Beautiful, Vivid music...

[brisck1]

Hi everyone,

Over the past 6 months i've been experiencing something quite unusual and rather amazing, I'm not sure quite how to catergorise it but I think the closest would be some for of lucid dreaming perhaps.

Basically what usually happens is, after a long period of sleeping of ususally 5-6 hours, I will wake up briefly and then drift into a wierd state of conciousness where I believe I am not dreaming or fully awake, but am perfectly aware and concious.

Now the strange thing is that during this time I have begun to experience beautiful music. Originally I would simply think about an existing song or composition and I could hear it back in amazing clarity, with every note and lyric being perfectly recreated. It was an incredibly pleasent and relaxing experience and would always awake after, often in total bewilderment.

Over the past couple of months I also have leaned that I can also create and manipulate completely original music in realtime. For example I can think to start off with a violin solo and build into a full orchestral piece. I can also change/morph the music to any genre, for example, classical to rock, rock to dance etc. It's amazing! The latest progression has been that I can create completely original vocals and lyrics to go with the music. The last experience I had, I was amazed at how everything rhymed perfectly and how the lyrics had such deep and emotional meaning.

What's most amazing to me about all this is that i've never played a musical instrument in my life and am not even what i'd call a 'musical person' and Im having trouble coming to terms with how exactly my brain is even capable of creating such vivid, intricate and moving music in realtime without a single fault. The only downside is, like some dreams, the music fades from memory quickly but the memory of the experience is very strong.

I have been thinking about these experiences a lot recently and am beginning to wonder if this strange phenomenom is limited to music. Im a 3d Environmental artist by profession and am planning to see if I can summon up imagery as well as music to inspire me in a recent project im undertaking. Currently when creating the music there is no imagery only darkness, its kind of like sitting and listening to your ipod with your eyes closed.

Im really curous as to whether I am the only one having this type of experience? or even if anyone can help explain what is going on?

Thanks!
Rob

[Stillwater]

I can't really offer an insight.

I can tell you, however, that I have accidently fallen asleep before with music on speakers, or someone has turned on softly playing music while I have been asleep, and the results are always spectacular. The music is always integreated into my dreams somehow- sometimes I experience a sort of opera where the music playing is the score to some highly dramatic story, and when the song changes, the direction of the story will change.

I once dreamt of a misunderstood artist ( I know, original) who was dying in his attic, but desperately wanted to finish his painting  so that the people who found him would have something to remember him by. When the song changed, there was a strong emotion of of trying to capture fleetingly abstract impressions, and then finally gentle resignation, and suddenly the next scene was him lying collapsed in front of his canvas, with the light of dawn falling over him, the soundtrack treading the ambiguity between gentle loss and the sublimation of the day.

So I would recomend falling asleep to light music if you could sometime 

[anguisette]

I've had the exact same experience.  When I'm drifting off to sleep (and sometimes during a lucid dream) I hear the most hauntingly beautiful music.  If it's a song I've heard in my waking life, I'm as affected by it as I was the first time I heard it.  It seems to have so much more depth and meaning.

I've also had similar experiences to what you've mentioned, where I'm able to change and create music and lyrics just by 'thinking' at the music. Sometimes it brings me to tears because I know I'll forget it as soon as I wake up.  I wish there were a way of recording these things.

I feel like I must be tapping into something outside of myself when this happens, since I'm hopless at composing music or thinking of lyrics when I'm awake.  Maybe the music comes from the collective unconscious or one of the astral realms.

[Timandra]

@Rob
These are really beautiful experiences that you had, I wish I had them. However, I sometimes also hear beautiful music in my dreams or while I am waking up. Sometimes a woman singing, or pianomusic or a melody on the Native American flute. I try to remember them very hard, and sometimes I can recall one melody line because I can define the intervals between the notes and I can recognise the rhythm. But it's still difficult, I can never remember the whole song. I never tried to change the music though, might try it.  

[asheen]

Hi
What fantastic experiences. Sounds like you are having some astral recall. Maybe you have the ability to do some wonderful healing with your new found talent.

