Define the sound of silence.

It's a roar if you're waiting for sound, a buzz if you're regretting the last sound, and, a hum if you're realizing you'll never hear that sound again.

Simon and Garfunkel..

It's the thumping of your heart in your ears as you strain to hear footsteps or rustling where there should be neither. It seems deafening until something breaks the silence and you realize it's a sound both as strong and as weak as spider silk and, like a web melding into the shadows, can only be perceived when conditions are right.

A pan dropped in the kitchen. A child crying. Trees whispering. Heartbeats. Etc.

You know you're in complete silence when you can hear the echo of your mind.

A song by Simon and... damnit, beaten to the punch.

Also this tho, if you're in or visiting NYC.

A tree, falling in the woods...

Mind on a fishing trip,
while the universe lets out
a long, slow breath.

To me, silence vibrates. A pulse. Maybe it's my heartbeat in my ears, like tazlima said. Or the faint clicking of the clock on the wall upstairs. The sound from a distant refrigerator. The hum of electricity. It's never truly silent if you've the ability to hear, is it?

A pregnant moment--which, BTW, I have never and would never use.

When there's silence falls on characters I try to bring up some sound in the background instead of just saying Silence. I still have some silences to convert to background noise.

Silence? It's the sound of one hand, clapping.

KellyAssauer said:

A tree, falling in the woods...

Click to expand...

True. Unless there's someone there to hear it.

*

Tinnitus.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2124581/The-worlds-quietest-place-chamber-Orfield-Laboratories.html
Apparently you begin hearing yourself. Your heart beating, ears twitching, it drives people insane.

I'm tempted to say there's no such thing as silence, especially these days.

A low hum in the distance. The sound of blood pulsing through the vessels in your brain.

You know... it kinda depends.

If you're talking about: this

I'd define it as: a horrible noise that sucks rocks.

Lying on the ground waiting for a B-40 rocket to go off that had landed 20 meters away and everyone afraid to breathe. it was a dud.

I am of the belief that the new sound of silence is Social Media. It has tricked people into believing that they have voice, but no one is actually listening...

Silence is deafening. Not at first, of course. It starts off calming, peaceful. Little voices begin to fill the void. First it's your mother and her little sniff before she tells that story again, the one that's so embarrassing and always feels like criticism. Then silence speaks the language of guilt-soaked anxiety. Did you say the right thing to your friend last week when her cat died? When you were out to dinner with friends last night did you drink too much? As you tame the voices and settle into meditative mindfulness, your mind reaches out, straining for a hint of sound. Your ears ache against the unnatural silence - no traffic, no crickets, no airplanes, no distant dogs - and then the ringing begins. A high-pitched constant tone that drowns your heart beat and your breath, takes over. It becomes louder and louder until you ache so badly for the silence to return that you never bother to ask why it was so quiet in the first place.

It's not a sound, but the feel of your mind balking at the nothingness.

The absence of background noise that allows you to focus on your body functioning. Disturbing? Only after a while.