This bit rings true for me at least:

"We present evidences that support the existance of key neural connectivity between the [highly sensitive trait], higher sensory processing sensitivity, introversion, ectomorphism and creativity... [these] people may process, at the same time, larger amounts of sensory information than usual, making this trait an excellent model to pick up subtle environmental details and cues. However, they feel easily worn out, overwhelmed and exhausted because they sense every single detail while interacting with their environment.[3,4] To recover from such attainable sensory overload, these individuals require more quiet time daily to be alone, as well as additional longer sleep times than those without the HS trait."

I have a friend that leaves the TV on all the time and it drives me crazy.

I can't find anything in big stores, I don't see how people do it.

I sleep a lot. 10 or 12 hours regularly.

I find myself recently being drawn toward meditation.

Strangely I have always thought that I was not intuitive. I make less eye contact than most people but I am noticing that I notice stuff about people that most people don't. I make so little eye contact, I have thought I have face blindness.

This story reminds of the one about the Maine hermit a few days ago. He claims to avoid looking a people's face because there is "so much information there." He was also very creative.

+ My girlfriend makes me watch movies that she never watches. When the movie starts I get sucked in (a movie which I didn't wanna see in first place) and then she starts talking about something else. Trying to keep up both with the movie and her conversations drives me crazy. I talked about this with another two guys, which I like and respect because of their knowledge depth, both came up with same answer: Women (usually) do many things at the same time without paying attention to any of those things. They are able to watch a movie, talk to the phone, listen to the radio... All together.

I feel seriously deprived when I realise I can't do any of those things combined (without getting really, really angry).

With the hermit it was a really difficult task,while reading the article, to determine how much of his persona was created by the introversion of forest dwelling, and how much of it was perhaps created by his mental traits (which, actually, may have been the initiating cause for his walking away from society in the first place).

There's also the matter of acute vs chronic noise. Any steady, constant noise, like a fan or music, I can tune out. Aggressive, sudden noises (like somebody shouting on the street) trigger something primal in me. It attracts my attention and if it's loud enough will even trigger my fight or flight reflex.

It makes me wonder if the reason the sensory processing dial on introverts is a little jacked up is because that trait results in a more sensitive fight or flight reflex.

Tokyo will disabuse you of this notion fairly rapidly. If you want pin-drop silence you have to either get out to nature or pay for private space. The substitute for silence that much of Japan uses is a social bubble. There's a polite fiction that things outside one's own bubble don't exist, and polite society is extraordinarily reluctant to impose itself upon others' bubbles. It's basically both required for sanity in daily life and an answer to the question of how many people in Tokyo are confronted with overpowering loneliness when it is one of the most densely populated places on earth.

However, I think Japan, and some european countries with good high speed rail, can indeed offer viable "living close to nature" scenarios - you can be quite far away from the big cities but still be within an hour by train. I have actually been semi-seriously considering buying a place in Karuizawa - a beautiful small town in Nagano prefecture, yet you can be at tokyo station in 45 minutes. There's also some lovely, quiet small towns along the akita shinkansen line.

Best of both worlds! And internet is ubiquitous, fast and cheap.

West Marin in general, and the pt Reyes nat. seashore in particular.

I am currently 13 miles as the crow flies from the transamerica pyramid, and I am looking at 360 view, to the horizon, with no trace of humankind. It's silent.

Is the train _that_ good to reach civilization and other people? How do you reach the train if you don't see any trace of humankind (maybe my English-as-a-second-language skills fail me, but I read that as 'the station is far away')?

That sounds like you're absolutely dependent on your car, at least until you reach a station? Is anything leaving from that station after - say - 21/22 in the evening?

I'm seriously curious. This way of life is so completely different from what I'd choose. I'd like to understand how that "works"..

In Marin, for public transport, there's bus and ferry to San Francisco. For Bart (regional metro service), one would have to go over the Richmond bridge or the Golden Gate bridge (and far enough into SF that you'd be downtown already). Getting to Bart stations via either bridge is really quick as long as you have a car. Bus and ferry are quick enough. Also, you can bicycle to the ferry or even across the Golden Gate from Marin.

i get tired of the over-romanticization of taking a given personal quality and taking it beyond the extreme.

you could just say you want a house a little ways out that's nice and quiet, but that has to become "living in Japan".

Japan.

I've seen this (via documentaries) where Japanese rail service is involved, and how even speaking on one's cell phone is considered rude. Even more so, when something negative happens to someone near you, how pretending to not see it is the norm. Another thing I heard is that if a guy gives a girl a cat-call, if she responds negatively, she's leading him on in a sense (causing further interaction). There are other examples, such as stopping a thief running away from the scene of a crime, etc.

I find when I get home, I just want to be left alone, left in quiet. The hard part is when I don't (two roommates + work being done on the house), like the last few weeks. I get extremely stressed, to the point I get muscle cramps, and lose a lot of sleep.

I've even tried exercising daily after work to help cope with stress, and it doesn't help at all.

I need a day of silence a week. I can deal with all the stresses of work / life, provided I get a day to just sleep late, relax, clean, and not listen to anyone else but my own inner thoughts.

I live in the shadow of NYC and in any 10 min block of time will hear a: helicopter/ airplane/ truck/ motorcycle. Garbage is picked up at 3am. There are vague oceanic noises which I imagine are nearby building HVAC systems. Bars and a W hotel add to the general ambient noise.

Spent 2 weeks camping in Iceland this summer and had moments of real silence. Not a brief lull before the next noise but quiet with no expectation of further noise.

