Why do we hear our own voice differently? The real reason will surprise you

We hear our own voice in one way, and then when we hear it on a recording, it sounds completely different than in our head. This is one of those awkward moments that we’ve all experienced. So we at Bright Side decided to find out the explanation for this phenomenon.

It turns out, the reason is pretty simple. When we hear our voice on a recording, the sound waves emerging from the speakers travel to our ears through the air, and we hear our voice the way other people hear us speak.

But when we hear our voice when we’re actually speaking, we hear it in two different ways — externally and internally. First, you hear the sound that comes out of your mouth ( the one that other people hear), and at the same time you hear that which is coming from vibrations produced by our vocal chords, which travel through our head. The bones in our skulls tend to enhance the lower-frequency vibrations, and that’s why our voice sounds lower to us than it really is.

If you want to hear how your voice really sounds, make a recording of it, or alternatively just cover up your left ear and speak. And don’t worry if you find that it sounds weird or funny, because other people are used to hearing it this way!