Organized chaos – Mornings with ADHD
For our audio project, we focused on capturing the sounds of a morning routine brushing teeth, eating cereal, making the bed, opening curtains, putting on a jacket… and more familiar sounds. At first, we recorded each of these actions as they naturally happened to keep things authentic. However, when we listened back, the result felt too simple and not what we were going for. It didn’t feel authentic to us as students with ADHD, our mornings are rarely that calm or perfectly structured. The original version sounded more like a checklist than a lived experience.
We decided to re-record and take the project a step further by experimenting with noises that could recreate or exaggerate the sounds we wanted. We layered and manipulated familiar sounds, testing different materials and movements like finding the most satisfying curtain sound or emphasizing the crunch of cereal to add energy and texture. Through this process, we began to see how sound design can express more than just actions it can capture emotion, chaos, and personality.
After our critique, we re-edited the audio and added even more layers of sound background noises, repetitions, and overlapping elements to make the piece feel cluttered, busy, and overwhelming. Our original audio file still plays underneath, grounding the piece, while the new sounds fill the space around it, mimicking the mental noise and sensory overload we often experience in the mornings.
The final version doesn’t just sound like someone getting ready for their day it feels like being inside the mind of someone whose thoughts are running a thousand miles a minute, constantly aware of every small sound around them. What started as a simple recording of a morning routine transformed into something immersive and personal, a reflection of how ordinary moments can feel intense, layered, and full of motion through the lens of ADHD.
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