# Music and the Subconscious



## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

I have had this experience a few times, where I will accidentally fall asleep while listening to music. I will sleep like normal and dream but the music will be present while I am dreaming, seeming to somehow influence the dream. This happened just a few nights ago as I was listening to Gorecki's Symphony 3. I can't exactly remember the dream but I did wake up in the middle of the night with the music still going (it was on repeat) and knowing that I had had a dream and that the music was present.

One other time, years ago, I set my alarm clock to play a classical radio station and I set the volume on low. I remember waking up in the morning very slowly as I heard the music (in this case, Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, which I had never heard before) and it was a rather surreal and completely amazing experience.

I am not sure if these kind of experiences can be planned (they probably can), but I thought I would see if any of you, my TC paisanos, have had any similar experiences.

Do you think music can be experienced while sleeping? Does the subconscious mind process music differently?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

As far as I can tell, I've never had any music in my dreams. Most of my dreams involve sex or being trapped out of town.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

20centrfuge said:


> Do you think music can be experienced while sleeping? Does the subconscious mind process music differently?


I occasionally have music on while reading in bed. Sometimes, I fall asleep, only to wake up after a few hours, feeling haggard and unrested.

I was wondering about the mental processing, too. When listening while lying on one's side, one hears the music with only one ear. Is there a difference, when music is experienced with only one brain side?



Bulldog said:


> Most of my dreams involve... being trapped out of town.


Sounds like you've been on some unpleasant vacations :lol:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

My dreams usually have to do with sexual goddesses.

Dreaming about music would be a severe letdown.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I don't remember my dreams but music always is wonderful to fall asleep to for mood relaxation. Really inspires and helps me quite a bit during these long winter nights.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

brotagonist said:


> Sounds like you've been on some unpleasant vacations :lol:


That's true. My real vacations are much better, such as the trip my wife and I took a couple of weeks ago to Basel, Switzerland.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Soundtracks often well up in my dreams, and I will wake up with a piece going through my mind that wasn't there when I went to bed.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I have vivid musical dreams. In some I know myself to be listening to a certain musical work and then notice that what I am hearing is departing from its real world counterpart. In others I am playing or improvising. In a semi-dream state, usually halfway toward waking in the morning, I have had the experience of finding an orchestra at my command through which my mind speaks fully formed symphonic thoughts in a blissful orgy of improvisation — these are like musical equivalents of flying dreams.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I remember falling asleep with headphones on, listening to a Domaine Musical LP with an Eloy composition. As I awoke, I realized that I finally understood 12-tone music.

I've also had experiences where music has a specific meaning, and when I wake up, this "meaning" seems completely illogical and abstract. In sleep, or dreaming, different areas of my brain seemed to be involved, which are normally not involved with music. The music was corresponding with a physical action or an object in the dream. I could only truly understand it in the dream-state.

That's why I think music connects with us in a physical way, as well, such as "gestures of meaning" and so forth.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I hear music in my head most of the day. Comes in handy when someone throws boring small talk my way. Dreams? No.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

There's that world inbetween the worlds - when you are neither awake or asleep. A world of promise and a world without pain or fear. If I'm listening to music and consciously drift into this inbetween state - I find the music to be the best I've ever heard.
Unfortunately I rarely visit this state anymore. From Wakefulness to sleep in approximately 5 seconds.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

MagneticGhost said:


> There's that world inbetween the worlds - when you are neither awake or asleep. A world of promise and a world without pain or fear. If I'm listening to music and consciously drift into this inbetween state - I find the music to be the best I've ever heard.


I'm not a composer, but sometimes I feel like I'm creating brilliant music in my mind during these times. But it is also possible that (a) I only think it's great because I am logy and/or (b) it's someone else's music, but I just don't recall whose.


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## Revel (Feb 25, 2015)

I believe we do retain some of what is playing while we sleep. I often fall asleep to talk radio, and the radio remains on all night. Often, I'll hear the same "top of the hour" radio report after I awake that they had been playing all night while I slept...and I'll be able to predict some of the phrases they will use on the report. It could be that they are predictable reporters, but it's happened often enough over the years that I think I'm recalling some of what was said while I was supposedly asleep.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

I´ve dreamed with music, sometimes at least. Last night indeed, I've dreamed with the beggining of Mahler's 9th (I´ve been into a Mahler's mood last weeks).
It´s such a pitty that Sigmund Freud, the great modern interpreter of dreams, and who invented a dream interpretion method, doesn´t liked music. So, as far as I know, he doesn´t said anything about this topic..


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