Sounds which may be Silent?

Something fairly minor happened the other day. Round about my normal waking up time, I was suddenly woken from my sleep by the sound of someone rapping three times on my bedroom door. It was sharp and clear, but soft, as though the back of an open hand was used to gently tap on the door.

Right from the start I was sure it was both real and not real. That is to say, somehow I had the impression that the sound had directly entered my consciousness without the necessity for vibrating air or eardrums or any of that ordinary stuff. It was a direct sensation. I think.

There was no-one there of course. Later on I did realise that I'd been dwelling on something very significant to a deceased relative, and maybe  that person had visited during my sleep and made the rapping sound as a way to alert me of their visit.

I'm no stranger to hearing sounds like this. Another example, I may have mentioned on the night after the passing of one of my parents there was the sound of stairs creaking and occasional very loud bumps and bangs from the furniture. That persisted throughout the night. It didn't happen again, seemed to be a kind of farewell greeting.

Some of those may involve actual physical movement of objects to generate sound, but it does seem to me that there might be another way to hear, requiring no actual sound. Unless one had a microphone and recording equipment running all the time, there really isn't any way to tell one way or the other.

Something fairly minor happened the other day. Round about my normal waking up time, I was suddenly woken from my sleep by the sound of someone rapping three times on my bedroom door. It was sharp and clear, but soft, as though the back of an open hand was used to gently tap on the door.

Right from the start I was sure it was both real and not real. That is to say, somehow I had the impression that the sound had directly entered my consciousness without the necessity for vibrating air or eardrums or any of that ordinary stuff. It was a direct sensation. I think.

There was no-one there of course. Later on I did realise that I'd been dwelling on something very significant to a deceased relative, and maybe  that person had visited during my sleep and made the rapping sound as a way to alert me of their visit.

I'm no stranger to hearing sounds like this. Another example, I may have mentioned on the night after the passing of one of my parents there was the sound of stairs creaking and occasional very loud bumps and bangs from the furniture. That persisted throughout the night. It didn't happen again, seemed to be a kind of farewell greeting.

Some of those may involve actual physical movement of objects to generate sound, but it does seem to me that there might be another way to hear, requiring no actual sound. Unless one had a microphone and recording equipment running all the time, there really isn't any way to tell one way or the other.

Interesting, Typoz !  I haven't experienced raps as such (from whatever source) but I have definitely "heard" my doorbell ring, or rather I should say I thought I heard it ring, because I went to the window and looked down on the doorstep and no one was there...anywhere.

This has happened to me more than once and I don't like it TBH, albeit obviously there are well known psychological explanations connected with being in a waking conscious state. The doorbell isn't faulty, though. It does leave me feeling a bit peculiar but I usually forget about it.

I'm no stranger to hearing sounds like this. Another example, I may have mentioned on the night after the passing of one of my parents there was the sound of stairs creaking and occasional very loud bumps and bangs from the furniture. That persisted throughout the night. It didn't happen again, seemed to be a kind of farewell greeting.

I had the same experience after the passing of my mother, and there was a minor bit of poltergeist activity as an item had been knocked down -- Not anything personal to her, just our wireless modem.

Arguably coincidence, though I can't see how the modem would fall without a gust of wind within the walls of our house...and I've mentioned it before, but one of her last acts of clarity was to look me in the eye in surprise and exclaim "Everyone's alive! Everyone's alive!"

Thanks for that, Sci. On the possible poltergeist activity, my mother reported to me that during the weeks or months prior to her passing (which she didn't know of at the time, since it was the future), she had noticed certain objects repeatedly falling from a shelf without explanation. I think her words to me were along the lines of "there's something strange [or funny] going on".

Much later I looked at the location and that shelf in particular and came up with some sort of potential ordinary mundane explanation of how vibrations from the floor might have been transmitted to the shelf supports. But that seems a bit contrived, given that this activity occurred only within a narrow time-frame.

I had the same experience after the passing of my mother, and there was a minor bit of poltergeist activity as an item had been knocked down -- Not anything personal to her, just our wireless modem.

Arguably coincidence, though I can't see how the modem would fall without a gust of wind within the walls of our house...and I've mentioned it before, but one of her last acts of clarity was to look me in the eye in surprise and exclaim "Everyone's alive! Everyone's alive!"

I do recall you mentioning that exclamation of "Everyone's alive!" previously. I may be drawing a connection here which doesn't apply. However I wonder whether that is similar to the reported 'deathbed visions' where a person may be visited by one or several deceased relatives and be able to see and engage in conversation with them, seeing the visitor as as solid and real as anyone else.

I do recall you mentioning that exclamation of "Everyone's alive!" previously. I may be drawing a connection here which doesn't apply. However I wonder whether that is similar to the reported 'deathbed visions' where a person may be visited by one or several deceased relatives and be able to see and engage in conversation with them, seeing the visitor as as solid and real as anyone else.

Oh yeah it definitely was a deathbed vision.

Soon after I visited a "sensitive" who couldn't offer me any details, but seeing as I bought the tickets (my friends paid me in cash) online we did get what was for us a pretty good confirmation of her being capable of psychometry for a reading she did for one of my fellows.