id vote for fish pecking at the growth on your boats bottom

[Dave R]

Not boat related but I am frequently wakened in the night by what sounds like my young son crying in his bed. Probably 99% of the time he isn't crying at all. I put it down to air in the ductwork of the house. Still, it wakes me up almost every night at least once.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Well, I do quite often hear sounds like voices, when sailing my boat, which is indeed wooden. Typically this will be in light conditions. I suspect that my auditory senses are processing a different noise and I am interpreting it as something that we hear a lot of - human speech.

I have noticed that this happens more often when I am tired. As someone who once sailed under Tower Bridge whilst a few miles off the Shipwash Light Vessel (!) I am well aware that fatigue when sailing can induce hallucinations...

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

.... I am well aware that fatigue when sailing can induce hallucinations...

Did you ever read Libby Purves on gybing to avoid a double decker bus?

[Spin_Drift]

This is so interesting that I'm starting a new thread of the mysterious voices heard by sailors through out history.

Please check under above title in this category... :)