Ringing Ears?

[cjohnso0]

So I've been recently reading This is Your Brain on Music. Just a few minutes ago I've had an ear-ringing experience (not the first, probably not the last)

 

I work in an office connected to a machine shop. So ambient noise is that of machinery, a/c, people chatting, computers... you get the idea. Anyhow, I'm sitting here typing away and I get the ringing. In my right ear the ambient noise drops to about 1/2 it's current level and a tone of around 1kHz takes over. This is in the right ear only, and it feels a like there is a little more pressure in there. This goes on for about 15 seconds, then the pressure returns to normal, the frequency increases until I can't hear it, and the ambient sound level returns.

 

What the heck happened? This has happened all of my life, the but the above mentioned book has me thinking about it.

 

Did my brain fritz out? Did the eardrum go nuts? Or was it aliens trying to communicate?

 

Internet search showed tinnitus (sp?), but that seems to be caused by trauma, and to be fairly persistant. This is like a once every 6 month occurance kind of thing.

 

Any ideas? thoughts?

[foodchain]

You might want to look into Tinnnitus.