Strange Sound (a story from waking life)

Today I feel like writing about some things that once happened in my real waking life. In between vast swaths of normality, I also have a few interesting memories of weird events. One is from my early childhood.

I remember in the first house I lived in, I would often hear a weird noise as I lay in my bed. The sound reminded me of what it would sound like if large rocks were slowly being tumbled in a dryer, like rocks that would slide along for a bit on metal, then get jumbled up, and then all tumble over the top of each other at once, and then slide along somemore. I often thought the sound came from inside one of the walls of my room, but when I tried to really localize the source of the sound, it always seemed to move and become illusive. I rationalized that the sound must be from pipes or some kind of machinery in the house, but often the sound made me nervous and scared. It was creepy!

When I was about 7 years old, we moved to another house that was nearby. I was surprised to discover the sound was also present in my room at the new house. I noticed it often when it was quiet at night, but not always. Sometimes it would stop and start. Again, is was impossible to really localize the sound but even so, I rationalized that it must come from a hot water heater in a wall adjacent to my room. I told myself probably the previous house also had a hot water heater and that is why both houses had the same noise. Although it confused me that I could also sometimes hear the sound just as loud in the daytime in other areas of the house far from the hotwater heater. I remember sitting in the living room as a child, drawing or playing quietly, and sometimes hearing the sound and wondering about it and trying to localize it but being unable to do so.

In about 3rd grade, I visited a friend some miles away and slept over at her house. That night, I was surprised to start hearing the sound at her house as well. I mentioned the sound to my friend and she became excited, saying she could hear it as well but when she had asked other members of her family, none of them could hear it at all.

That night, we took turns comparing notes about when the sound started and stopped and we always agreed. Whatever it was, we both heard it stop and start at the same times and our descriptions of how it sounded also matched. We also discussed how she could also hear it in other parts of the house but also could not localize it. Indeed on other visits to her house, both sleeping over or visiting in the daytime, I heard the sound on occasion in various areas of her house and also still could not localize its source. The two of us always agreed on the sound and she was very excited that I could hear it as well. She told me that she had made a big point of telling her brother that I could hear it as well, thus proving the sound was real and she was not crazy. She made a point of having me tell this to her brother personally so he would believe her. But her brother seemed unimpressed by this news.

I remember another time later when the hot water heater at our house sprung a leak and a repairman came over to install a new one. I was surprised to see the hot water heater was in a very different part of the wall than where I often felt the sound seemed to come from. This disconcerted me as I now knew the sound could not have come from the heater and I was now old enough to realize that no other pipes or systems existed in that wall. Now the sound was even more creepy. But again, although the sound often seemed to come from that wall, whenever I really tried to localize it, the sound became illusive and seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Somewhere in the course of time, I lost touch with that friend and I must have stopped hearing the sound as well, as I do not hear it now, but I don't remember exactly when I stopped hearing it. Often, I did not want to hear it as it was a creepy thing to hear an unexplained sound at night, and somewhere along the line, I must have gotten my wish.

In fact, I had forgotten all about the strange sound until about 6 months ago when the memory suddenly came back to me just as I was falling asleep. I was surprised to realize I could have forgotten such a strange memory for so long. Now I wonder how many other weird memories I have laying half dormant in my mind. And I also really wonder what the heck that sound was!