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darkmoses
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22 Jun 2009, 12:59 pm

Oliver Sacks, in his book "Musicophilia," discusses this phenomenon. It seems to be uncommon, but he doesn't reference any relationship to schizophrenia. Just more variety in human neural functioning!


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22 Jun 2009, 1:41 pm

Yeah, it doesn't sound to odd, I have songs playing in my head almost constantly as well. I also hear voices of characters from stories (I've read or am writing) in my head :wink: . I think those kind of things show we have more creative minds (& can never shut them off/even when asleep)! I personally only think it is an issue if the voices give you orders, tell you creepy things, or something like that (thats sounds schizophrenic to me/ and bad). And seeing colors while hearing music or something may be a form of a sensory processing difference that is more common in the autistic pop. than others. Being more creative is a good thing! :D


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22 Jun 2009, 5:25 pm

fiddlerpianist wrote:
I can't recall the last time my head didn't have a tune going around in it. It's nonstop. Though I can concentrate on other things, it's still there going on in the back of my head. It's more than just an "earworm"; it's different music from day to day (and often hour to hour). My musical brain works very strongly by association, so if something sounds like something else, it's possible it will be the next thing stuck in my head.

This isn't a form of schizophrenia, is it? Does this happen to anyone else?


What do you mean when you say it's in the back of your head? Like, is it as though it's playing from somewhere outside? Or like songs "going around in your head"?
It's NOT schizophrenia, although there are other psychotic disorders.
Major point to remember is that mental illnesses are disruptive and debilitating. Unless it's causing you significant problems, it's not even a disorder. It's just a "thing" or whatever. Especially once you already have some disorder, it's tempting to pathologize everything.. but you said you can concentrate on other things, even when you're hearing music in your head.



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22 Jun 2009, 5:45 pm

Maggiedoll, I don't literally hear it in the back of my mind... It's more background than anything. I can concentrate, but I often realize that I will have started to sing something in my head without realizing it, and I only catch myself once I'm in the middle of the tune. I often tap my fingers as if I were playing the tune on the piano.

I wasn't particularly concerned about my mental health. It's something I've done for as long as I can remember. It's never been a problem. I was more wondering if that kind of functioning is at all related to schizophrenia. It sounds like it is not because the tunes are definitely on the inside and don't sound like they are coming from the outside.


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22 Jun 2009, 6:39 pm

fiddlerpianist wrote:
Maggiedoll, I don't literally hear it in the back of my mind... It's more background than anything. I can concentrate, but I often realize that I will have started to sing something in my head without realizing it, and I only catch myself once I'm in the middle of the tune. I often tap my fingers as if I were playing the tune on the piano.


That's what I thought.. I just don't like to assume I know what people mean, it always ends up making me sound like an idiot.

fiddlerpianist wrote:
I wasn't particularly concerned about my mental health. It's something I've done for as long as I can remember. It's never been a problem. I was more wondering if that kind of functioning is at all related to schizophrenia. It sounds like it is not because the tunes are definitely on the inside and don't sound like they are coming from the outside.


Since you're referring to something that isn't even a hallucination, I'd say no, not related to schizophrenia at all.

The thing to remember about psychiatric diagnosis is that it's main purpose is for billing insurance companies. Something that's not a problem won't be a psychiatric diagnosis, or will eventually be removed as a psychiatric diagnosis, for exactly that reason. Other things that aren't really quite disorders are added, because they are problems. Like ODD (oppositional defiance disorder.) It's a step down from a conduct disorder, specifically states that it's NOT what's a precursor to Antisocial Personality Disorder. When I read the criteria to my mom, she cracked up laughing. ODD is the definition of adolescence. But the simple fact is, some people need therapy to get through adolescence. So it's in there, so that insurance companies will pay for it. The next version of the DSM is likely to contain a disorder called "complicated grief." Again, not truly a DISORDER... But something that really needs therapy and could become a disorder if left untreated. So it's added to the DSM so that insurance companies will pay for therapy for the problem. It's all about the billing.

