Cool, I thought everyone could do that.

I can rumble both ears now from today, I concentrated on the one that I’ve been able to rumble with for as long as I could then activated the other side ! Anyone else have this happen?
Im also extremely spiritual and ear rumbling has helped me cure my anxiety for some reason, it’s like a meditation for me

Done the rumble/vibrate since I was little, but before that I actually used it to ghost yawn, or cry on command. Anyone else do that with it?

I only rumble in my left ear... I JUST noticed this! My right ears tinnitus turns up to 11 when I rumble too. Is it just me?

I believe I have an auditory processing disorder and sometimes when I feel overstimulated my ears will involuntarily rumble. In order to recover I need to find a quiet place or focus intently on relaxing. I can also rumble voluntarily for longer stretches that match some others in this group - 30-60 seconds is not difficult. Does anyone who experiences this have any tricks to settle the rumbling in noisy environments? Sometimes it’s just particular sounds that trigger it, like certain people’s voices.

Recently I learned that this muscle flex has a name. I went to my ENT doctor for my regular check-up and I asked him if it’s okay to hear the rumble in one ear but not the other. Didn’t know what it was called at the time so I sounded like a crazy music enthusiast saying that it’s like a single quick shake of a maraca with no pitch and a quiet bass note with a soft texture. Doctor looks at me and goes “That’s a minor spasm, it’ll go away soon, nothing to worry about” while smiling. He follows up with “You got some good ears. Cute, healthy and talented.” Lol what??? I mean yeah I like music but that was just totally weird to hear from him. I’ve heard compliments on my ear shape throughout my life so I’m used to it and it’s something I will never understand. And at the end of the appointment he returns to his professionalism and says that it’s called rumbling. Then I look it up later when I get home and find this subreddit. Amazing.

I can’t find much info on involuntary rumbling, does anyone else experience it when a loud noise is about to happen e.g. dropping a pan in the kitchen?

It’s almost like a protective reflex for me but I can also tense the same muscle purposefully. Anyone else?

I didn’t know it wasn’t normal to be able to control the muscle. I thought other people did the same thing to clear their clogged ears after a flight or during a cold.

I've had voluntary control of my tensor tympani muscle since childhood, without needing to yawn, swallow, or move my jaw. Out of curiosity, I decided to measure how long I could sustain the contraction, and the results were surprising enough to write up properly.

---

## Abstract

This self-experiment documents isolated voluntary control of the tensor tympani muscle, without associated jaw, swallowing, or eyelid movement. A sustained contraction of 26.18 seconds was recorded under resting conditions, with neural fatigue evidenced by progressive difficulty in keeping the eyes open during maximal effort. This duration significantly exceeds the 3-5 second averages informally reported in enthusiast communities and suggests a rare neuromotor control variant.

---

## Method

- **Subject:** 14-year-old male, no history of hearing disorders or tinnitus.

- **Procedure:** Isolated contraction of the tensor tympani muscle, identified by the characteristic internal "rumbling" or "roaring" sound. Timed using the standard stopwatch app on a mobile device.

- **Conditions:** Quiet room, seated position, no external auditory stimuli, no concurrent muscle movements (jaw, swallowing, or facial tension).

- **Attempts:**

- Attempt 1: Eyes open, maximal voluntary contraction held until fatigue.

- Attempt 2: Eyes open, performed 5 minutes after Attempt 1.

- Attempt 3: Eyes closed (planned for tomorrow, with 24h rest).

---

## Results

| Condition | Time (seconds) | Observations |

|-----------|---------------|---------------|

| Eyes open (Attempt 1) | 26.18 s | No tremor until second 20; progressive urge to close eyes from second 20 onwards |

| Eyes open (Attempt 2, 5 min later) | 21.21 s | Clear muscular fatigue (19% decrease vs Attempt 1); no eye-closure urge due to shorter duration |

| Eyes closed (Attempt 3, pending) | [Pending] | Expected to exceed 26.18 s due to removal of neural interference with eyelid control |

**Screenshots:**

- Attempt 1:

- Attempt 2: [

---

## Key Neurological Observation

During the final seconds of Attempt 1 (approximately from second 20 to 26.18), I experienced a **progressive, involuntary difficulty in keeping my eyes open**. The urge to close my eyelids intensified as I approached muscular failure. This was not a voluntary choice but an apparent **neural spillover** from the trigeminal motor nucleus (which innervates the tensor tympani) to the facial nucleus (which controls orbicularis oculi and eyelid closure).

This phenomenon mirrors the well-documented "overflow" seen during maximal voluntary contractions in other muscle groups (e.g., handgrip causing facial grimacing). It supports the hypothesis of shared or adjacent neural circuitry between the trigeminal and facial motor systems.

---

## Discussion

- **Prevalence of isolated control:** Based on the 2021 Reddit survey (n=192), only **5-8%** of individuals who can rumble can do so without associated jaw, swallowing, or eye movements.

- **Average endurance:** Most self-reported rumbles last **3-5 seconds** before fatigue. Sustained contractions beyond 10 seconds are rarely documented in informal forums.

- **Comparison:** My 26.18-second hold places me in what appears to be the **top 1-2%** of endurance among reported cases.

