Where does this music come from? Not an earworm!
February 16, 2019 8:38 AM Subscribe
Asking for a family member, a healthy musician and stonemason in his forties who does not drink or smoke. He and his family live in a rural area with minimal traffic.
"I often wake up with an original piece of music in my head, most commonly in the form of a looping bassline. This happens both in mornings and after naps. Sometimes the music comes with a melody or even lyrics layered over the rhythm. Does this happen to anyone else out there? Any insights into possible biological explanations of the phenomenon?"
"Even in its simplest forms I find this helps avoid being judgmental towards my own creativity: the subconscious is somehow unquestionable. (Although at times the music is recognizably derivative or in fact a song I’ve heard on recent days, but even these instances can be received positively and worked from.)"
"Even in its simplest forms I find this helps avoid being judgmental towards my own creativity: the subconscious is somehow unquestionable. (Although at times the music is recognizably derivative or in fact a song I’ve heard on recent days, but even these instances can be received positively and worked from.)"
Not often but from time to time I will definitely wake up with music in my head, usually part of an ongoing dream narrative in which I am aware I am 'listening' to music and semi-aware I'm dreaming, so I'm excited (in my dream) that I have had this great inspiration. Unlike the movies my subconscious occasionally comes up with, which seem brilliant while I'm asleep and moronic in the light of day, some of the songs are pretty nice. I've only managed to remember one long enough to make something out of it.
I don't have any neurological explanations, only that it doesn't strike me as strange that an unconscious mind that makes up all kind of weird stories would also make up music.
posted by ropeladder at 9:01 AM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
I don't have any neurological explanations, only that it doesn't strike me as strange that an unconscious mind that makes up all kind of weird stories would also make up music.
posted by ropeladder at 9:01 AM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
This is just what I assumed happened to people who can write songs! I find the idea of being able to create original music unfathomable; needless to say this never happens to me...
posted by corvine at 9:04 AM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by corvine at 9:04 AM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm not even a musician and sometimes I wake up remembering the music in my dream. It's never very good, just kind of plodding, I assumed because I don't know how to conjure up good music. But I imagine my dreaming brain says huh I think there would be music in this scene, and then there is.
posted by bleep at 9:12 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by bleep at 9:12 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
I second ropeladder and bleep—I’m not a musician but I sometimes wake up with dream music in my head. It’s never any good, and it is usually repetitive. It doesn’t surprise me that a musician would often dream of music.
posted by ejs at 9:16 AM on February 16, 2019
posted by ejs at 9:16 AM on February 16, 2019
I am not a musician, I have zero urge to be one in any form, and I regularly wake up with bits of music floating through my brain. They don't suck, and very occasionally I think "oh, that's good!" Invariably I ignore them and forget them within moments, as is common with other dream matter.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:22 AM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by DarlingBri at 9:22 AM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
This happens to me frequently. I'm a hack musician; I can read music and understand harmony and chord progressions and stuff, so it's not just random sounds. My dream musuc usually has a melody and a harmonic structure. A lot of times, it will be like your friend's: variations on a theme is heard awake. So like I'll have a song in my head, and I'll use the same chords, but change the strum pattern or tempo or something.
Probably the weirdest thing is, because I've spent so much time reading music criticism, I think critically about this fictional music. One time I dreamt I formed a band with a guy over our shared love of the Ramones. He was otherwise into psychedelia and I was mostly into classical (true), and I was going into depth about how our respective influences would take us off on our own paths, but the simple Ramones-y structures would bring us back together.
My ear is garbage, so I've never really attempted to play anything I've dreamed. Although I would like to hear that classical/psychedelic/punk song.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:44 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
Probably the weirdest thing is, because I've spent so much time reading music criticism, I think critically about this fictional music. One time I dreamt I formed a band with a guy over our shared love of the Ramones. He was otherwise into psychedelia and I was mostly into classical (true), and I was going into depth about how our respective influences would take us off on our own paths, but the simple Ramones-y structures would bring us back together.
