I was hiking in a wilderness area…a very remote trail without a lot of action, and at one point I heard voices…I swore I heard human voices.

It was up in the mountains, too, so there wasn’t much to make noise like that.

Obviously, I know it’s my brain hearing trees groaning in the wind and quickly shortcutting to, “must be a human voice!” But it was just eerie.

  • SpacePanda@mander.xyz
    10·
    3 days ago

    I heard what sounded like a little get together. Vague music you could barely make out, and people carrying on just far enough you can’t really make out what there are saying. I know for a fact no one was there. It is weird.

  • Pencilnoob@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    3 days ago

    I have, but also it’s entirely possible sometimes to hear people over really long distances. I know I’ve heard folks baaarely in night air that were at least a half mile away. A slight breeze can carry sound a really long way.

    Other times I know for sure I’m just hearing trees and wind. Whispers too in the breeze and trees. One time I heard a fox that sounded just like a human child crying. It was terrifying.

  • lgmjon64@lemmy.world
    7·
    3 days ago

    Yeah, several times. I often go hiking or fishing on my own pretty far off the beaten path in the high Sierras. Many times I’ve sworn I could hear people talking and sometimes calling my name. Definitely nobody for miles.

  • Asidonhopo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    3 days ago

    I was working as a parking attendant at a big music festival in the early aughts and got a bad sunburn. When I got home that evening I turned on the shower and was getting ready to get in and I swear the rhythm of the water falling sounded just like mariachi music. I’ll very occasionally have a similar experience when very tired or otherwise under profound physical strain but that one time with the mariachi music was the most vivid by far, and it continued for the entire shower.

    Edit: I’m glad this sort of thing has only ever happened to me rarely, and in safe, familiar environments. I would get pretty spooked knowing I was having strong pareidolia in an unfamiliar place, no matter how beautiful the scenery.

    • BrundleFly2077@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      3 days ago

      I have musical ear syndrome, which this sounds similar to. Any white noise eventually becomes “audible” music in my brain. It can be quite unsettling.

      It also ranges from classical to EBM, so there’s that. It can get really irritating trying to sleep while it sounds like the neighbours are playing weird 80s synth or Gregorian chants or some shit.

      • Asidonhopo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        Oh cool, didn’t know this had a specific name. I’m lucky in that it’s a very transient experience for me, but who knows, could become more common as I get older.

        I’m curious if you are a musician and if it helps your creative process to experience this? I’m not particularly talented musically but some of the experiences I’ve had were quite inspiring and I wish I could capture it and share what I’ve heard.

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
    5·
    3 days ago

    Kinda, yeah.

    Not so much while actively hiking, and not usually human voices, but sometimes the way wind moves through things, or those things move can be eerily like all kinds of sounds. When you’re near running water too, it gets more likely.

    Most of the things my brain would try to paste onto the real sounds were things like cars idling, or kitchen noises. There was one night I could have sworn someone was opening and closing a fridge door; you know that sticky sound as the door opens on older fridges.

    Plenty of times, I would perceive sounds as laughter. There’s a stretch of one creek I used to camp near that the water and echoes sound like a comedy club chuckling lightly.

    Never voices, or even moans and groans. I think I was too familiar with what the sounds actually were for my brain to try latching onto things like that.

    Oh! Horses! There’s another place I would camp that I’d hear horses, whinnying, and hooves clopping. No way it actually was, the only trail in was too soft for hooves to make noise like that, and too narrow and overgrown for a horse to get through. Never did figure out what it really was.

    In my more hippy-dippy days, meditating out in the woods, as my mind would get quiet, there was even a perception of the trees talking. It didn’t sound human, with words, but there were pattern to the wind and branches moving that “felt” like communication.