Music that you can hear in your head when you're not doing anything else, but that doesn't keep you from concentrating.. Really sounds to me like a good thing.. Lots of people would be jealous. :-P



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22 Jun 2009, 8:23 pm

OH MAN i can totally relate to everyone's experience here! I can concentrate on stuff that i'm focussed on but sometimes it gets ANNOYING with a particular part of a song stuck in my head and it won't get OUT!! ! ROFLMAO!! ! Usually to cure the problem i have to listen to the song a few times. I sometimes wonder if it's also a symptom of both my AS and ADD



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22 Jun 2009, 9:14 pm

I get songs stuck in my head easy like from the radio. Since the majority of them suck, it does get very annoying. I probably look strange when I dance to the song in my head, but I only do that alone at home, so nobody but the FBI and CIA know about it...lol just kidding. Black Eyed Peas makes me do that the most. What I don't get is I often wake up with a song in my head, and sometimes something I haven't heard in a long time. I think it's related to my dream somehow and therefore must be part of the dream analysis. What I don't get is how I can get a song in my head when I don't know all the words. Like I hear the artist singing the words, but I don't know what they are exactly.

The other thing is songs where I hear the words and don't know them where I can easily tell what they are, like old Madonna songs, I can think of the song and then tell you the lyrics if I hear it played in my head. I used to think someone brainwashed me with Madonna because I never really listened to her songs except one album I had of her greatest hits for like a month. But now I think it's just I have a good memory. I do the same with a lot of Oldies songs. And, when I play piano, my ability to read music sucks. So I write down the notes (letters above or below the notes on the music) and then learn the song that way, and I can remember it for years. Like I went probably 7 years without playing the piano at all, and i sit down and can play the beginning of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata 1st movement (the famous one), and then I get stuck like I forgot a part. But if I keep playing from the beginning relaxed, I eventually figure it out to the next part I get stuck, and etc. My mother who also plays piano thinks it's amazing that I do that, whereas I think it's amazing she can read music.



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22 Jun 2009, 10:00 pm

fiddlerpianist wrote:
sunshower wrote:
Hahaha yes I used to sing constantly, and it would drive people up the wall. And then when I made a friend who liked singing too, we'd sing together in the hallways at school and I'd harmonize to her.

On and off over the years I made friends who could sing, and convinced them to sing two part songs with me (they'd do melody, i'd do harmony) while walking places. Sometimes I'd even be lucky enough to gather up groups of 3 or 4, and we'd sing 3/4 part which was great! I convinced my brother a few years ago to pick up chorale, and now he sometimes sings with me. :)

I love harmonizing. I do it more with twin fiddling these days, but singing harmonies are always fun, especially if they are close together. I kind of wished I had sung in more early music ensembles in college. Those harmonies, back before there was formal tonality, are so incredibly fascinating! I think it's one of the reasons I love Irish music so much. For the most part it's tonal, but then there are tunes which are only loosely based in tonality... and they are so much fun!


Yeah, I've done heaps and heaps and heaps of singing - almost every different kind, but that's because voice is my instrument and interest. Currently I get paid to sight sing classical/gregorian chant with an Anglican church on Sundays, which is great because it's a vocal area I haven't fully developed my skills in yet.


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23 Jun 2009, 9:19 am

I get this all the time. Sometimes I can control it to some extent (playing a CD for example stops the songs in my head) but other times I can't control it. Last night, for example, I had the entire soundtrack from South Park the movie going through my head. I had to wait a full 10 minutes for it to finish the last song before I went to sleep! I have been told that the music/'voices' I hear are not schizophrenia because I am aware that they are not real, plus they are INSIDE my head. That is the main difference (I think someone may have said that already... oh well...) Schizophrenics are convinced that REAL people are talking about them and with music, that someone's got that damned radio on too loud again. My mind does create entirely new music (in particular classical) in which I can clearly make out each section of the orchestra (I don't see anything mind) but because of a rare disorder which means I can't read music (musiclexia I call it!) I can't write the stuff down either... sigh... If I could, I would be rich! Apparently, the music might be something to do with my Tourette syndrome, but if you lot who don't have it are getting it, then maybe it is not... :?


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23 Jun 2009, 9:48 am

Oh constantly. At the moment, "Do I Love Her" by Taj Mahal is playing in my head and not interfering in any way with my typing. The music will stop if I need all my auditory processing to focus 100% on what's coming in from the outside. For example, if I'm walking through an empty parking garage to get to my car and I suddenly hear a quiet scuffling noise, the music comes to a dead halt for survival reasons. But if I don't need 100% of my auditory processing to be focused on the outside, the music bobbles along.

