How do you feel when you hear a REALLY loud sound?

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Extreme irritation and often anger. Like a really loud truck passed me yesterday, and it only lasted for a split second, but it was still there.

My whole body jolts, my tummy hurts from shock, my heart thumps, the back of my neck tingles, I get a hot flush, I go all shaky, and I even get an urge to throw up. And then for about 10 minutes after the shock, I keep on hearing the sudden loud sound in my head over and over again. Things that cause this reaction are dogs with loud barks flying at me from someone's garden gate, an ambulance or Z-car suddenly turning it's siren on as it passes me, being under the smoke alarm in my house and it goes off when the oven has been opened, and bells ringing (this is why I can't work at a school - I'd be spending my whole time trying to avoid being near a bell when it's due to ring and would never get any work done).

If I hear a really loud noise,but it only sounds once, I'll flinch and mutter a swear word. If the sound is continues for a while and I can't get away from the source fast enough (like fire alarms during a fire drill) I'll rock and silently cry with my hands over my ears.

I have a similar reaction to things like balloons popping or if my mother makes chicken and snaps the styrofoam tray in half before throwing it away. She knows it bothers me and warns me to cover my ears first.



Low humming/buzzing noises really bother me. I currently have an electrical outlet that makes noise and it drives me nuts. I'm currently not too bothered by it but check it many times a day and if it gets loud enough to hear without my ear next to it I get panic attacks. My landlord looked at it, said he can't hear it, said he never heard of such a thing, and that he'll ask an electrician about it.

I've had DS plugs that made noise and using them drove me nuts. I've had tvs where you could hear humming/buzzing/static when they were off and that bothered me.

It depends on what kind of a sound it is. For example, if it's a really loud buzzing sound, a loud high pitched sound or a loud slamming sound, I really hate it and feel extremely uncomfortable, almost in pain. However, there are also certain types of loud sounds that I really enjoy. I love hearing explosions for examples.

Being poked in my kidneys with a sharp stick.

Angry! It takes me a while to get my heart to stop racing.

Many people know that autistics are supersensitive to sound, and may cover their ears when they're bothered. Even I knew it about autism, even the very LFA, long before I knew anything about Asperger's. (I'm not that sensitive in any sense, btw). I remember one story in the Readers' Digest about a girl whose mother was trying to raise and help her, who threw a major fit in a particular spot every time they passed it (I think I remember that the kid was still in a stroller). Mother investigated, and it turned out that there were some pipes in a wall at that place that made a very, very faint "running water" sound, that Mother couldn't hear at all. She did already know that her child was freaked by ocean noises. There were other mentions of it here and there in the popular press.

I flinch, and then I hear silence for about a second, as all other sounds are reduced to nothing in comparison. As the sound starts to fade back in, I analyze the situation to see if I should be concerned or not.

When I was in high school, I also tried to resist covering my ears at loud noises, but failed. One time a beaker shattered into pieces as it hit the floor during chemistry. I screamed for a sec while covering my ears. After class, one of my friends came up to me and said that only autistic people cover their ears and scream briefly at loud noises like I did. But his face tensed up like he was in pain when the glass shattered, and he was standing at the oppisite end of the room from where the beaker smashed.

I don't have a problem with the sound itself, but it depends on the way it is brought to me.. if someone plays the drum in my house without asking me for it.. i'll get mad and kill them, but if i give permission to do so.. please go on.. i won't have any problem with it. i need to be prepared and decide whether i'm into it at that moment.

like if my ipod is on schuffle(or whatever it's called) i can't endure it.. i need to know what song it is cause i need to incorporate my feelings and behavior with it. if i'm calmly in bed and some rapper starts screaming about his money and houses.. i'm gonna be really pissed off.

I feel like I want to kill whatever was responsible for the sound. My skin crawls, most of my muscles involuntarily contract, and it takes a second or two to be able to move properly again.

I'm also a drummer and enjoy making loud noises very much. As others have said, I just have to be expecting the sound.

If it's like a balloon popping only amplified it could send me over the edge into a rapid heart beating panicky mode. I might even go into shock and start to shut down unless it's a firecracker or something I light myself. The element of surprise is lost and it doesn't affect me as much though I might be nervous lighting the first one.

I hate loud sounds with a passion. They are literally painful. I feel like I am being stabbed. I rock back and forth when the loud sound goes off and hold my ears. My dad is the same way. He has Asperger's and I have classic autism but the presentation now a days is more like Asperger's Syndrome. When I was young it was much worse but in the last few years I am back in regressing back towards my more autistic behaviors. Loud sounds are the worst for me. Even when the phone rings. The suddenness of it just makes me jump and make a sound myself. Once again my dad is the same way. The only sound I can accept even while mildly loud is music. I love music and it makes my symptoms less. It helps drown out other things. I also don't like bright lights and the sun. When it is sunny outside it hurts my eyes including with sunglasses. I like it when its cloudy more than sunny.

Hi Glider,

I have beeem reading about this In 'A Field Guide to Earthlings'

Humans are all born sensitive to sound (and other stimuli)

But NTz desensitize to this as a natural development process.
- This happens in our brains not at our sensory level

This has several purposes including
- preventing sensory overload
- processing (and communicating) (sensory) information symbolically (as opposed to literally)
- allowing them to communicate on multiple levels, including the all important non-verbal Level

During my recent diagnosis the Psychologist connected a lot more dots for me:
- My preference for independent learning (studying alone) is because I experience verbal information as interference to my learning process and the fact that the speaker is generally communicating the information far too slowly, which I find frustrating (also linked to my ADD)

This is also linked directly to sensory overload.

Like you I experience loud/shrill noises as pain.

I carry silicon ear plugs whenever I leave my house.

An unexpected sound which is significantly louder than the background noise at the time makes my muscles tense up and there's this weird adrenaline rush, accompanied by a weird aggression. I'm usually really angry for a little while, even after I know what the noise was and am not scared of it, and know that it makes no sense to be angry. The effect is much stronger if the noise occurs while I am deep in thought, very focused on something, or paying less attention to my surroundings than usual for any other reason. The timbre and pitch determine how much the sound bothers me as much or more than the volume does, though.