What is something you can sense that few-if-any people you know can sense? Literal answers only.
Not me but my gf has a rare condition called SCDS. Basically, she can hyper hear her own body. Her heart sounds like a loud bass drum. She can hear her eyes when they move. She can hear her bones when they creak.
It is unsettling and can be quite dis-orienting and painful. She has surgery scheduled next year to fix it!
i can see very well in the dark, like pitch black night in the arctic circle in a forest i can see the ground enough that i wont trip and can avoid things like snakes
i fucking hate all the bright lights on cars now btw. the sun is genuinely distressing to me i just simply cannot go outside without sunglasses, even when its very cloudy
Found the vampire. Nostrafeu?
Gangrel
I actually play Banu Haqim a lot, and my avatar is marceline from adventure time lol
Nostrafeu? Restecpa.
I’m a super-taster and thanks to lots of childhood abuse I’m hypervigilant. So pretty much everything. If a person anywhere in the area has been smoking or in a smoky room any time in the last day or two, I’ll know it. I know what you last ate - and drank, if it wasn’t water. I can hear a woman sobbing quietly in a locked room down the hall when nobody else can.
I see beauty in the clouds in the sky at night. I smell faint smoke on the wind. Scents that remind me of long ago, when I was a child - like the smell of shrinky-dinks coming off a hot metal mold, or pastries coming out of an Easy-bake oven. Autumn leaves swirling in an icy breeze. Or the smell of something like earwax, or tar.
I often wonder how normal people live without sensing so much of the world!
The god-awful taste of sugar substitutes.
A lot of people can taste things like saccharine I think? But I can taste any fake sugar, even when there is a mix of real and fake sugar in the same thing.
Aspartame/acesulfane is definitely the worst of them all, but sucralose, stevia… all of them taste like medicine kind of.
I can also taste the difference between cane and beetroot based granulated sugar. Beetroot sugar is sharper.
I thought I was the only one that could not stand aspartame like how is it in so many things and no one says anything haha
Right?! So basically now I drink water when I am out and about because so much stuff has fake sugar now
So much this. I live in a country with a sugar tax, so almost every soft drink on the market has part of its sugar replaced with some kind of sweetener. I didn’t drink a lot of soft drinks before, but now I can’t drink them at all.
Exactly the same for me. Full fat coke is basically the only option now if I do want one.
I can definitely taste the difference between aspartame and sugar but its not unpleasant to me.
This is so interesting, since I simply can not tell a difference between the aspartame/acesulfane and actual sugar in fizzy drinks. I guess I have it easy because of that, but I have a somewhat keen sense of taste otherwise, I cook a lot and can detect what the taste is missing or has too much of pretty consistently, and know the “opposite” tastes/ingredients to apply. And wines and such, it’s sort of a synesthesia thing too, since I kind of feel them as something close to colors. But sweet things I have trouble with. I thought, not sure why, this was a human thing, but it’s interesting to hear someone can detect the sweet things granularly! Cool!
i can hear power supplies. kinda annoying.
The fucking documentation for the libraries we program with, apparently. Everyone else at work either just vibecodes or goes “aw I don’t know how to do that, it probably can’t be done :c”
I have a heart condition that I get an ECG (electro cardiogram) done for every 6 months or so. It’s just an ultrasound on your heart. They always take mine from a bunch of different angles and a bunch of different types of pictures.
But I was recently in the hospital and told the technician that their machine was loud. She looked baffled. I told her I can hear the ultrasound and hers is the loudest I’ve encountered. Apparently I’m the only person she’s ever done work on (or however to say that) that’s been able to hear it.
So I guess that is my super power. Or I’m just autistic, as apparently many autists can hear very high pitched noises.
But the ultrasound is pretty cool. The frequencies and the pitch will change depending on what photo mode they’re in. Like a doppler mode is all pewpewpewpewpew while the normal mode is all eeeeeeeeeeeee. Lol. It’s hard to explain.
