Can you do it ?

[GoldMoon]

Ok will hold my hand up to looking into some weird stuff sometimes but have just discovered its not a thing everyone can do . I can , and knew I could from when I was a kid but did not know that many cannot . Try it , can you ?

A part of the human population can voluntarily control the tensor tympani, a muscle within the ear. Contracting this muscle produces vibration and sound. The sound is usually described as a rumbling sound .

Yes, I can do it!

I always knew I could, but didn't know how I was doing it, IYSWIM.

Yeah I can do that. But only both ears at a time - not sure if some people can isolate it to one ear.

Yes, I can too

I can, but only with my eyes screwed shut!

Yes, it didn't occur to me there might be people who can't?

Trying to do one at a time… I can kind of do the left on its own but when I try the right I get both 🤣

I get this noise if I twitch my ears.

I can do this.

I'm thinking 'what muscle?' So i guess that's a no 😁

For what it's worth, I can't do this. I'm open to the idea, but I don't even have a good picture of what it would be like to do it - just nothing happens.

For me it's almost like screwing my ears shut instead of my eyes.

Yes i can do it. I do it along to music sometimes 🤣

If i do it hard it hurts.

It doesn't produce any movement anywhere. I can also wiggle my ears and move my fringe up and down (with out moving my eyebrows) and these are all separate things to making the rumbling.

No

Yes!

After testing this I discovered can do something in both ears that makes a clicking sound? It feels like I am trying to squeeze my ears closed but in reality they only move a fraction - am I doing it wrong?

Mine is a definite rumble so those that get a click , I'm guessing perhaps not .

Yep!

I can. No idea how, but have always been able to do it. I wonder if it's related to being hypermobile, something I used to be but not so much anymore.

I read this thinking WTF and then realised I can do it and in fact often do it for no particular reason. It’s quite a soothing rumbling.

i can do both ears together and the right one in its own but not the left on its own.

Wow, also had no idea others couldn’t do this. I just have to lift my ears with my muscles and they do the rumble

I can also make it make a crackly clicky noise, as well as rumbling. It’s a slightly different movement I guess

I can do it, until this minute I assumed everyone could.

It's a definite rumble, no clicks, and my ears don't move, it's all internal. I have tried to do each ear separately but it's still in both, just louder on the side I'm concentrating on.

I can make my ears both click and rumble. The rumble makes me feels a bit sick. It's sort of like tensing your diaphragm but with the inside of my ears, and I can make them rumble for longer if I shut my eyes. The clicking I have always assumed was to do with gunky eustachian tubes.

Rumbling ears? I cannot do this and had no idea anyone could. Here I am chatting away to people and they're sitting there secretly rumbling their ears? Unnerving!

Some people also cannot fold down their ring finger, without folding the middle or little finger.

I can also wiggle my little toes without moving the others, apparently that's weird too.