Posted by Tony P on May 23, 2003, at 1:49:10
In reply to Re: Anyone else hear music in their head all the ?, posted by fallsfall on May 21, 2003, at 12:20:35
Years ago when I was working late at night, stressed out, by myself in a noisy lab (lots of white sound), I kept hearing a radio playing music in another part of the lab. Not unexpected, several of us had radios or cassette players. But I would go searching for it, and never be able to find it - it was always in *another* room.
The lab was supposed to be haunted ;-) but I was more inclined to supect I had gone off the deep end! Then one day, I tried to mentally change the song the radio was playing - and it worked! My hyperactive brain was simply trying to extract some sense from all the noise around it.
Here's an experiment anyone can try: Plug headphones into an FM radio (an older one is better) and tune it to the hiss between stations (if you can find a place between stations these days!). Relax, close your eyes, and try to listen for the words that are hidden in the noise. After a few minutes, if you try hard enough, you will begin to distinguish words and even sentences, or maybe voices speaking some foreign language. Is it space aliens speaking to you? No, your mind is applying that most useful faculty that allows you to fill in the blanks in a half-heard conversation at a party - except in this case it's filling in all the blanks!
(See also a thread in Nov 2001)
> For me it sounds like there is a radio on in the next room. Sometimes I can clearly hear the song (usually oldies), other times it is just background static, like the station isn't tuned in right. The frustrating part is that I can't turn it off! I think that I am taking background noise in my house and trying to make sense of it. I've even gone into the next room to prove that there isn't a radio on.
poster:Tony P
thread:227831
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030520/msgs/228509.html