Dreaming in music

[Deeply Satisfied]

So I have musical friends who talk about dreaming in music.  Having music in real time going through their head while they sleep.  Some claim to compose in their sleep, dreaming up entire compositions.  Don't know if I believe this or not.  Is this a real and normal thing?  Do any of you experience this?

[Ludwig Van Rachabji]

Yes.... but:

I once dreamt up a movement of a symphony and was writing it down in my dream. It was perfect. The orchestration was perfect, the melody was perfect, the chords I chose were perfect... everything was perfect. Then, I woke up, and everything was lost. I had not remembered anything. This has happened several times.

[alextryan]

I've had the same thing happen several times, always in half-sleep either waking up or falling asleep.  As Ludwig describes, it is free-flowing and perfect, exactly expressive of what I want to say musically, and I can never hold on to more than wisp once I've awoken.  At least, no more than I could any other piece I had just heard once.  It's a thrill, it's hope-inspiring and it's terribly frustrating. 

[pianonut]

interesting.  i've had the same experience.  i think it was toward the end of getting my bachelor's degree, and we were doing a lot of theory, etc.  i was really getting into it, and was completely dismayed that i couldn't remember my dream music either.  expanding upon a motive is getting easier for me now.  i'm up to two pages.  of course, some of my transitions are grimaceable.

[Motrax]

I once dreamt of improvising a fugue at the piano with one of my friends. I remembered enough to scribble down three or four measures after I woke up, but when I played it at the piano the notes I wrote sounded nothing like the ones in my deram. It is frustrating. Oh well.

[will]

No, this doesn't happen to me.

However, I have heard that once a famous somebody dreamt of the most beautiful melody, woke up in the middle of the night wrote it down and went back to sleep. When they woke up and replayed what they wrote down they were distraught to find it was not there own composition but that of a famous composer! Has anyone else heard this story and recall who the famous person and composer were?

[whynot]

Great topic!  I have musical dreams all the time.  It's my lifelong recurring nightmare about being in a musical or opera and not knowing the show.  In the dream, I'm a singer--which I'm not--and usually have to dance--which I can't-- well, it really is a nightmare.  So the story in the dream is always that I don't know the music and have to learn it backstage between acts, but then on another level of dreaming I'm making up the music, too.  It's never any good, though.   

[mound]

I dream in music all the time.  once I start dreaming a piece I'm working on is when I know I'm really beginning to internalize it.

I also dream improvising, especially back when I was playing bass in a band, I would hear the band in my sleep playing music beyond what we have ever played.

remembering it after the fact, unfortunately, is never possible, so nothing useful comes from it.

This girl (not a pianist) claims to write all of her music while lucid dreaming, with full retention, brings it right to the studio and tracks it after.

-Paul

[willcowskitz]

This girl (not a pianist) claims to write all of her music while lucid dreaming, with full retention, brings it right to the studio and tracks it after.

I got a superb idea! Let's all claim we are somehow eccentric with our creative powers and then let's use it to promote ourselves commercially.

Anyway, I checked the site, the "dream music" section, gallery (made me crack up) and music samples. The last section (supposely the highest priority, eh?) was especially funny after all the mysterious and enticing (some people would just call them flat) descriptions of her oh-so-potent dreams.


Regarding the topic itself, I do "dream music" but it doesn't require the sleeping state. Actually the best moments in creating music "on the fly" have occured in between waking and dream state. Somehow when we've shut ourselves from the exteriour world well enough we're able to flawlessly communicate with ourselves in form of music. Its interesting to think that the most creative geniuses of our history were probably in a similar state of mind constantly. Wouldn't you put everything else aside and start writing it down? Its of  course natural for us to think that somehow the power to create is something that one just possesses or doesn't, and those who do get it all easy and free and those who don't will just vanish in between the pages of history. Another thing is to start consciously developing oneself towards this state of mind that so flawlessly allows us to pour our feelings out and maybe into something concretic. That requires determination, and determination requires self-consciousness, which requires self-exploring, which is made possible by being boldly creative, which together with determination results in beauty to be shared with the whole humanity.

[mound]

Anyway, I checked the site, the "dream music" section, gallery (made me crack up) and music samples. The last section (supposely the highest priority, eh?) was especially funny after all the mysterious and enticing (some people would just call them flat) descriptions of her oh-so-potent dreams.

Hah! Yeah, I'm not too impressed by her music, but it is what it is.. She's easy on the eyes, that's for sure

[alvaro_galvez]

This happens to me a lot. But as well as in dreams I also get compositions when Im wide awake, and right when Im composing. Its like I get this in my head, so I play it but as I play it the next part just pops up, and the next, and the next without even thinking. Its like I have known the music all along but its something I´ve never played. Like I already know whats coming next without any effort.
Its a shame I dont write it down and get stuck halfway...

[Muzakian]

Sometimes I compose in my head in the middle of the night out of sheer boredom (I'm a bit of an insomniac), but when the semi-conscious state of delirium has passed the next day I realise what rubbish it was
Perhaps meaningless drivel can sound full of profundity in our dreams? But then I wouldn't know... I can't recall dream-composing. I have had dreams where my pianistic technique amazingly rivals Hamelin though.

[willcowskitz]

Perhaps meaningless drivel can sound full of profundity in our dreams?

That is also true. In dreams we go through part of the learning process and solve our personal psychological issues, hence why they, including the artistically articulated side of them, is highly subjective and reactive to slightest changes in our feelings and emotions. When we *are* the music, there is no broader perspective on it's logical structure, no matter how much sense it seems to make to ourselves in that short moment in time. However, "dream composing" is still a wonderful way to open the creative channel that we all have, when we communicate with ourselves by articulating those issues and emotions in form of music and it affects us.

[Derek]

I've often dreamt music, but its often when playing an instrument I've never seen before, or  this one dream here I climbed a huge tree and every branch I grabbed sounded a huge organ tone. Often I improvise at a piano in my dreams, but generally just about as good as I do when I'm awake. Once or twice I have used something I came up with in a dream when I woke up...usually just a melody or simple idea.