Speaking of angry moods

sew and sew · 01-24-2009, 08:33 PM

Yesterday I was hand washing some dishes when I had an interesting experience. There were a lot of dishes to get through, lot of caked on food, etc. However, I deal with that almost daily. When I was a teenager sometimes I'd get frustrated, wanted to be doing other things, and the daily monotony of dealing with the big skanky pile of dishes got to me. It's been a couple of years since I've experienced that kind of aggravation at the sink. Tend to just zone out now. Yet yesterday I noticed myself getting aggravated about it...or something, couldn't really tell...just aggravated and the dishes definitely weren't helping. It built up for a good five minutes and then I was standing there doing dishes with a sustained feeling of being really pissed off.

At one point I turned the water off and walked over to the side of the kitchen to get my glass of water, and I noticed there was a piercing whine sound, but it wasn't that loud...if that makes sense. Really whiny, shrill whine, but the volume of it was low. Low enough that it was hard to detect with an immediate competing noise covering it. It was hard to figure out what was causing it, took me a couple of minutes, couldn't pin it down so I gently shook some stuff, mostly appliances to see if it would stop. It did finally stop and I think the refrigerator was the culprit. I continued washing the dishes and felt normal after that. Before walking away from the sink I had no surface recognition of the whine piercing the air, but since the aggravation was inexplicable, I think I was physiologically responding to it all the same. Made me ponder how sound can be used to distress someone, kind of a creepy thought but the experience brought it home.

The New Black · 01-24-2009, 08:36 PM

Interesting. I believe it. Colors can evoke certain moods too.

KurlyKae · 01-24-2009, 11:46 PM

I definitely believe it. I work in a school that has several special ed. classes, including quite a few autisitic children. I don't know the specific situation with this one child, but most of the day, he is making this noise that's a mix of OOO and EEE. I think he finds it soothing, but at first I found it very distracting, even on the playground. I wonder how it is for the teachers/students in his particular classroom. I give them a lot of credit, it must take some getting used to.

The New Black · 01-25-2009, 06:13 AM

In the book Dibs in Search of Self, which was hugely fascinating, the psychologist used some sort of sound therapy to treat Dibs, who was I want to say autistic but I know that's not quite it.

amy51373 · 01-25-2009, 06:29 AM

I've experienced that same thing West. My air conditioning unit makes so much noise, especially in the winter when the heat pump is running that it will irritate me to anger. I think sound, especially very low constant ones can do that. I recall an X-Files episode once that kind of talked about the same type thing.

sew and sew · 01-25-2009, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amy51373

I've experienced that same thing West. My air conditioning unit makes so much noise, especially in the winter when the heat pump is running that it will irritate me to anger. I think sound, especially very low constant ones can do that. I recall an X-Files episode once that kind of talked about the same type thing.

Lol, interesting. It took me aback a lot...I know sound can physically bother you and then you psychologically respond to the physical disturbance. But first experiencing the psychological effect, or at the least the physiological effect was kind of trippy. There's a chance the two weren't related, but I'm pretty sure they were. I hope you can get your AC fixed/quieted soon, sounds pretty annoying.

Phoenix- That makes me wonder if sound, outside of music can lift spirits. Since it can soothe, that at least shows it does the opposite of aggravate.

As an aside, this is a neat sight for positive sounds.

JillH410 · 01-26-2009, 01:41 AM

Very interesting. I always have to sleep with a fan on for the noise. If I don't have it on or for some reason don't have one, I sleep terribly. I know a LOT of people that have to sleep with a fan on; I wonder if that has any psychological basis.

amy51373 · 01-26-2009, 03:58 AM

I have to sleep with the fan on or at least some kind of white noise. It drives my husband nuts sometimes but if I don't I can't sleep. I attribute it to being a relatively light sleeper anyway but maybe it's more than that.