A Mozart sonata - I'm not sure which one - is playing right now. Last night it was Bach. On the way to work - the Suite from Holberg's time. Love it.

Monica, you're right, Sack's book, "Musicophilia", addresses musical hallucinations, p.57.

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (Google search)

A patient began taking medication, and experienced musical hallucinations. Sacks stated that the brain needed to stay incessantly active; if it didn't get its usual stimulation, would create its own stimulation in the form of music.

I first began hearing incessant music at about 5, or so I remember it from that point onward. I'd fall asleep and could practice pieces in my brain during the night. When I woke up I'd still be working on Chopin or Liszt, or listening to someone else play music. It was a system that worked for me, but now it stopped.

Sacks studies deal with people who want to turn it OFF, so he doesn't indicate how to jumpstart the music if you're accustomed to it, and it suddenly stops.

By the way Dianne, the link you posted is so long that it is distorting the page. You can give it a short alias...
like this:
Musicophilia

Bad Orange...

The notion that hearing music in one's head is a form of "hallucination" is simply wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. If I visualize someone I know who is at that moment not in the room, am I hallucinating? Hardly. I do this all the time. Moreover, I often have no more control over it than I have over having any spontaneous thought or memory.

According to Wikepedia "In a strict sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid, substantial, and located in external objective space. "

The key in this case would be "located in external objective space." If I hear music coming from the kitchen, THAT'S a hallucination (unless of course there's a radio on or something).

Otherwise, your contention is a fundamental misunderstanding of the term.

I used Sack's terms for the inaudible music that plays in the brain. Is there another term?

For several of Sacks's patients, the term "hallucination" is apt, as they genuinely "heard" the music as being "located in external objective space." However, those are exceptions, and most of the time when people say they 'hear' music in their heads, they are well aware that it is brain activity and not coming from some unknown external musical source.

A hallucination happens when the subject is unable to distinguish that experience from reality. So hearing music in one's head is totally fine and is not a hallucination as long as that person knows very well that it is just in his/her mind and not actual music that's playing in the real world (from a radio for instance). Sacks makes this distinction pretty clear in his book. Monica has explained it in her last post here too. The second kind of experience she talks about are clearly not hallucinations. Bad Orange has tried to make this distinction clear too. So far, I haven't seen a post from anybody here that suggests they've had musical hallucinations as they are all very well aware that its only in their heads.

Jogging, walking or cycling are indeed great ways to turn the internal soundtrack on.*

I mentioned that I used to have constant music in my head (but no longer do). A lot of the time it was my own compositions at the work-in-progress stage. Those of you who have lovely Bach or Chopin running along nicely should spare some sympathy for someone who couldn't turn off their own music!

But it was handy for editing.

*Be careful of waltzes - dangerous.

This happens to me too. I mentioned this some time ago to currawong and Andy in a PM. It was really obsessive, but at the moment it is much better. (Then again, I am not composing right now...)



You bet! Particularly if you are in the street...

no. A hallucination is seeing or hearing something that isn't there. You can be quite aware which is why it usually causes people alot of grief. Rather coincidental that this automatic music so happens to be the actual music you want to hear. The fact of the matter is that you are all conflating the act of imagination with having automatic music playing in your head.

Sacks does not make the distinction. Page 84, a anecdotal story about someone completely aware that they are hearing music that is not real. Sacks uses the term hallucination. ON page 67, the link between musical hallucinations and schizophrenia are made although it is more rare than hearing voices. The usual cause tends to be from some sort of sensory deprivation usually the actual ear and the brain seems to compensate. The story about Sheryl was to show how it would be to have music you can't control, not an argument for schizophrenia. The point is that every single person Sack's mentions except i think one that has this music that doesn't stop tends to find it extremely annoying to the point of painful.

If you have music in your head for which you have no control over and it is like someone planted a radio when you were asleep, it is not normal. It can be quite dangerous as the other cause for such symptoms would be lesions which could be caused by some cancerous growth pushing on a certain part of the brain.

I think you people are romanticizing the notion of having music playing in your head and in some way asserting your creativity by the fact that this happens to you but I doubt very much what you consider music playing , is actually music playing rather than your thoughts , perhaps less conscious than normal are musing.

You're right and wrong at the same time.
And with reference to what you raised in the first place, you're wrong.

You're right that "hallucination" doesn't necessarily mean the person can't tell that it isn't real.

But, when the person can distinguish, the hallucinations aren't particularly indicative of schizophrenia -- which was the thing you mentioned that kicked off this mini-discussion.

There's something even more wrong with the original thing you said, because the kind of thing that is the subject of this thread would rarely be a "hallucination" -- it's more in the realm of thinking and imagination -- and there wasn't anything that anyone had said which suggested they might be having hallucinations. That wasn't much of a relevant term to bring into the discussion.

Imagination. Yes, that's more along the lines of what I meant.

You are saying that your internal dialogue is sort of overlaid over music? That's very interesting. I can have music going or verbal thoughts going in my head, but not both at the same time.

BadO, do you not often have a piece of music that you are composing running and running in your head? As a sort of background soundtrack. It's funny, I thought that most composers would have this while writing music. Yes I agree that it's healthier to be able to turn it off to sleep, otherwise one is working in one's sleep which is not a good thing.

My composing teacher said that the only way to get rid of the compositional earworms is to write the piece! Write it out of your brain and onto paper. Then it will shut up. I've found this worked for me.

No, I don't assert my creativity by the existence of earworms. Lots of people have earworms and I think they hear music in the minds ear - hard to describe when you start to think about it.

True. And me.

yes but it is clearly my imagination and not a hallucination. It is really similar to lets say improvising on a piano but instead, the music is just being thought of in your head.

If anything i've learned to control my thoughts with various CBT exercises so that I can turn these things on and off.

Which is good (thanks for replying by the way). For me the imagined music in my head as i'm improvising, or composing on paper away from the instrument feels different to the ongoing background soundtrack. An earworm can be playing for a while before I seem to suddenly notice it (I agree that none of what I'm describing is hallucination). One is foreground and started by me, the other is background and self starts and can go on and on for ages.

I'm describing it in more detail because it fascinates me that people may experience this differently. Perhaps you don't have the kind of earworm experience I (and for example gooddog) am describing? Or you found it annoying so have learned to turn it off? Interesting!

I am less beset by earworms than when I was a full time music student, and since a lot of those worms were "work" it probably didn't generate healthy calmness, but was a sign of not being able to turn off from work/music. In spite of that it was useful to harness the earworms for composing, especially editing. So i wasn't bothered.

I like it while I sleep. You CAN sleep well despite the music.

"Healthy" is a relative term when it comes to music playing inside your head. Let's call it extra auditory perception (EAP), as I don't know of a term for "music playing in my head that isn't an earworm". An earworm is something that seems stuck/uncontrollable for the most part, while EAP is something desirable and controllable to the extent that you can usually choose what plays. At least I find it very desirable; apparently I'm not alone.

BTW, it is beginning to play again. I can hear it off and on and find it very calming.

Superbly stated...