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My aurist offers an ingenious explanation. He says that I can hear my own voice, and undoubtedly it is at some times clearer than at others. I may unconsciously “think out loud”; that is, go through the interesting performance of talking to myself without knowing that I am doing it. Perhaps if he were deaf himself he would not be quite so sure of his theory—nothing is so convincing as a fact. I remember that at one time my dentist was trying to persuade me that I ought to have a plate.

“But that is merely your theory,” I said. “You tell me that you can make a plate which will enable me to eat and talk in a natural manner. How do I know? I think a dentist, to be entirely successful, should be able to prove such statements from his own experience.”

For answer he gravely took a good-sized plate out of his own mouth. I had no idea that he had one! I have often wished that some of our skilled aurists might graft their theory of head noises upon practical experience.

Scientists and psychologists refer to these noises as subjective audition. I shall attempt no scientific discussion of the matter, as this book is intended to be a record of personal or related experience. All students of deafness seem to agree that we can hear sounds, definite noises and even words that are purely subjective. Certainly in some forms of insanity the victims hear voices commanding them to do this or that. I have known several persons apparently sane in all other matters who insist that unseen friends talk to them and give advice.