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Sep 06, 2011, 11:44 AM
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Member Since: Dec 2010
Location: ???
Posts: 7,864
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Quote:
Originally Posted by costello
I was listening to a Madness Radio interview the other day. Will Hall was interviewing an author who had a website and blog to accompany his book. The website included a recording of the soundscape of an African village where one of the psychotic people featured in his book lived. Frustratingly I can't find it now. If I find it I'll post it. I'd like to know what people here think about it.
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Ah, I found it: http://www.crazylikeus.com/ On the right side of the page, under the photo of his book cover, is a link to a youtube recording of the sounds in a street in Zanzibar. I find it pleasant, but he theorizes that this soundscape contributed to the girl's delusions.
Here's the blog post that goes with the recording ( http://blog.crazylikeus.com/2009/10/...r.aspx?ref=rss):
Quote:
THE SOUNDSCAPE OF ZANZIBAR
In my chapter about cultural differences in the expression of schizophrenia I traveled to Zanzibar to spend some time with anthropologist Juli McGruder who studied families on the island who lived with the disease. The chapter addresses the ways families in different cultures conceive of the disease and how those beliefs effect the experience of the ill person.
The auditory landscape of a place often becomes central to the experience of a schizophrenic. I've placed an audio clip of the sound of a public square in Zanzibar on the front page of this site because this is the soundscape in which a Hemed and his daughter Kimwana lived while they struggled with their disease. Sitting with anthropologist Juli McGruder and listening to the sounds of that square was a memorable moment for me in reporting this book.
Kimwana's central delusion was that the bicycle repairman outside here house could see into her thoughts and feelings. That her delusions would come in the form of intrusive auditory hallucinations made sense given the location of the household. The roiling, pulsing sound that filled the square during the day was remarkable for its volume, texture, and complexity. Across the square from the house was the Bakathrir Muslim School for Girls, and directly to the right of the house was the Al Nour Islamic school for boys. At any given moment the undulating, overlapping choruses of hundreds of children chanting in Arabic could be heard. The noise that emanated from the schools created a kind of hypnotic background sound, like breaking surf. On top of that sound could be heard the single voices of individual children teasing and playing with each other or calling out to people in the courtyard. Then there were the voices and footsteps of adults heading across the square on their errands and the constant squawk of crows in the shade tree. in that cacophony of sounds reverberating and echoing off tin roofs and cement surfaces, the only discernable individual voices were those of the bicycle repairmen chatting among themselves or with their customers as they did their work.
Considering the additional commotion of the comings and goings of the members of the household, the noise must have been unrelenting. The many small children, though well behaved in the manner of most zanzibari children, created a racket. hemed, even though he could not walk or even bathe himself, could yell and often did for long stretches without ceasing. Several of the family members shared with McGruder their belief that the noise itself was exacerbating Kimwana’s illness. Bimkubwa, the most Westernized of the siblings, told McGruder that Europeans have much smaller families and that their houses were much quieter. “There are too many of us and this place is too noisy,” she said emphatically. Kimwana often asserted that she felt better when she was alone, but given her auditory hallucinations and the general noisiness of her surroundings it was clear that she was talking not just about a desire for physical solitude but also for quiet. “I do like being on my own,” she once told McGruder. “being with people I feel like I am tangled with them. I feel like calming myself, just silently. Just quiet and silent.” Unfortunately time alone was a scarce commodity in the packed household. And silence was all but unavailable.
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