My ear is garbage, so I've never really attempted to play anything I've dreamed. Although I would like to hear that classical/psychedelic/punk song.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:44 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
I have had music form whole in my mind also. It's delightful. A little sad not to be able to capture it, since I don't have the skill to do so.
But once I was telling someone a dream over the phone, and I heard exquisite music playing. We hung up and I wondered what the music had been because it really stayed with me. I assumed she had been playing something over the phone somehow, and so I asked her the next time we talked what it was. She told me she had not played any music at all. Her only other comment was "that dream carried a lot of energy!"
posted by luaz at 9:45 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
But once I was telling someone a dream over the phone, and I heard exquisite music playing. We hung up and I wondered what the music had been because it really stayed with me. I assumed she had been playing something over the phone somehow, and so I asked her the next time we talked what it was. She told me she had not played any music at all. Her only other comment was "that dream carried a lot of energy!"
posted by luaz at 9:45 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
This happens to me and I can only just read music.
posted by praemunire at 9:56 AM on February 16, 2019
posted by praemunire at 9:56 AM on February 16, 2019
This happens to me frequently. Right now (since I just woke up) it's a fragment of a mandolin playing a klezmer-y lick over a pizzicato bass.
Now that I think about it, my waking-up music is almost never something I recognize, but during the day the unconscious music in my head is usually an earworm.
posted by henuani at 10:39 AM on February 16, 2019
Now that I think about it, my waking-up music is almost never something I recognize, but during the day the unconscious music in my head is usually an earworm.
posted by henuani at 10:39 AM on February 16, 2019
This has happened to me, but (with one exception from about 15-20 years ago) I only remember it happening within the last couple years, not before. Not a musician, but have retained enough memory of two of the songs that I could work out the melodies, given a piano, and I'm mildly fond of / amused by the lyrics of both. The music is obviously derivative of other stuff I've heard, though it wasn't anything I was listening to on the day I had the dreams.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:40 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:40 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
This happens to me pretty much every night if I wake up in the middle of the night. It is a song I already know, though it's almost never anything I've heard lately or had on my mind. It can be weirdly LOUD inside my head, and actually causes insomnia, so I pretty much hate it.
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:14 AM on February 16, 2019
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:14 AM on February 16, 2019
I also wake up with music playing in my head - not after every sleep, but not infrequently either. Instrumentation varies, but apparently my subconscious has an awesome horn section! Sometimes it's something that I can develop into a whole song, or at least there'll be a usable snippet.
I've also found during my occasional forays into meditation that if I do get to the point where the verbal stuff in my head gets quieter, there's a layer of music after that.
So I'm saying yes, that happens to other people, and I'm glad to hear that it happens to other people too. I've always considered it biologically the same as any other dream state since the overall feel is the same, for whatever that's worth.
posted by inexorably_forward at 11:57 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
I've also found during my occasional forays into meditation that if I do get to the point where the verbal stuff in my head gets quieter, there's a layer of music after that.
So I'm saying yes, that happens to other people, and I'm glad to hear that it happens to other people too. I've always considered it biologically the same as any other dream state since the overall feel is the same, for whatever that's worth.
posted by inexorably_forward at 11:57 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
WELCOME TO MY $&®% LIFE
This has been going on in my head nearly every day since early childhood. Tonal patterns, rhythm patterns*, and word patterns. None of them have been good enough to translate into songwriting skill, despite a musical education.
*To the point where my body has always been convinced my tap-dancing skills are far more advanced than they have ever been.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:43 PM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
This has been going on in my head nearly every day since early childhood. Tonal patterns, rhythm patterns*, and word patterns. None of them have been good enough to translate into songwriting skill, despite a musical education.
*To the point where my body has always been convinced my tap-dancing skills are far more advanced than they have ever been.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:43 PM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm around the same age as your family member; I've been writing songs since I was five years old and performing them in a variety of professional and casual settings in the ensuing four decades. I consider myself a songwriter by vocation, even if not consistently by profession.