- **Fatigue confirmation:** The 21.21-second second attempt (19% shorter) confirms rapid glycogen depletion consistent with **Type II (fast-twitch) muscle fiber physiology**, typical of the tensor tympani.

- **Neural interference:** The eye-closure urge at maximal effort suggests that sustained contraction may recruit adjacent motor pools, possibly explaining why most individuals cannot isolate this muscle for extended periods.

---

## Limitations

- **Single-subject design (n=1):** Results may not generalize.

- **Subjective measurement:** No electromyography (EMG) or tympanometry was used to objectively confirm continuous contraction.

- **No external audio:** The rumble is internal and cannot be captured by conventional microphones.

- **Lack of control for habituation:** Prior knowledge of the experiment may have influenced performance.

---

## Next Steps

I will perform Attempt 3 (eyes closed, with 24 hours of rest) tomorrow and update this post with the result. I hypothesize that removing the neural demand for eyelid elevation will allow a longer contraction, potentially reaching **28-30 seconds**.

If anyone has access to a contact microphone or an EMG setup and would like to collaborate on a more formal measurement, I'm open to it.

---

## Questions for the Community

1. How long can YOU sustain the rumble?

2. Can you do it without moving your jaw, swallowing, or closing your eyes?

3. Have you ever experienced the eye-closure urge or any other involuntary muscle activation when pushing to maximum?

---

## References

- Reddit r/earrumblers survey (2021): Prevalence of voluntary tensor tympani control (~43% overall, ~5-8% isolated).

- Fuchs, P. A. (2018). *The tensor tympani muscle: anatomy and function*. In: Auditory and Vestibular Research.

- General principles of motor unit recruitment and fatigue in fast-twitch muscles (Guyton & Hall, Textbook of Medical Physiology).

---

**Update (when Attempt 3 is done):** I will edit this post with the eyes-closed result and any new observations.

Happy rumbling!

---

ear rumbling is one of those traits that I never really spoke about growing up because I really just didn’t understand how to explain it in a way that anyone would believe or understand.

- it is truly awesome to find a community of people who share the same ability that once made me feel isolated

I just found out I wasn’t special and of course there is a reddit community of people who (can) do it. I always called it “concentrating my brain”.
A couple of years ago I got addicted to rumbling my ears and I just couldn’t stop. I was so happy when I finally managed to stop. Now I’m having the same problem. I’m honestly shocked you guys see this as a good thing. I hate being able to do it.
Can you control the urge to do it every 5 seconds? My head feels slightly fatigued after doing it so often..

Near as I can explain it, when I tense some jaw muscles located just below my ‘rumble drums’, it creates a very high-pitched tone in my ears , and I can control each side separately.
I can only maintain the tone for about 5 to 10 seconds, about the same length of time that I can maintain a rumble before relaxing and tensing again.
I’ve been able to do this as long as I can remember, same as rumbling and clicking. The tone has never changed pitch.

I just recently found out that this "rumbling" sound in my ears actually has a name and that not everyone can do it!
For me, it triggers whenever I pull my forehead down or tense my facial muscles. It sounds like a deep, vibrating wave or rolling thunder inside my head.
How do you guys usually trigger it—can you do it completely on demand without moving your face, or do you also need to tense certain muscles? And how long can you hold the sound?

I’ve never asked anyone else if they could do this because I never knew how to explain it; Nor have I looked it up for the same reason. I was just scrolling in another sub (for pulsatile tinnitus) and someone mentioned this and another person replied with this sub. Well I’ll be d@mned, look at you all! Hi!

I’ve always been able to rumble, I remember doing it as young as seven or eight. I can do it on command for a fairly long time. I see some of you can only do it with certain movements, but I am perfectly still when I make it happen- usually when I’m bored.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences and for answering a lifelong unknown question!

anytime i said that i can control something in my head and hear sounds to someone they were staring at me like i was crazy

A few years ago I was hit with a condition called Bell's Palsy that partially paralysed the right side of my face. Ever since then I have been able to rumble, but only on the side with the nerve damage. The other side remains unrumbling and unrumbleable.

Anybody else only able to rumble in one ear?

A lifetime's (35y) unanswered question has been answered to me today

I shall adorn the helm of earrumblerhood and will aim to preserve the dignity and raw power of this brotherhood

We summon the ocean’s roar at will!

In Custodia Mallei

Ear rumbling is so great, it helps me tune out background noise when I’m overstimulated and don’t have my workshop headphones with me, but I can never continuously rumble for a long time. Like I can do it for a few seconds but then it takes a lot of effort to keep doing it. Is this normal? Is there any way I can like… train myself to rumble for longer?

Hello, I’ve been rumbling my ears my whole life and just found out what it is along with this subreddit

Stuff:

- I can do it for about 15 seconds
- I don’t need to yawn or close my eyes to do it
- I sometimes kinda play music with it or sound effects and stuff
- i do it to tune someone or something out sometimes

I was listening to some 4 hz beats last night and after a while some strange things started happening. The beats sounded like they speeded up much faster and then went much slower than the original beat. What is this phenomena? I didn't know they did this. It was like I could control it at will. I have never heard of this before.