In case anyone's interested, here's some research showing the benefits of a small amount of ambient noise (7dB) helping creative cognition: http://www.jstor.org/stable/full/10.1086/665048

As it was brought up in another post, I am also an introvert and find myself being overloaded with impressions occasionally. Being able to retreat to a silent apartment is of great help with this.

That much noise isn't good for you ? At least at work I am most of the time with headphones.

A friend visited Amsterdam, and when I asked about an impression, he said "The air was clean. You could feel it".

Another friend visited Germany and said "It was quiet. Especially on weekend."

I'm looking forward to a day where I leave the country entirely.

And I'm 22.

There's a lot of noise that I can live with, since I'm a pretty flexible person, but I prefer the outside world to be a choice and having that line between one thing and another (headphones are helpful). Equally, I like being able to go out to social places but not specifically having to be social (like cafes).

I'm working from home and have two kids below the age of 2. What is this silence thing you're talking about and should I try and look for it?

More seriously: While I do live somewhere 'silent' right now, that's more or less a workaround, an arrangement with some facts of life. I prefer living in a lively city (last place was one of Germany's biggest cities w/ around a million people), in a central place.

I felt most comfortable in that very city, living as a single right next to two well-known concert locations and with lots of nightlife around. Second place: Living in Tel Aviv, which seems to compare itself with NYC as another city that never sleeps.

No noise - impossible. I'd probably turn on a radio or start humming stuff (and believe me, that's not a good idea..) if I'd ever be stuck in _real_ silence.

The part about the central-living in the German city, I would guess that if you like relative silence, you get the same pleasure out of being near lively places (as long as you can return to a calm enough place after).

You pick your home based on your preferences. I wouldn't normally live in this mostly silent place, because leaving home and traveling to the more lively (or .. noisy) places eats motivation and energy, which means that more often than not I don't do it anymore.

I'd prefer having all of that right outside of my door, leaving for quiet places instead - when necessary/appropriate.

I'm also somewhat introverted and find excessive noise (for a fairly low value of excessive) pretty overwhelming/exhausting. My brain is constantly working on some challenge I'm facing, usually from multiple angles; trying to marshal all those ideas into a single, coherent train of thought is a mental exercise. Trying to do that with some inane television show in the background is a non-starter.

At night sometimes there are parties and loud music is played - it doesn't bother me as I don't find it that difficult to sleep. Not really a huge amount of traffic in the apartment complex I live in as it's quite far down the docklands in Dublin, Ireland. I reckon when I'm older (50+) I might be less attracted to the hustle and bustle of city living.

I agree with the age thing. You know how a young person can be an "old soul"? I'm probably not that but I do think I may have been born an old person. Being young-ish, I'm attracted to city-life exactly because it gives me that choice, between being at home in relative quiet and seeing lots of people out and about.

I feel that silence is especially beneficial for (and sought out by) people who have a lot of divergent ideas or thoughts which they 'need to' converge and solidify into a more emergent and connected whole. Artistic people would be one simple example but also anyone who has done a great deal of autodidactic study and then wants to turn that into a more refined versions of internalized information...

EDIT: There are of course ways to dampen the sounds in a home or other building, namely, sound-absorbing foam which can be placed on walls or insulation inside of the walls.

For example, Basquiat had the news on, music, movies, etc while painting and Stephen gave up on looking for a quiet room and so wrote Carrie with a desk in the living room and two small children to help take care of.

There is no connection between thought and silence except in folklore, really.

This summer, I took a trip out to the Rockies and went on a few hiking trips. Some of the trails were pretty much empty of human traffic during the later hours. The vastness of nature, coupled with the trees and lack of wind that day made for a deafening silence similar to an anechoic chamber. It was truly stunning.

Companies and learning institutions having tree-lined office parks or choosing to be located near public parks recognize this. And on a personal level, we all should too.

As far as actual volume is concerned, I play music all day long, unless I'm extremely hung over and need to rest. In hands of a skilled operator, music is basically a mood control board. I can't imagine why would someone want to live without that power.

Question: when it actually is very quiet (like 3am), does anyone else hear a low-pitched hum? It's so low and quiet, it's more like a pressure than a sound. And if there's any sound at all (e.g. even if I'm moving around), I can't hear it.

I'd thought it was traffic or road construction etc, but I also heard it in a forest, about 10km from the nearest main road... But it doesn't seem to be internal, as it's not synchronized with my pulse or breath.

EDIT: I'm in Melbourne, Australia. I first noticed it when living by the bay near the international shipping dock, and it seemed to be coming from there. But I've just moved about 20km further along the bay, and it's just as loud. And also heard it about 100km inland (in the bush). Though this was near major high-tension powerlines (I think, supplying melbourne with coal-electricity from Morwell). Maybe that was it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum

I'd guess it's related to industrialization in some way, as low frequency sounds can carry long distances, and are difficult to directionalize.

But friends staying at my place often ask me how I can bear that noise. I guess i developped some kind of noise filter.

The second I hear other noises outside, in another room, etc I start to lose focus and get annoyed.

I find that I don't count ambient but indistinguishable sounds as noise: a kid yelling on the next block may be audible, but doesn't really register. Traffic two blocks away, without sirens, doesn't particularly.

In Brazil, on holidays (and sometimes Sundays), cities tend to turn into ghost towns so it's a similar end result.

More or less lived there for (accumulated, on-site for projects, stayed all week and a good number of weekends) 1.5-2 years. Compared to other cities in CH or places in DE the thing goes dark early and completely.

(No bashing intended. It's an really beautiful city if you're looking at the architecture, I love what nature has to offer all around, love the Aare/river in the center of the thing and they have decent local beer.. It's just absolutely dead at night in my opinion. Silence, to get back on topic, is easy to find)