What he describes is an entirely common phenomenon, if one regularly reads interviews with musicians/songwriters on where their songs "come from." There are many, many ways into a new song, but I think most musicians would agree that the phenomenon of unheard melodies appearing in one's head is the most profound and also the most ungraspable -- it's the textbook example of "inspiration," I think. (For my money, it's also the one method that seems guaranteed to produce the most sticky, inventive, and interesting ideas, since I'm not limited by my technique or physical capabilities.)
In terms of the neurology, I think that's a bit of an unanswered question, but Oliver Sacks is always a great recommendation. If you aren't too TED-allergic, here's a talk on what making music does to your brain. And here's a highly technical paper from an affiliate journal of Nature: "Musical Creativity 'Revealed' in Brain Structure: Interplay between Motor, Default Mode, and Limbic Networks." (Note: I make absolutely no claims as to the paper's methodology, outcomes, etc., only to suggest that folks are out there thinking about it.)
In short, melodies simply coming into your head are a gift. If he's a musician, it might bear fruit to get them down on tape somehow and try to work them into original tunes, even if they seem mundane or forgettable on the surface. That's where the creative discernment comes into play with the raw idea, and I don't think there's anything more fun in this world than that.
posted by mykescipark at 5:06 PM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
What he describes is an entirely common phenomenon, if one regularly reads interviews with musicians/songwriters on where their songs "come from." There are many, many ways into a new song, but I think most musicians would agree that the phenomenon of unheard melodies appearing in one's head is the most profound and also the most ungraspable -- it's the textbook example of "inspiration," I think. (For my money, it's also the one method that seems guaranteed to produce the most sticky, inventive, and interesting ideas, since I'm not limited by my technique or physical capabilities.)
In terms of the neurology, I think that's a bit of an unanswered question, but Oliver Sacks is always a great recommendation. If you aren't too TED-allergic, here's a talk on what making music does to your brain. And here's a highly technical paper from an affiliate journal of Nature: "Musical Creativity 'Revealed' in Brain Structure: Interplay between Motor, Default Mode, and Limbic Networks." (Note: I make absolutely no claims as to the paper's methodology, outcomes, etc., only to suggest that folks are out there thinking about it.)
In short, melodies simply coming into your head are a gift. If he's a musician, it might bear fruit to get them down on tape somehow and try to work them into original tunes, even if they seem mundane or forgettable on the surface. That's where the creative discernment comes into play with the raw idea, and I don't think there's anything more fun in this world than that.
posted by mykescipark at 5:06 PM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
This phenomenon of music manifesting in dreams &/or upon awakening happen often. For me:
1) unintelligible.
2) tantalizingly perfect, but unobtainable.
3) the perfect melody, but already composed by someone else (quite often).
4) a decent melody from out of my subconscious! (quite rare for me).
(Also, my best improvising is done in the morning before coffee, and I'm a not a morning person.)
posted by ovvl at 8:52 PM on February 16, 2019
1) unintelligible.
2) tantalizingly perfect, but unobtainable.
3) the perfect melody, but already composed by someone else (quite often).
4) a decent melody from out of my subconscious! (quite rare for me).
(Also, my best improvising is done in the morning before coffee, and I'm a not a morning person.)
posted by ovvl at 8:52 PM on February 16, 2019
I have very specific songs with lyrics that are on the tail-ends of dreams on waking. I hurriedly try to write these down but often, the lyrics and rhythm are sand through my hands.
What's weird is I'm not a musician, and have no way to document or explain the music. This also happens when I occasionally "daydream" music as well.
There's worse things than having your own neural house band.
posted by moonbird at 12:28 PM on February 17, 2019
What's weird is I'm not a musician, and have no way to document or explain the music. This also happens when I occasionally "daydream" music as well.
There's worse things than having your own neural house band.
posted by moonbird at 12:28 PM on February 17, 2019
I haven’t had this happen, but I’m pretty sure Oliver Sacks discusses it in “Musicology,” and perhaps other of his books?
He also talks about this in Hallucinations.
posted by murphy slaw at 5:51 PM on February 17, 2019
He also talks about this in Hallucinations.
posted by murphy slaw at 5:51 PM on February 17, 2019
« Older Chic but conservative clothing for the Middle East | Building an individual basketball player... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by stillmoving at 8:59 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]