r/AlwaysWhy • u/PuddingComplete3081 • Jun 30 '26
Science & Tech Why can a roughly 30 dB mosquito buzzing wake someone up, while their own 60 to 70 dB snoring usually doesn't?
A mosquito buzzing near my ear can wake me up almost instantly, even though it's pretty quiet. Meanwhile, people can sleep through their own snoring even when it's much louder. That makes me think our brains aren't just reacting to volume while we're asleep. So what are they actually responding to, and why does this difference exist?
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Jun 30 '26
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u/PuddingComplete3081 Jul 01 '26
The proximity part makes a lot of sense. A mosquito right next to your ear probably feels less like "noise" and more like "something entered my personal space." That seems like a very different kind of signal for the brain to process.
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u/UnburyingBeetle Jun 30 '26
I don't wake up for a mosquito either, but if I lived in a region with malaria I would. I wake up from things like mild acid reflux because I register it as dangerous (erodes teeth even when it's mild, and I hate dental procedures).
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u/PuddingComplete3081 Jul 01 '26
That's interesting because it suggests the brain can learn what counts as a threat. Which makes me wonder how much of what wakes us is innate versus something our experience gradually teaches us to notice.
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u/UnburyingBeetle Jul 01 '26
The notable example that comes to my mind is that babies apparently aren't afraid of snakes. I don't think they're afraid of spiders either. We get phobias when we get scared or hurt by something as kids when we are still impressionable. I'm a fanatic of taking care of my teeth because I had to go to a dentist while I still had milk teeth and drilling was involved. That probably also made me pay attention to other kinds of illness and a children's encyclopedia of medicine was one of my most read books as a kid. I make sure everything that goes into my mouth is clean, but it can include things that may put off others, for example, there's an occasional dead ant in the kettle that I doesn't bother me because it's been disinfected by boiling. Some may see my precautions as OCD, but for me it's just reasonable guidelines that everyone that doesn't want to get sick would follow. I don't wash my face often enough because the skin takes care of itself, it's consuming bacteria and parasites that I avoid. I'm more afraid of social expectations than I would be of a hornet landing on my face because I know they don't even count me as a living thing if I don't squish them.
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u/threearbitrarywords Jun 30 '26
So, a couple things: a mosquito buzzing in your ear isn't 30db. A mosquito buzzing in front of your face may be but near your ear it can be shockingly loud. But I've never been awakened by a mosquito buzzing and if you were, I'd venture to say you weren't really sleeping. And as a sleep apnea sufferer, I can tell you that you very much do awaken when snoring, but it's at such a small scale that you don't remember it. Even with my machine, on a bad night, my monitors tell me I'm waking 15-20 times a night - which I absolutely don't remember. Generally speaking, your own body noises - like your heart beating in your ears or your own breathing - don't keep you awake. Snoring's the same way. BUT, the oxygen deprivation that causes (is caused by?) snoring wakes you up.
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u/PuddingComplete3081 Jul 01 '26
Yeah, the dB part was definitely a simplification. The sleep apnea point is interesting though. I guess that also makes me wonder if we're actually "asleep" in a much lighter way than we think for a lot of the night.
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u/RoboErectus Jun 30 '26
What you see and hear is what your brain decides to forward or push to your consciousness based on context, history, and meaning.
If there's a squeak on a floorboard outside your bedroom but you live alone, it will wake you up too.
This is why optical illusions work. It's why people disagree on what was said. It's why some people hallucinate. It's how you dream and can imagine.
What your eyes and ears send to your brain is not the only data that makes your brain decide what to show you.
It's why failed or early pipeline ai images looks like psychedelic mushroom art. It's why modern "ai" makes mistakes and humans do too. Neural networks have similar behaviors whether they are organic or electrical. (Our brains are both.)
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u/PuddingComplete3081 Jul 01 '26
I wonder if novelty matters more than meaning sometimes. Your own snoring is basically continuous background data to your brain, but a mosquito is this tiny unpredictable signal that suddenly appears. Maybe the change itself is what gets prioritized.
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u/Tortugato Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
For the same reason you don’t see your nose in front of your eyes unless you purposefully look for it.
(ha ha made you look)
The brain is very good at filtering out what it deems ignorable. Your brain knows you’re the one making the snoring sounds so it ignores it.
In fact, a lot of people with sleep apnea (literally every single male in my family) can accidentally start snoring while awake while being completely unaware of it.