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For years, I have had the ability to 'set' the threshhold of noise (or the type) which will wake me up. In some settings, a rustle of leaves will do it. In others, I could sleep on the sidelines at armageddon. Sometimes it is a noise, others, the lack of one; or sometimes, just a change in intensity or frequency.

Whenever I work in a new field area, I spend a day or so becoming attuned to the normal background noises. Lizards bugging out in the Nevada desert, hitting little pieces of brush made a characteristic scuttling noise with a 'tick tick' from hitting the brush. One day, while walking alongside a small escarpment, I heard the tick-tick, registered it as a lizard bugging out. Then I heard it again. I stopped, stepped aside, and looked, only to see a large rattlesnake moving by on the bank right next to where I had been walking, at about chest level.

It pays to pay attention.

IMHO,the islanders did just that, they noticed the difference. Maybe there was some embellishment for the purpose of gaining status within the tribe, but the end result was that they were saved a miserable death.