Annoyed by the commonly imperceptible sound an ultrasound machine makes? Possibly autistic
Facinated by how and why the machine works while it annoys you? Definitely autistic
I joke but im exactly like this too lol.
Lmao. Yeahhhh, I always get a crick in my neck because I try to watch all the work they’re doing. It’s fascinating
That’s a wonderful superpower! I can hear cars or footsteps approaching before my friends realise them, but high-pitched electric mole traps and ticking clocks can be annoying. Listening to music with good hearing is like taking drugs though. You should check out well-mastered music, commonly going as audiophile music.
My friends have called me sensitive to everything. Apparently most people don’t love walking through neighborhoods just to smell other people doing laundry? Hahahaha. I love it.
I’ve wanted some really excellent headphones for a while now, but it’s haven’t yet been at a place/time where I can pull the trigger. It will definitely happen one day
I got some pretty nice headphones a while back. Not the really high end ones or anything, but good enough that I can get lost in the shapes, textures, and sometimes colors of the different instruments. Like someone else said, it’s a bit like being high.
Cheap studio monitors are fun too because they really separate out the sounds. It can make me a little tired, listening to all that detail, but it’s so fun.
I had this exact experience and tried to ask the technician about it. She didn’t understand what I was asking. I thought I was just explaining it poorly.
Lemmy needs to stop trying to convince me I’m neurodivergent.
Its seriously wild that you can do this!
Apparently, ultrasound machines can use frequencies that start just higher than human hearing, 20kHz.
Can you hear dog-whistles, bats, or other electronics?
Get a hearing test and call Guiness (c:
I hear bats, absolutely. I can hear electronics as well, and some are just so frustrating. I’ve never heard a dog whistle, as in I’ve literally never seen one in person, but there’s a house near to me that has a warning thing when someone approaches their yard, probably to ward off dogs? But my god, it’s loud and high. I try to avoid that route at all costs.
“I hear bats” - Astounding! 8]
It would be very interesting to get a hearing test done. One which provides you with a chart of frequency against intensity perceivable. I’d check that they are equipped to go over 20kHz first.
In the case of bats for me I think I feel the pulses of bats because it’s quite powerful, more than hear it. It’s probably undertone resonance or something.
I haven’t heard any for a while and my hearing is deteriorating but bat numbers collapsed and I haven’t seen them either.
Modern Guiness is corporate propaganda.
Obviously he should go get a Guinness instead
Off topic, but I’ve not seen that emoticon before (unusually left-facing too!) and it’s adorable.
It’s my favourite emoticon, the most calm and cartoony.
I also created my own questioning emoticon about10years ago,
what do you think of it "?
Took me a second but I see it now - very cartoony. I like it!
I used to be able to smell ants and hear electricity. My senses aren’t as keen as they used to be though.
Same. If there’s a fair amount of particular types of ants I can smell them still but not which corner of the yard has fire ants anymore.
Changes in air pressure(I think). Its like everything goes quiet theres ringing it feels very weird. I always ask to see if anyone else notices.
You how you get up on a winter morning after the rain and everything sounds different and the air is crisp. Yeah sometimes I can feel that a sudden shift and its very jarring like ive been stunned for a few seconds.
I get this too. I didn’t think/know it was air pressure though? Seems to happen to me randomly, and rarely.
I have Synesthesia. When I hear certain sounds, I see these little bubbles of color. It’s sort of similar to the eye-floater things you get sometimes, that’s the best way I can describe it. I’ll also get a taste in my mouth looking at specific colors.
I’m not sure if that counts, but it’s the first thing I thought of.
Yeah, synesthesia counts!
The frame rate on high refresh monitors
I’ve got friends that say they can’t tell the difference, who’ve only ever used 60hz
I’m kinda like that. While i love high frame rates, i don’t think i see the upgrade. From 60 to 120? Not really sure. But from 120 to 60? Why is my game a slideshow?
I can smell your fabric softener, no matter how long ago you used it. Artificial perfumes of any kind just murder my sinuses. It suuuucks.
I also can hear electronics, even just the lights, if that’s all that’s on. Maddening, because I can almost never find real silence. It’s why I love camping.
