Posted by Tony P on May 23, 2003, at 2:03:46
In reply to Re: Anyone else hear music in their head all the ? » Snoozy, posted by Ritch on May 21, 2003, at 10:03:38
There do seem to be two or three different experiences being talked about here. I'm glad I'm not alone in having "O-CD" intrusive music! I hadn't related it directly to meds - I will have to keep track of that. Definitely worse with high stress/insomnia.
Sometimes the tune itself is REALLY annoying - with luck I can force a switch to something pleasanter, but the O/C nature persists, and often the original annoying tune cuts back in when I stop attending to the music.
I have also sometimes found an unexpected insight from a song stuck in my head or that I'm humming or whistling. When I pay attention and think about the words, often they are surprisingly relevant to my current emotional state and situation. My personal classic example was after a visit to my pdoc shortly after my girlfriend had dropped me, while I was consciously still mourning and feeling sorry for myself, I found I was whistling "I got along without you before I ever met you, I can get along without you now"!
>
> It seems to be several kinds of phenomena from what I can tell reading about this stuff here for awhile. Some folks feel it is definitely *intrusive* and unwanted, making them upset. That's the OCD-flavor I guess. I find it mildly annoying at most. In my own case it is mood-dependent/sleep-dependent which makes me think it is some kind of seizure-like phenomena related to my bipolar. Meds influence it greatly as well. SSRI's break it up into tight repetitions (closely spaced in time). Sleep-deprivation seems to just increase it generally. When I was unmedicated I could take an existing song and "tweak" it and change it, but I prefer things to be relatively quiet.
poster:Tony P
thread:227831
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030520/msgs/228512.html