I had an experience related to this, but it was a friend that was creating the music. I had a dream/astral recall a few years ago, but the feeling has stayed with me very strongly, it was so profound. I rang my friend the next day and told her about it and she was very open as she is into astral projection etc but she found it hard to believe it was her because she is not at all musically inclined (same as you).

The interesting thing is that just a few weeks ago, she had a conscious experience where she was working on healing a situation where a group of people were experiencing some discord and conflict. While doing this she heard amazingly beautiful music and knew that she was creating it to heal the situation. What she described to me is very similar to what I remembered from my dream/astral recall.
She is now working with this in a more conscious way.

Below is a copy of what I recorded of my dream at that time:
I dreamt that I was in a main street in a large city and it was fairly crowded. There were lots of people and they were becoming quite aggravated for some reason. I felt uneasy about the situation because it was becoming quite chaotic and the general atmosphere was quite aggressive. I was concerned that the situation would soon degenerate into violence.

I looked across the road and saw that there were some friends on the other side of the road. I noticed one friend in particular and as I looked across at her, she began to "sing", but this was singing such as I had never heard before. It was the most beautiful, harmonious and ethereal sound I had ever heard and it was profoundly affecting and moving. It spoke to inner parts of you. It didn't seem like she was singing in words, yet I knew the "song" that she was singing. It was familiar and I had an understanding of what she was doing.

The effect on the crowd was amazing. The "song" had calmed everyone and therefore the situation and I knew that the crisis that had been building had dissipated. People just quietly moved on and continued on their way, with no disturbance. They had no memory of the aggressive and potentially violent situation that had been developing.

I was very relieved and thankful that the situation had been healed, for that was the intent behind the "singing". I was also very appreciative of having heard such an amazingly wonderful "song". When I woke up, I couldn't recall any type of melody but the feeling of the beauty and harmony of the singing stayed with me.

Another friend that is very accomplished at astral projection said this about it when I told her about my dream - "This was actually an astral experience that was reinterpreted by the mind as a dream, this being the only way recall of it could be brought back to the physical at the time. The "song" was a way of healing a violent and harmful situation that would have occurred in the physical world. "

[BlueTone]

Hello!!
         I enjoyed reading your experience. It reminded me of something i used to LOVE doing when i first got into Lucid Dream practice. I'm a Musician......Guitar/Piano/Vocalist and i absolutely LOVE writing music. I would get into that In between state that you describe, and i would think of a song i was currently working on, and without any effort at all, I would hear it in full orchestration. Beautiful rhythm, lead, a vocalist i never heard before, but i absolutely LOVED it......It was one of the ways i would decide whether or not to trash the song, Or keep it, because it gave me the opportunity to hear it at its full potential.

         Anyone that is a musician, I have always recommended this as a form a practice. Its almost like hearing a song you just put together, On the radio, In full stereo, by the best band you can think of ^_^..

Congratulations! 

~Za Hourou Iki

[horaciocs]

I have studied quite a bit of music composition and also have these experiences, I find it simply amazing. The sound is so genuine it makes me want to throuw away all my headphones, they seem all so vain next to these experiences.

I usually have these experiences when going to sleep. In the beginning, I would pick up some noise from the house (any noise, be it something falling to the ground, footsteps on the floor, people talking or laughing, anything) and my mind would turn it into something "sampleable" and would create different patterns for it, add different pads and create a harmony that turned into some really nice electronic music in my head.

Later on, I began recalling songs I know and hear them as perfectly as it is possible to hear a song (perfect replay of the song, timing, tuning, sound quality). It was awesome.

Even later on, I began to think of some jazz tunes I know, keep the harmony part and begin to improvise on the piano inside my head. That was absurdly awesome, my "inner piano" had the most amazing sound quality, was perfectly tuned and the composition always came out outstandingly good.

