What does buzzing or popping in your ear mean?

I have been surfing the net on and off for a few years looking up tones, hums, ringing in my ears. Ashley, your short description resonates with my observations. Tones seem to crop up during certain mind states. Nobody around me seems to hear them. Or they are like a callback to wake up to the moment before me instead of moving through my day to day out of habit. I did not think of tones as down loads but I will sit with this possibility and consider it. Originally distraught, I went so far as going to an audiologist to check my hearing. I had a test in a soundproof chamber which funneled various tones at different pitches that were piped in through head phones. The audiologist found I have a good range and fairly balanced left to right but have a small loss of hearing at high pitches which is common in middle aged people. So I would like to add also that I seem to ask people to speak louder, and please repeat themselves, as if they are too quiet. I annoyed some people by this request. This symptom was the final straw symptom that brought me to a doctor, but my range is good. So I looked into processing disorders, which is closer to the truth for me. Down the rabbit hole I go…in relative conclusion all my hearing anomalies run parallel to shifts in consciousness. I am a long time meditator in the lineage of Yogananda, I journey shamanically to clear family and ancestral karma and since 2010 I have been meditating in the Drunvalo sacred geometry meditation method by weaving tortorial fields and then spinning my Merkabah. So I have been acclimating to the shifting sands of my ego and rushes of kundalini for years but hearing anomalies baffled me.