Since you play both fiddle and piano (I assume, from your name), this is unsurprising. People who are immersed in music describe this a lot. Author Stephen King describes it. I read an article with him once where he described it as a constantly running soundtrack, and that it heklps him set the tone for his fiction as he hears in his head the soundtrack for his novels. And he often interjects song lyrics into his writing, which is something I really like about him.

It should onlybe worrisome (like a schiozophrenia worry) if you are unaware that it's your own mind generating the songs. And you are perfectly aware.



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23 Jun 2009, 12:07 pm

fiddlerpianist wrote:
I can't recall the last time my head didn't have a tune going around in it. It's nonstop. Though I can concentrate on other things, it's still there going on in the back of my head. It's more than just an "earworm"; it's different music from day to day (and often hour to hour). My musical brain works very strongly by association, so if something sounds like something else, it's possible it will be the next thing stuck in my head.

This isn't a form of schizophrenia, is it? Does this happen to anyone else?

This happens to me, but not to everyone. A therapist once said to me, "Do you mean you never experience mental silence?" I only experience mental silence when I am mentally exhausted. When exhausted, both the music and my stemming cease.

My memories are also stored along associations, so random sounds, not just music can cause some song to pop into my brain. Like the other day the squeak of a door hinge just happened to be the same series of tones as a bridge section of the second movement of Beethoven's Fifth, and this caused me to get to be entertained by the entire symphony for the next hour.

I think this is an attribute of Musical Intelligence.



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23 Jun 2009, 12:32 pm

Silence of the mentality topic

I am never aware of silence; I am only aware of not being silent.

Always music/thoughts or whatever happening between my ears. Busy brain.


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23 Jun 2009, 1:14 pm

willmark wrote:
fiddlerpianist wrote:
I can't recall the last time my head didn't have a tune going around in it. It's nonstop. Though I can concentrate on other things, it's still there going on in the back of my head. It's more than just an "earworm"; it's different music from day to day (and often hour to hour). My musical brain works very strongly by association, so if something sounds like something else, it's possible it will be the next thing stuck in my head.

This isn't a form of schizophrenia, is it? Does this happen to anyone else?

This happens to me, but not to everyone. A therapist once said to me, "Do you mean you never experience mental silence?" I only experience mental silence when I am mentally exhausted. When exhausted, both the music and my stemming cease.

My memories are also stored along associations, so random sounds, not just music can cause some song to pop into my brain. Like the other day the squeak of a door hinge just happened to be the same series of tones as a bridge section of the second movement of Beethoven's Fifth, and this caused me to get to be entertained by the entire symphony for the next hour.

I think this is an attribute of Musical Intelligence.

I can completely relate. It's that associative memory kicking in.

On a slightly related note, I for one am so happy the age of cutesy cell phone ring tunes is over! They were highly invasive to my internal CD player. Those were a tense couple of years for me. Now, variations on the normal "ring,ring,ring..." are much more common.


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23 Jun 2009, 8:40 pm

I have the same problem with the music playing in my head. It is almost constantly playing in my head over and over again and it freaks me out and makes me nervous because I can never be 100% ''there'' socially and mentally. If I listen to music while doing something, I can focus a lot better because I am not ''carrying over'' something I heard previously and trying to create more overwhelming stimuli. When I'm not stressed, I don't usually hear music in my head.


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23 Jun 2009, 9:34 pm

Music plays in my mind most of the time. And I think that is pretty common for most people (NTs included). I have heard a lot of people say, "I got a song stuck in my head." I believe that is the magic of music---it becomes a part of us. And like you fiddlerpianist, I am musical (and many on here are musical), so I think it is quite natural for us to here music. We know it's not really a band playing somewhere that we are hearing with our ears. We know that it is our imagination. We think all the time. So I don't think there is anything abnormal for us to hear these songs.

Wouldn't it be incredible if there was a machine that could hook up to our brains and record our thoughts. Think of the amazing compositions we could create. Think of the motion pictures we could make. I have heard that somewhere, they are working on a machine to record our dreams. That would be wild. Speaking of dreams, isn't it strange some of the dreams our mind generates? I have often wondered where such images could come from.


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23 Jun 2009, 10:34 pm

I sometimes hear music in my head, but not a song. It's like music I've never heard before. It's like when you have a ringing in your ears but then the noise turns into music. Ha, wish I was good at playing music so I could explain it a bit better to people.


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