I experience the first set of powers, and I hate it. Every detergent, shampoo, deodorant I use is “sensitive”, “baby formula” or whatever.
And a few years ago some deodorant company started using some I guess artificial compounds that just pushes the air out of my lungs, it’s so bad. I can not only smell it, it digs into my forehead.
I get this with pretty much all perfumes, scented candles, tobacco smoke (oh god the tobacco smoke) and extinguished matches and candles.
With some people I wonder how they can exist with so much perfume poured over themselves that I can’t breathe while walking behind them. I just don’t understand.
An upside of being smell sensitive is that it helps with debugging electronics. Burnt parts smell very obvious, and I can even smell hot stuff like heatsinks.
I can relatively easily reverse engineer recipes I like.
I forgot to mention electronic vapes with, I don’t know, banana strawberry flavoured vape juice 🤮
Every time I say I hear electricity, people think I lie. But it makes noise! I hear my blood too.
I wish you could try stuff beforehand in a quiet place to see if it’s gonna bother you with annoying quiet noises. Unfortunately that’s not really a thing. Luckily electronics has gotten better over time but a lot of stuff still does it, just usually less.
I’ve never been a big fragrance guy. When I found out about people like you, I decided to just go fragrance free. If it’s not a big deal to me and it gives a few people headaches to be near me, might as well just not do it. There are some tangential benefits. My deodorant irritates my armpits less now. My hair oil used to irritate my skin if it got on my forehead. Now it doesn’t.
I’ve got one light in a room that makes a quiet whining noise when on, seemingly only after a minute or so (maybe after it warms up a bit). Thankfully I can just keep it off just fine, but occasionally I’ll turn it on for a bit more brightness, and realise it’s still on a while later by the annoying noise.
The beeping on my monitors power led drives me insane if it’s on standby mode and flashing
Mould, I’m always surprised at how few people can smell when food is mouldy. I’ve had people insist the smell is a chemical smell, until we’ve found the offending mouldy item (e.g. When someone’s left a cup of coffee on their desk and gone on holiday) and I reap the glory of being right.
Yeah I feel like i can’t smell a foul old coffee cup better than anyone else, but everyone’s sponges always smell bad to me. I always hate washing a dish at anyone else’s house because the bacteria in their sponge leaves a smell on my hands that doesn’t come off from a normal hand washing or three. Rubber gloves also leave a smell on my hands that will make it difficult for me to sleep that night it smells so strong. Latex ones only, though.
I can feel whether a battery is full or empty based on its weight. I know it doesn’t make sense but I’ve done a blind test and it works. Empty battery is lighter.
Drop a full and an empty battery from the same height onto a flat surface. The empty one will bounce more, the full one will just drop.
There are syringes that come prefilled with saline used to flush IVs. Some people can taste it when it’s injected, others can’t. I’m one of those who can.
I can quickly learn to recognize specific people’s footsteps, so I can hear who’s approaching. Sometimes it doesn’t even depend on what footwear the person is wearing.
Apparently I can hear high pitched sounds too. I’ve heard such sounds several times where people around me weren’t able to hear it, and recently I could hear an ultrasound device too, which kinda make sense since they start at around 20 kHz.
Also, this isn’t about sensing, but I can slow my heart rate temporarily simply by holding my breath.
Oh! I can also slow my heart rate, but I don’t hold my breath, I just beath slowly and… will it.
And here I am thinking everyone can do this, it’s so weird that a thing like this just never came up with anyone
Hey hey, same on a few of these.
Saline tastes like rubber bands smell, in my opinion.
pretty sure the taste is the plastic tubing. delicious microplastics
Yeah, it’s not microplastics per se, just volatile organic compounds that leech into the saline over time. The smell/taste is because those VOCs want to be in the air. So when they hit your lungs, they very happily evaporate and you exhale them. So you’re just tasting your own breath. Like there may be microplastics present, but that’s not what you’re smelling/tasting, because those wouldn’t evaporate into your lungs to be exhaled.
