For the last seven, or even as many as eleven, months, I have been experiencing a very interesting form of synaesthesia. In the place of, or in the sidebands of, or transcending, rather, the 'sound' of music is this other experience of it. But I am not perceiving it as one of the other named senses, instead, it has its own, possibly quite unique, pathways into and through my mind. The closest I can come to describing it is that the oldest and youngest (evolutionarily speaking) parts of my brain are simultaneously stimulated and bathed in - in it. Whatever "it" is.

5/20/21

A friend:

"There is a concept called a 'sound bath', I think. The exact term escapes my tired mind. The total point for fully immersive music and/complex sound scapes in this theory is that it engages the vision/and imagination parts of brain function with the integrative logical/thinking/singing/technical parts that normally listen to music or sounds. The part that sings along, or analyzes the quality of the voice, etc.

"By engaging the vision and imagination, by getting a person to see and feel the sea scape, for example, the brain uses more connections at once. It’s trance like, or meditative, but the effect is actually a stimulation of neuropathways, and even creation of new ones.

"Sounds like that is something similar to your experience. The brain engaging with music more fully. "

Back to me:

That sounds about right in many ways.

I have probably "aggravated" it with the songwriting thing, just imagine how many parts of my brain get involved when I am playing, listening, "singing", concentrating hard on getting multiple different vocal and guitar parts right, and even thinking about possible changes/improvements in a free-associative way.

And, over the recent past, there has been a level of immersion in this process that might not occur during times with the availability of "normal" social opportunities.

Of course, what I am describing doing here ought to be pretty common among real musicians, maybe even such that they largely take it for granted. They might actually consider it the "normal", with everything else being a bit weird.

So, yeah. The "loaning" or "taking over" of parts of the brain that wouldn't ordinarily be involved just to increase the processing power. It makes sense.

And much like my hypothesis about deja vu being a case of cerebral packet mislabeling, some of this parallel processing "feels" like it is involving other senses, since it is literally using parts of the brain ordinarily reserved for them.

5/21/21

Fast forward to 5/26/21, I received a "birthday present" of a copy of Musicophila by Oliver Sacks from an old friend to enjoy. Very thoughtful indeed.