I spent about a year not listening to any recorded music, whether radio, television, cd, mp3 format. I did this to try to improve my own musical skills and gain a little bit of unique style. When I recently started listening to music again, it was a catalyst for lucid dreaming. I only played one song, but it stayed in my head all day and throughout the dreaming process. I was so suprised to hear music playing in the dream that it caused me to become more aware, and I became lucid and conscious of the dream state. I think this is due to two things:
1.) The drastic change of hearing recorded music after so long.
2.) The fact that it triggered a lot of memories associated with the music I used to listen to.
I don’t know how this can be useful to anyone, or even if my observations make sense. I’m curious if anyone else has experienced this. Technically it wasn’t a shortcut since it took a year, but perhaps even doing something like this for a week might have the same effect, especially on a teenager or someone in the early twenties.
Wow, that’s really interesting. Kinda reminds me of Beethoven.
Gov has a good question with your reactions to music. I could imagine if it was a good song that it would have been euphoric. It would be hard to dodge music for three years in the public wouldn’t it (ie shops, footy stadium, tv)?
I might try this… just to see how it feels returning to music, also I am a musician as well and I can see the benefits there. However I think it’s a great learning tool to learn how other people write music. It puts ideas in your head.
I don’t spend a lot of time in shopping malls or the movie theaters, and therefore it’s not that hard to avoid music. But I think you’ll agree there’s a big difference between hearing a bit of a song in passing on the street and popping on the headphones of your mp3 player and listening to music you planned to hear.
My reaction to listening to recorded music again was a little strange. I started by listening to ‘RadioIO Rock,’ an online radio station.I found the first song (‘ANT,’ I think) to be totally crass and part of my psyche did actually reject the idea of actively pursuing listening to it. However, the irresistable psychological effect of the music was to relax me and lift my spirits.
What I ultimately learned from this experience is that, while introspection and isolation can be a powerful thing, it should definitely not be the norm. We are musical beings, and music is a great way to release us from reality just long enough to give our minds a chance to recover. But it is more than that. It is a way for us to connect with others. After listening to the radio for a couple of hours I just couldn’t believe what I had missed. Sure, my own music is fine, and I did get better in a technical sense, but I felt as if I had been a flute player who had happened upon a symphony when I began to reassimilate the works of others.
happened to me when i started listening to some old music i had, all the old memories i had of listening to that music showed in my dreams…which is a cool way to become lucid.
