"Not quite. There is a murmuring but there is a sort of critical mass with people where if there are enough of them it gets 'loud' enough that I can't block it all out. There are few enough 'real' people here that I can better ignore the thoughts. Strong emotion, though, tends to make ...." Here Madelyne pauses, realizing that the hearing metaphor sort of breaks down here but then she pushes on anyway.

"It changes the texture of it, it makes it spikey or rough or... something different, so it stands out from everything else."