General Music Chat

So I've been having this....issue if you want to call it that for a couple of years now and it's going to sound REALLY weird. This happens.....I dont know maybe once a month or so....while sleeping, during a dream there will be music in my dream and lyrics and the it's always a female voice and the music and lyrics are always so......awesome....and usually right after the song ends or fades out or whatever I find myself in that half asleep half awake stage in which I can remember some of the lyrics and the main melody of the song, but I'm usually in a state to where I am so weak and tired that I cannot find the will to get out of be to write anything down or boot up my laptop to record it. And then I end up falling back asleep and then when I wake up later I can not remember anything about the song. It's so weird. It happened again earlier this week and I remember that I was thinking about the song I wrote and ideas for other songs while in bed right before I fell asleep. Any thoughts?

That happens to me sometimes too, it's pretty frustrating. Normally I go out and kill a random drummer and I feel better.

It is normal with me. I always would go to sleep with a electronics design problem and I would wake up in the middle of the night with the solution.

Back when I was first learning to play guitar, I would hear something in my head, and I would work and work to get it onto the strings. After so many frustrating times I would just forget about it. Then I would wake up in the night with the fingering positions all worked out. I loved the way Mr brain did that for me.

I have heard that it is the brain organizing the days data while you sleep. My brain just happened to like me enough to let me in on the answer after it had sorted out all the details.

Maybe yours is taking a liking to you.

So I've been having this....issue if you want to call it that for a couple of years now and it's going to sound REALLY weird. This happens.....I dont know maybe once a month or so....while sleeping, during a dream there will be music in my dream and lyrics and the it's always a female voice and the music and lyrics are always so......awesome....and usually right after the song ends or fades out or whatever I find myself in that half asleep half awake stage in which I can remember some of the lyrics and the main melody of the song, but I'm usually in a state to where I am so weak and tired that I cannot find the will to get out of be to write anything down or boot up my laptop to record it. And then I end up falling back asleep and then when I wake up later I can not remember anything about the song. It's so weird. It happened again earlier this week and I remember that I was thinking about the song I wrote and ideas for other songs while in bed right before I fell asleep. Any thoughts?

That's happened to me... Except no female voice... I get these tunes, sometimes whole songs or works of music in my head and in my dream state they always make the most perfect sense. But When I wake up... and I try it out on my guitar...its garbage...

One time I did thrust my self out of a state of alpha to get down a poem ...Damn thing had me in tears as I'm typing away... trying to get it out... It finally came out and actually, it wasn't a bad poem. I titled it "The Abbey Bells" (Based on the bells at Westminster Abby in London) , which have an incredible haunting quality about them...Who ever engineered the clappers on those bells may as well have been a direct descendant of God... Needless to say the poem was so compelling inside of me that it actually hurt.

That was many years ago

I've been given songs in my sleep as well.
The difficult part is to capture it in it's entirety.

A few of my originals came from dreams. If I could only remember more of them when I wake up.

What all are experiencing here is very common. It happens to thinkers about all subjects. I have found that if you go to bed with a tablet and a pocket recorder next to your bed. You can get these things down so in the morning you can put it together. The hard part is waking up out of bed and jotting it down or going into another room all sleepy and singing the verse - chorus into the recorder. You will loose sleep.

I think this is probably the best way to cure writers block. Sometimes the brain has so much info running through it that it doesn't have room/time to be artistic and inventive. If you have a flexible schedule, this can be a VERY good way to accumulate new material. Another thing I would suggest is always carry a pocket recorder especially if you do a lot of driving as I do. When your brain is not multi-tasking and generally doing one thing there is room for artistic thought. Ideas and songs will come when you are driving.

Try keeping a small notepad by the bed and try writing down your first thoughts every day for a week. Try to remain as relaxed as you can. No bright lights and as little movement as possible. With a little practice you'll get better at remembering dream type stuff as well as gaining better access to subconscious thought and ideas. Either that or you'll fill your recycling bin with a bunch of gibberish and piss off your partner.

I just have wet dreams myself!


If you have some sort of pocket recorder, you might try to force yourself to wake up and hum the melody, and even sing some of the lyrics.

Good Luck

This seems to be pretty common. I read in an interview with Billy Joel that he got some of his best songs in dreams. He would jump out of bed and play it immediately, next thing you know it's on the radio.

Oh wow! I didn't know so many people had the same thing happen to them! Also....with the voice thing....it's always a female voice and I think to myself when I wake up "Was that voice....me?" I am honestly not sure. I think what I will try doing is leaving my laptop on. I live in a dormitory so my laptop is like all of 5 steps if even that from my bed. And then I can record what I remember on Audacity or something.

The Spiritual Philosophy known as Theosophy has their take on this:

Whenever anyone falls asleep, his astral body goes out from his physical body; his soul then lives in the devachanic world (Deva=spirit, Chan=home).

Its harmonies make an impression on his soul; they vibrate through it in waves of living sound, so that every morning he wakes from the music of the spheres, and out of this realm of harmony he passes into the everyday world.

The composer translates into physical sounds the rhythms and harmonies which at night imprint themselves on his astral body. Unconsciously he takes his model from the spiritual world. He has in himself the harmonies which he translates into physical terms. This is the secret connection between the music which resounds in the physical world and the hearing of spiritual music during the night.


- you may shoot me now!

I have sleep apnea so I use that C-PAP machine at night. Helps immensley but the down side is that it's harder to remember my dreams. To me, dreams are just as important as events in real life so far as figuring out who you are.

Talbot

The Spiritual Philosophy known as Theosophy has their take on this:

Whenever anyone falls asleep, his astral body goes out from his physical body; his soul then lives in the devachanic world (Deva=spirit, Chan=home).

Its harmonies make an impression on his soul; they vibrate through it in waves of living sound, so that every morning he wakes from the music of the spheres, and out of this realm of harmony he passes into the everyday world.

The composer translates into physical sounds the rhythms and harmonies which at night imprint themselves on his astral body. Unconsciously he takes his model from the spiritual world. He has in himself the harmonies which he translates into physical terms. This is the secret connection between the music which resounds in the physical world and the hearing of spiritual music during the night.


- you may shoot me now!

We've all been robbing Elvis..while we sleep

puppy - Train yourself to do it. If Billy Joel and others can do it, you can. I've heard of other pro musicians who do the same thing, but can't remember any names.

Tell yourself, especially before going to sleep, you WILL get up and work on it. You will FEEL LIKE getting up and working on it. It's called mental training. Professional athletes do the same thing, Olympic competitors have been noticed imagining their runs, bobsled teams sitting there nowhere near a board but sitting in position and swaying as if making the run...

Same thing applies here. I never thought much of it but am trying to do some study on this right now. Your subconscious has a huge influence on your waking mind and body. It can do amazing things, such as heal serious ailments, allow you to walk on hot coals..(don't try that one at home folks...)

Start training yourself to get up ready to get to work. I guess Billy Joel didn't have to train himself, or maybe he did without knowing it early on. Or maybe he never even thought about it, just got up and did it.

You can do the same, but since you have trained yourself to be lazy, you need to undo that training and teach yourself to get up and go for it. No, I'm not calling you lazy overall, just stating a fact abotu this particular situation. Your mind has trained you to be groggy and listless and not get up and do something with what you just dreamed about.

I had a friend years ago who was like that, all his life. In his 20's he went out to the chicken yard to gather eggs and grabbed a chicken snake out of one nest one morning, still groggy. From that day forward he always woke up alert and ready to go...

Since nothing that extreme is likely to happen, you'll have to do it the tedious way. Just keep telling yourself you will, and it will happen but it will take time.