Composing in my sleep or ... ?

Over the last couple of years, I've been hearing music in my sleep. Not music I know, but songs that are totally new to me. Like this afternoon, I took a nap and I "heard" almost a whole song, with lyrics and everything.

I must have been kind of drifting in and out of sleep, because it was kind of like a lucid dream: I knew that I was dreaming, so I paid particular attention to the song to try and figure out if it was something my mind was making up or if it was something I already knew. I figured if my mind was making it up, as soon as I started listening with purpose, the lyrics or the music would falter because that awareness would ruin it. But it didn't. The words kept flowing without a hitch (and they even made some sense) and the song was fully orchestrated. I knew exactly what the drums were doing, and the guitar, and the strings, and could detect each instrument's part separately, to the point where if I had been awake, I could have written down every note (if I could read and write music, that is). It's totally bizarre. When this happens, the melodies and the lyrics bear no resemblance to anything I can ever remember hearing in my life.

So am I composing in my sleep, or has my brain filed away entire songs that I heard once, with all the lyrics and instruments, to play them for me only in my dreams?

Mumut said:

you haven't bought an old wooden chest and have it in your bedroom, have you? There was a story of boys singing latin chants they heard coming from a medieval chest, somewhere in England. Spooky!

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Nope, there's been nothing external that could explain it. Sometimes I think I'm awake and that someone is playing the radio, then I really wake up and realize no one's home. It has to be in my head.

Albedo said:

I wish there was a way to record it.

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I know, me too.