Thread: Songs dissappear when I wake up!

I'm a musician too, and I've had the same experience before. Just offering an alternative way of looking at it though - do you think it's possible you're not actually hearing melodies, but instead you're imagining you can hear a really good tune?

I say this because I can't imagine why something that comes to you in near-dream state wouldn't come when fully awake, if you tried hard enough? If it's just before you fall asleep, chances are these 'melodies' are the beginnings of a dream, and seeing as you're a musician, a typical dream (the 'wish' definition of dream, in this case) would be finding the perfect melody, right? It's common to dream about things you deeply desire, so maybe your mind is just imagining you've thought up this tune?

I might be wrong, and I hope I am, but that's just my thought.

I'm pretty sure there are some melodies there, because I remember hearing them. Last time it happend, I had mye eyes closed and let the melody play over and over again, and I woke myself up and tried to sing it. It was impossible remembering it.
It's kinda plausible that it never happened, but in that case, my brain is screwing with me. I'm absolute certain that there were tunes!

That sucks man, but at least you know your brain has the capacity to think of these tunes! These melodies are rattling around in your brain somewhere, you just need to find them!

I wish I could be of more help, maybe meditation is the way forward?

You probably need something to trigger your memory. If you hear, see, or feel something that was in one of those dreams you might be able to remember them fully.

I never "meditated", but moSh may be right. It's worth trying, right?

Maybe you're waking yourself up too quickly. I don't know the specific nature of this situation at all, but perhaps if you gradually woke yourself up, making sure to keep the melody in your head, it would stay there.

Ive had a very similar problem but it was more to do with a lucid dream which ive had about 6 or 7 times now.

In the dream i have a kind of inbuilt music production tool, similar to the fruity loops or Reason programs you can get on PC. It lets me produce all these amazing uplifting trance riffs & melodies. I can picture the music layed out over the 16 bars and my mind just creates the instruments & sounds to be used. After im finished marveling at my new creation i say to myself i WILL remember this one so i can transfer it into the waking world but when i wake its just like a distant memory from decades ago and i cant remember the melody. In the dream its crystal clear as i play it back to myself.

Im starting to think it must be like mosh says where our mind fools itself into thinking its an amazing tune but in reality we're just imagining it.

I know exactly what you're talking about - often in my WBTBs I've layed and listened to brilliant guitar riffs, rhythms, entire songs being composed right that second as I'm falling asleep - but at soon as it registers that I should remember some of it and wake up - it's gone.

Perhaps, if you're looking to use it for music composition try something like Einstein used to. Late at night, sit in an arm chair and meditate - get to the light point of falling asleep where you will see and hear your music and then concentrate on the music. If you have the intent to remember and the concentration - I'm sure you will!

Just thought I'd let you know, something happened to me last night in a dream that relates to this thread. At one point in my dream, I heard a track by liquid drum & bass producer Netsky, but a remixed version. I'm pretty sure the remix was simply a mix of the original and another drum & bass track (probably from the youtube channel Liquicity, which I've been listening to a lot recently). In reality, this would sound terrible, and everything would clash - but I remember it sounding awesome! I think my mind was remembering the 'data' of these two tracks simultaneously, and though it felt like I heard them, I don't think hearing them properly would have led me to think they were as good as they seemed to be!

I reckon this might be relevant, and perhaps backs up my theory that you're not actually hearing tunes, you're justing imagining you're hearing them. But then again, it's no proof.

I've had this happen to me several times also. Once, in a lucid, I even found a piano with sheet music sitting on it. I sat down and played the music in my dream, but couldn't remember it later.

I think it is possible to dream a song and remember it later. Paul McCartney says this is how he wrote "Yesterday". It came to him in a dream. He was in a room with a piano in it, so he woke up and started playing the song immediately.

I think this is the key.

Just like dream journaling. Even if a dream is very clear and vivid when you wake up, sometimes if you don't write it down immediately it almost completely fades away. I think you would have to keep your instrument by your bed and start playing the song immediately on it when you wake up.

I think hypnagogia is very useful for this. I get it frequently, especially if i have been listening to a lot of new music throughout the day. I think it triggers the brain to start 'anticipating' melodies, rhythms etc.
So try exploiting the hypnagogic state?