who else hears music?

[ford442]

i've always heard strange music when high - i started writing some down about 10 years ago and i now have 5 albums.. http://www.noahcohn.com

 

[kaib0rg]

i think the OP is referring to the phenomenon of HEARING music when it's not there. this is not the same as thinking about music in your head, but rather the inability to identify the difference between music that is audibly real and music that is in your head.

for instance, listen to closed-back headphones. the music sounds like it's "in" your head. now listen to open-back headphones or to a stereo system. you are surrounded with music and it sounds different.

to answer the original question, it happens to me from time to time when sober. much more often when using md(m)a.

 

[Gormur]

i think the OP is referring to the phenomenon of HEARING music when it's not there. this is not the same as thinking about music in your head, but rather the inability to identify the difference between music that is audibly real and music that is in your head.

yup. also when it's real, i often can't tell where it's coming from.. that's usually when i'm on something but it happens less often when i'm sober as well. maybe a few times per week

 

[ASquishyApple]

i hear music from every little noise when i'm stoned. like if i'm outback and its raining i hear the rain as music playin w/e song is in my head

 

[invert]

i always hear random ass voices in my head! When it first started I'd look around frantically and kinda look stupid trying to figure out where it came from... now i just let it be

I hear voices saying random shit sometimes when very fucked on cannabis. I think it's happened occasionally with high dose synthetic cannabinoids too.

With psychedelics, there's a few that have given me full-blown (and perceived as outside the head) auditory musical hallucinations (and these aren't of any known songs; they are, as it were, original compositions): DiPT (only at quite high doses*, c. 100 mg), LSD, 2C-C (again, fairly high doses for this effect (c. 60-80 mg). Thus far, I don't recall having experienced closed-ear audials of anything like that nature on 2C-E (actually, I'm not sure about 2C-E; I had a lot of now-not-remembered-in-any-detail trips on 2C-E a few years' ago; anything could have happened), 2C-B, DPT, 4-AcO-DMT, or psilocybe mushrooms.

(* Re: the doses; I should note I seem to require (or desire) higher doses of DiPT and 2C-C than some others report enjoying.)

 

[any major dude]

lol @ closed ear audials... ha... The most notable phantom music i've heard was while huffing some ether stolen from a chem lab several years ago, sounded like the music from contra was playing all over my house... I've experienced this to a lesser extent with n2o & mdma

 

[malakaix]

Yes, most of the time as im drifting off to sleep or in bed, i'll hear music or a song.. but as soon as i make the realization that im hearing music and shift my attention to it.. it disappears.. almost like background music.

It also happens sometimes as im focusing on something, but again as soon as i shift my attention to it, it disappears.

 

[psood0nym]

In reaction to an ambiguous rhythmic sound A lot of people get this, and psychedelics tend to enhance it. It can be actual music heard through a wall that you think is one song and turns out to be something totally different, or in reaction to something like a washing machine. Your interpolate a melody between actual semi-structured sounds, building off a generic scaffolding. As alluded to earlier, this is highly prevalent when listening to highway sounds on the way home after something like a rave.
During complete silence This is less common. I experienced it not long ago, though. During 3-MeO-PCP I kept hearing a melodic chant. When I tried to listen to it, the music went away. It was when I just let my thoughts roll unhindered that their soundtrack began again. Kind of like malakaix's experience while drifting to sleep above.

 

[sleepysaint]

While sober, I experience a nearly-constant "mental soundtrack" of whatever music I most recently listened to (in contrast to whatever I most recently heard - listening is an involved act, hearing is a passive one). It's usually one or two songs that repeat seemingly-random sections. The music runs in the "background" of my train of thoughts, and I only become fully conscious of it at certain times. I'm a musician and I have great auditory memory, so I can hear a song a few times and remember the key and rhythm, things like that. However, on psychedelics, I've had a huge range of different effects related to music. Most of my psychedelic experiences have seemed to intensify my general perception of all music, either real or imagined. That is, my ordinary "mental soundtrack" is intensified by psychedelics. On high doses of 2C-E specifically, in the absence of music I could hear swelling and falling white noise that seemed to mimic music in dynamic changes, but it was not tonal in nature.

During a few magical moments in my lifetime, including my most recent experience with psilacetin, I found myself capable of composing new music in my head in an "audible" way (to me). When this has happened, the music has often been seemingly orchestral or "classical" in nature. However, on one experience with LSA and a few experiences with high doses of DXM (which is not really a psychedelic, in my experience), the music has been made purely of rhythmic/percussive variations. I am capable of composing without psychedelics, but it takes a lot more concentration to be able to hear new melodies in my head that work together while simultaneously understanding what the actual notes are, whereas some of my trips have allowed me to compose in a highly intuitive, natural way. I was at certain points even able to hear things in my head that seemed physically impossible from a musical or auditory standpoint (tones that felt outside of my range of hearing). This is one of the biggest things that has drawn me towards psychedelics in general.

One of my favorite things about listening to music on many psychedelics is the auditory distortions I've experienced. Certain parts of the music will often seem to be coming from different directions, and I often get visual/auditory synesthesia as well.

Interesting thread :D

 

[SHROOMS!!!]