I don't know exactly where it comes from, but it certainly isn't exclusive to music. I think it involves all creative processes. I believe it is possible that spirits from artists may contact us in this form, if they find it appropriate and have the ability to, and pass on to us some of their ideas and, why not, solutions to many of our problems.

[grzazek]

I've had experiences where I think in music, like each thought has pitch, direction, rhythm etc. It's a beautiful experience at the time isnt it? I wish it were something we could hold on to

[Stillwater]

I know! That definitely happens to me as well. It is like each thought or emotion has a chord color to it. I wish I could hold it in memory and write them all down, I am sure it would be incredible.

The 19th century German Philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer felt that it was primarily through two types of experiences that we are able to sublimate our mundane lives and connect with transcendent forces: ascetic and meditative practices, and aesthetic rapture, chiefly music. I think I agree for the most part. For me, I think the most powerful experiences come when the two are combined, such as when music becomes an object of meditative concentration, or when one plays music as an act of meditation itself, such as in the Japanese art of Shakuhachi flute playing.

[mels8780]

I can do this awake. Make patterns of
Music atleast. I don't know about 5 minutes worth of varied enough music. But I can make melodies and music and such awake. It's rather entertaining when I remember to do it or think about it.

[Pharoah]

Why not try some of the techniques used to recall APs/LDs?  I don't know any off the top of my head, but there are plenty of techniques out there to help strengthen your recall of such experiences.  If it works, you could possibly buy yourself a few moments to hum the tune into a digital recorder, or if you are proficient with writing music, jot it down on music paper.

[Contenteo]

The state you are in has been referenced as "the void." Frank talks about it quite a bit in his postings. It is essentially entering the training zone(f22) with a mindset of complete nothingness. You should be able to create music, listen to in surround sound. And even manifest visual imagery if you put your intent in the right place.

This is fun stuff.

Cheers,
Contenteo

[Jilt]

I've heard full blown original symphonies to Aretha Franklin singing "Respect" (appropriate at the time) to the point now where I chant or sing whenever I have an OOBE because it always makes the experience better (and keeps me lucid longer - I think it's a combination of breathing slower/deeper and having something to focus on that is not my own fearful/normal thoughts).

To accompany the music I've had the most incredible visuals -- from flying through white puffy clouds to lately seeing classic Buddhist mandalas (instead of them being static they are animated which makes them pretty trippy and wonderful).

Enjoy and experiment by singing/playing along and see what happens.

[Lizelle]

Yes, I've had occasional musical dreams and I'd give anything to "record" them. Usually just a single song, but also longer dreams involving a whole album's worth of original songs written by me, or a long psychedelic piece of the most amazing dimensions. Unfortunately they all fade from memory rather quickly once I wake up. Except one. It was a dream involving my daughter's school production. In the dream, a student died just before the first performance, and the music was quickly added to commemorate her. I clearly heard the verses and the chorus, and it's stayed with me. I'm "musically educated" but haven't really played an instrument since high school.
Also when I'm in that half-awake state, rhythmic patterns sometimes form in my head. A riff, if you will, or the basis for a song.

[Pharoah]

There is this guy right here who claims that all of the music on the album I'm about to link came "down to" him.  He writes:

"The compositions came down to me. I did not know what I was doing at all! All I know was that I played the notes randomly following my senses! So I thought to entitle the album Spirit to explain the best, why and how they were composed!"

I guess he is probably talking about the same thing you guys are experiencing.

Anyway, here is the link http://zusician.weebly.com/

[donzieja]

Rob,

I am a musical person myself. Music is not sound, noise, or a series of notes, but rather a language. I remember how a few times I would hear music as I was in the borderland sleep/wake state, and it was phenomenal. It was like it was made just for me, because I was the only person I knew who would have had the patience to listen to it for such extensive periods of time... It made me feel like I was not just a number, I was me, and I was part of the web of life that always, somehow manages to intertwine with the lives of every other thing, thought, action or spoken word. I wish I could recreate the piece, but am fearful that you will not find as much meaning in is as I. I think I will anyway, just to satisfy any curiosity.