43 points

I can wiggle my ears. I used to use it to entertain children, but today’s children are jaded and cynical.

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29 points

I found I can wiggle my ears enough to walk my glasses back up my nose when they’ve slipped down.

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11 points

now that’s useful!

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5 points

I’ve just tried that and you’ve changed my life

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3 points

Oh yeah, I didn’t even realise until you said it but I absolutely do that all the time

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9 points

Child me would’ve loved to see that.

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5 points

Adult me would love to see that

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6 points
*

I can do it too! it was like discovering a new muscle! I can’t do either independently though

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30 points

I can rumble my eardrums. Mostly useless unless i wanna block out some annoying sound but i can only do it for like a minute at a time.

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10 points

I think I have the same thing. Is yours also kinda connected to blinking? I can do it without blinking, but closing my eyes at the same moment as rumbling the eardrums feels easier and more natural than rumbling with eyes open.

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11 points

Mine feels more connected to my jaw, I kind of tense my jaw right near the joint to activate the rumbling.

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10 points

I can do it without closing my eyes but when i was younger, I remember closing my eyes or scrunching my face made it easier to do. If you can wiggle your ears without lifting your eyebrows, it kind of feels like its the same muscle group that causes the rumbles. The rumbling sounds like white noise inside my head. Its caused by constricting Tensor Tympani muscle in the ear voluntarily. From Wikipedia:

Some individuals can voluntarily produce this rumbling sound by contracting the muscle. According to the National Institute of Health, “voluntary control of the tensor tympani muscle is an extremely rare event”,[5] where “rare” seems to refer more to the scarcity of test subjects and/or studies more than the percentage of the general population who have voluntary control. The rumbling sound can also be heard when the neck or jaw muscles are highly tensed as when yawning deeply. This phenomenon has been known since (at least) 1884.[6]

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5 points

TIL; I always thought it was temporarily spiking your blood pressure that made that rumble. Now I’m no longer scared to do it

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7 points
*

I do this thing where I pop my ears (like when pressure changes from altitude) and then it’s like I’m hearing my breathing inside of my sinuses or something. When I breathe this way, it effectively blocks conversations I don’t want to overhear. Do other people do this, or am I odd?

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5 points

I can do this. If I’m in a really quiet area, I like to take in a deeper breath and then exhale as slowly as possible while doing it, which then allows me to hear my heartbeat. Super nifty.

I can also use my soft pallet to block airflow from my throat to my nose. Can you do that too?

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3 points

I can do this! I forget the name for it but I can rumble my ears, and then I can also ‘pop’ them if I go a little further. I’m so grateful for it if I ever go through a pressure change, I can’t imagine how people cope without being able to do it.

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2 points

Came here looking for the tensor tympani rumble cause I know it well; not sure what your thing is! If I notice sounds going quiet on a flight I’ll pinch the nostrils shut and make an exhalation effort till I hear a pop in each ear, then sounds are normal. Almost like the reverse of yours.

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6 points

Not OP, but mine’s not connected to blinking.

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5 points

Same. I hold my eyes shut and I can activate it. I like to think of it as my automatic ear-cleaning mode.

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4 points

I can also ear rumble, it is not tied to my blinking at all, but if I vibrate my eyes while my ears are rumbling they both move at the same ~60hz frequency.

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3 points

Mine is connected to blinking, but it doesn’t always work.

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3 points

Mine is activated by blinking hard.

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3 points

Yep. I can rumble, and I can click.

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2 points

Gee, I can do this too! I’ve tried explaining it to others before but only one person ever got it

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29 points

This is my time to shine, my body is full of useless, I can:

  • gleek intentionally (saving people a search: it’s causing the salivary glands under your tongue to shoot saliva, people often do it unintentionally when yawning)
  • open my jaw wide enough that it goes out of socket, and twofer I can then move it side to side and produce a loud popping noise
  • bend my thumb down to my wrist
  • cause my heart rate to spike for short periods even when at rest
  • make a three leaf clover with my tongue
  • click my tongue extremely loudly
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9 points

I remember when I was a kid we were all trying to gleek and some of us could do it easily. I never could, so anytime as an adult I accidentally do it, I can’t help but laugh.

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5 points

A friend taught me how to gleek in 7th grade. I never stopped doing it lmao

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4 points

click my tongue extremely loudly

Learn Xhosa.

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3 points

oh my god, so that’s what I’m doing when I yawn! It started happening a few years ago…

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3 points

Tongue clicks are absurdly useful. In my family we use then to communicate over long distances and to find each other in big crowds

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3 points

By shoot, does it have force or do you mean it just comes out?

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8 points

It has “force”, but it’s not very impressive, I can shoot saliva in approximately a 1ft / 30cm arch.

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2 points

I can also gleek but it’s nowhere near what my grade 11 English teacher could do. I don’t know how it came up in class, but, in front of the class, she turned sideways and made the biggest arc I’d ever seen: maybe 6 feet long

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25 points
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Deleted by creator
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10 points

that sounds so satisfying

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24 points

I can hum and whistle at the same time. Makes me sound kinda like a Theremin

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8 points

Same! I liken it to a knock off version of Mongolian Throat singing.

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5 points

Ah yes, multiphonics.

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2 points

Lol I just tried that to see how it works.

It’s hard because if you close your lips too much to whistle it restricts the airflow and kills the hum.

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2 points

Hmm I can hum independent of my lips 🤔

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2 points
*

I love doing this because it sounds like you’re charging a laser weapon

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