I get the same thing when i am low on sleep or drug induced. One time me and my friends decided to try PCP laced on weed. The first time we did it i did not hear any audio hallucinations. The second time i did it i did not realize the weed was the weed which had the PCP on it. This sucked because this was a few years ago when i was in young in high school and we smoked it right after school. I had to go home and go to the DMV with my mom which was not a problem if i was just high on weed. Need i say by the time i got home i was high as shit and my mom proceeded to curse at me. After she got done and left for the DMV without me, i went to my room and laied down trying to somehow get rid of the high before she got home. One my bed side table is my clock radio. I started to hear a song play loud and clear. I could make out every note from every instrument and every word in the lyrics. I have never heard this song before and it was not even the type of music i listen to. Thinking it was coming from my radio i tried to turn it off. When this didnt work i unplugged it and took the backup battery out. None of this worked. I eventually fell asleep and when i awoke sober i could not remember enough of the song to duplicate it. Sucks tho

 

[Survived Abortion]

A very interesting thread indeed. I am a music composer, songwriter, engineer, and producer, so I spend alot of my time listening to music at high SPLs, in very high clarity.

However, it seems that psychedelics give on'e mind the ability to manifest music beyond the normal linear range of tones we are used to hearing, even if they are inside that range. I experience the OP's phenomenon of phantom music to a great degree when withdrawing from benzodiazepines (diazepam), which seems to be happening more and more often these days! This often makes tuning a guitar an almost insurmountable task, when it is normally a blind cakewalk.

I can often hear things that are normally completely inaudible in a psychoacoustically 'silent' space, to be very loud, often disturbing due to the horrible nature of benzo withdrawal itself. Sometime's it is music, or pure tones, but more often than not it is completely random audible material which is identified (or identically quantized), internally, to the nearest sensible sonic scenario. So indeed, white noise, pink noise, can certainly be construed by the mind to be something much more different, such as pulsating rythyms etc. When the source is actually sonically more familiar, the mindset can influence the brain to manifest a hallucination of staggeringly 'real' audible resolution.

It should also be noted that whilst withdrawing from benzos, I am hypersensitized to sounds (as well as the other senses), to the point where background sounds, like the rustling of leaves on the ground when walking down the road, can make me jump out o' my skin. Not to mention motorcycles raring past, or chavs blarings their horns!

 

[The_Rogue]

I have a constant soundtrack running in my head literally from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep. Most of it is psytrance--it's great! A lovely gift I have been given.

 

[Survived Abortion]

^Lucky you!
Actually I'm just now entering the first stages of benzo withdrawal once again (boo), but anyhow yeah was just sitting at the computer ready to start on some shizzle and I'm actually just now beginning to hear this 'phantom music', again. It used to freak me out a fair bit, because it's usually in the form of 'hell-hounds' kind of sounds, and sometimes people screaming and stuff, like their having their limbs ripped off etc. But now I know what it is, it is a bit easier to deal with.

I wish I had pretty music like you, like instead of the soundscapes of perdition

 

[Gormur]

OK while at this clinic i asked the MD seeing me about this phenomena and she said there's a type of seizure that involves phantom smells and music, but it's a minor type that may not be noticed (if i'm manic i may not notice i'm having a seizure). She then advised me to see a neurologist just to be safe

Thoughts?

 

[Solipsis]

Definitely read Musicophilia by neurologist Oliver Sacks! Absolutely fascinating as hell...

 

[Delta-9-THC]

This one one of my absolute favorite things about psychedelic drugs.

It doesn't happen every trip but on most trips were I listen to music for a good period of time and really get into, particularly at a show, when I stop listening the music is imprinted in my brain and continues to replay. Not only that but I can mold and shape and direct the music anywhere I want just by thinking about it. It's like taking control of you favorite musicians and composing on the fly. Perfect, effortless improvisation.

One interesting thing is that if you listen to one type of music for a while then listen to something else and then go into silence they will fuse in your mind and form a hybrid between the two. For example after a Phish show I listened to Frank Zappa I had Zappa like compositions with horns and xylophones combined with phish style tension and release improv and jamming.

The music seems to respond to even the slightest emotion or inclination and if you close your eyes you can get the most amazing CEV synesthesia that you can also control. I love psychedelics for being the ultimate novelty generators they are. It unlocks the creative part of your brain and lets it run wild.

Absolutely fucking amazing.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

I hear music while under the influence of psychedelics, but that's normal.
Other then that, I hear music when I'm very tired and/or tweaked.

Yes I would hear it after smoking. I've seen music while on psychedelics and gotten synesthesia while sober like a certain sound/pitch would produce a color if that makes sense.

Or I'll hear it when I'm completely sober and falling asleep but that's common and normal.

 

[B9]

i'm curious because i hear phantom music all the time - music that's in your head but your mind hears it playing out loud on a stereo. i get this after a bit of sleep deprivation and of course drugs can induce it. this is how i write most of my music
i have heard it's rare but for some reason i doubt it. anyone know more about it?

Shadow radio was always playing for me after a couple of nights too many on the stims - common IMO

 

[Radone]

Music and sounds always seem to be playing through my head when I wake up till I go to sleep. Sometimes it even gets really clear and sounds like really sick electro lol. Probably why I love producing >.<

And on LSD it gets incredibly nuts...like I'm able to manipulate every sound into something new and can play the sickest set all in my head. Sometimes when I'm listening to music, my brain will completely morph a song into a new one and it even seems I'm able to play a new track without ever touching my comp...so fun and so weird.

 

[hjj]

If only I could play/write the music I compose in my head.

would probobly end up like pink floyd or zep or something though.