Well, I waited a while to see if anyone else would straighten this out. But I'm dismayed to see that you got some reinforcement for your "perceptions". And as everyone with half a brain knows, perceptions are a very dangerous territory to make decisions based on...
Let me reassure you (as the audiology pro has already earlier) that there is
no way in hell that you are actually getting
more sound to your ears with ear plugs in (even ill fitted ones) than running with bare ears. This is just a matter of simple physics. There is no way that putting in ear plugs allows increased levels of SPLs to reach your eardrums. That would require amplification, and if you could figure out how to do that with a pair of earplugs you'd be a rich MoFo.
Now, what
can be happening is that you
perceive that the sound is louder, for a couple of reasons. But remember that perceptions do not cause hearing damage. Actual SPL's do. As was mentioned, earplugs, especially when incorrectly fit in the ear canal, can create a low pass filtering effect. Since the auditory nerves are not quite so overloaded as with no plugs, you begin to perceive those low frequency wind rumbling noises as "deafening". It probably is, but it also was to an even greater degree when you had no ear plugs in and could not sense them due to sensory overload.
Also, another effect that may be throwing you a Beckett curve ball is that, when you do get a good (I mean really good) seal on your ear canals with a highly attenuating ear plugs, one thing that you will
initially notice is that through the ride you will hear a hissing / ringing sound, especially when there is no external noise stimuli. WTF is up with that?
I'm definitely not an audiologist, but I have been to one on more than one occasion. Have you? Ever noticed that when you are in the sound booth with ZERO sound and those ear muff headphones on, and you're straining to hear the next little beep, so you can raise the appropriate hand... what do you hear? That damn hissing noise! That's what.
So... what is that? I can't explain it fully, but my thought is that when the actual external stimuli drops below the SNR of your individual acoustic system (your ears, nerves, brain), the input starved system has an automatic gain control that amplifies the noise level to the point of distraction. It;s clear that the AGC effect exists, because after wearing those highly attenuating earplugs for a while you realize that you are definitely able to hear stuff better than you could at first. Except for the hissing...
Anyway, I want to be sure that nobody thinks that it is a good idea to do without hearing protection just because they perceive less noise. Tinnitus is not a good time. And that is what you are setting yourself up for.
