Raven Ambition's Aspergers BLOG

I got a new fan and you know how sometimes fans make noises that sound like words? Or even singing? Has that ever happened to you or is it just me?

Let me backtrack. The light of day has faded. I’m reading in bed (actual book, yeah) till I get sleepy, it helps me sleep; and the nightlight lamp is on. Shadows and cats and a sleeping dog; and of course the AC is on because we have sauna-jungle-heat now. We keep it set to around 68 because that is the right number for sleeping. I hear a beeping to my right. Simon the cat notices and looks in that direction.

This is Simon, this is not when he glanced at the AC, alerted to the beeps. I didn’t have a camera ready in-the-moment, but you get the idea, here is Simon, the cat I’ve never heard hiss, he’s a sweetie but the AC beeps seemed to unnerve him… I digress.

So I’m dealing with melancholy, trying to concentrate on the book but the beeps are going on and the cat is staring at the air conditioner. My brain whispers, ‘look at the AC unit, it’s doing weird things and besides the beeping is distracting and you keep reading the same sentence over and over.’

I set down the book because my interest in its fictional account of strange goings-on at a bizarre remote institution for the mentally ill set on a hillside, is waning now (due to the beeps I’m hearing), and I see that each time the AC unit beeps (a beep I have never heard before which sounds not unlike the microwave beep), the temperature level goes up a degree by itself. The green digital read-out on the AC temperature screen has climbed from 68 to 86 in less than a minute! What is this fresh hell?

My partner strolls in, back from having brushed his teeth and ready to pick up his own book (yeah, real book) when I drop the bombshell:

”The air conditioner is doing weird things.”

Words like this: “@#$%” cut through the small room as he fiddles with buttons a bit, realizing there is no way to get it to retain the 68 setting, as it keeps jumping back up by itself, and incessantly beeping, and then he just turns the thing off. “Well, we’ve had this air conditioner for 5 or 6 years now. It was bound to go. @#$ %$ * %$#@!” He doesn’t sleep well when we are having sauna jungle heat which is always.

I am still tucked under blankets which I figure I probably won’t need now, considering the AC has shit the bed, so to speak. (Hmmm I’ve never used that euphemism in real life but it fits here).

Lamely I say, “They don’t make things like they used to, do they…?” (That euphemism I’ve used before in real life!)

I consider picking up my book and continuing to read but decide to offer more commentary instead, specifically this: “Hmmm. Remember we bought that new stand-up rotating fan? But we never did assemble it, it’s still in the box…”

A deep sigh from him and then more words like this happen: “@#$%” as he retrieves the box and dumps all the contents onto the floor. I’m afraid, of course, that fan parts will roll under the bed, lost like former passions and joys, but I don’t say this out loud. I feel it’s rude to provide more verbal input and also I feel it’s rude to commence reading, while he’s busy snapping pieces together.

[I should note here that my partner has a larger vocabulary than I’ve indicated here with the ampersand, asterisk and the other symbols found above the keyboard’s number keys; but this is what went down.]

Eventually I can’t hold back and so I do comment about all the pieces of the new fan being made of plastic and once again I mention how they really don’t make things like they used to. I can be redundant at times.

He drops something and again I hear the “@#$%”, with a little “*&%#*@#$” thrown in for good measure. I actually pick up the book at this point, as I sense that this transient interlude is wrapping up now, and I think, ‘well… the fan has all these snap-together parts so I guess I don’t have to be concerned that screws went under the bed when he dumped out the box.’ Also I wonder if this fan is actually going to blow hard or just blow.

Well I’ll say this, it’s turned out to be an awesome fan. Cools the skin. I sleep well with it (until such time as we can get our newly bought AC unit installed and then I suppose we won’t need the fan so much although we’ve been known to run fans year-round).

That brings me back to my opening sentence here. …you know how sometimes fans make noises that sound like words? Or even singing? Is it just me?

We once had the metal kind of stand-up rotating fan, but it was missing a screw or something and when it rotated sometimes the front cage thing would fall off and hit the floor which is why we bought the present one and threw out the old one. When the previous metal fan’s blades whirred… it sounded like it was emitting that sound that came out of Linda Blair’s mouth in one of The Exorcist scenes, I’m not kidding, it freaked me out and I was glad we got a new one.

So the new one, the plastic one, our newly assembled awesome one, I swear I heard a Dashboard Confessional song coming out of it. I was awake early after the first night of sleeping with said fan. I smelled the coffee my partner had waiting for me and I was alone in the bedroom to hear this fan. Think of that old adage, ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?’ Well if your fan is singing Saints and Sailors (or whatever that song is) and you’re the only one that is there to hear it, is it really singing?

Sigh

Granted, I’m very hard of hearing in one ear and sometimes when I don’t hear all the words a person is saying to me, my brain will try to fill in the missing words with what my brain thinks they are saying and that is often nonsense because that is how my brain works. And granted I just had a few memory-making road trips with my son during which time we did partake in Dashboard Confessional concerts because they opened for my favorite band who we were following around from town to town so it’s entirely plausible the new fan was making totally normal (but to me: weird) sounds I am not used to, and so my brain filled in what I was hearing and made it seem like the Saints and Sailors song (or whatever that song is called).

The phenomenon of hearing familiar sounds or even words in unrelated noises, can be a fascinating but perplexing experience. At least in this case, this fan wasn’t as startling as the Linda Blair Exorcist fan. Of course autistic people have heightened auditory sensitivity and perceptual differences, so does that play a part? The human brain is complex, capable of making connections, filling in gaps to create meaning where there is probably none.

I contemplate the mysteries of perception and vastness of our inner worlds, with curiosity and an open mind. Whether it’s the weird sounds of a new all-plastic fan or the melodic symphony of everyday life (think: “@#$%”), I embrace the beauty of unexplainable moments, and cherish the unique ways my mind interprets the world around me. So, the next time you find yourself amidst a symphony of sounds, take a moment to reflect on noise and meaning, or lack thereof.

But seriously, has this sort of… auditory matrixing ever happened to you? Or is it just me?

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