Composing in your sleep...

[Songbird]

Might sound a bit strange but does anyone ever compose in their sleep? I get the odd lyric and a chord structure every now and then but last night I had this song played on the mandolin and it was frustrating because it was more than I can play in real life.
I've only been playing about 7 months and can't play a lot. Whatever I was playing in my dream was quite a fast Bach style piece and I just couldn't get it down when I woke up. I absolutely loved the sound of it but I couldn't get it from my brain to my hands to my instrument. You always know you have a very limited time to try and get this down. It feels like a matter of seconds when your dream and reality state are seamless and the connection is enough to note it down or play it.

Anyone else have these dreams?

[John Flynn]

Tommorrow is my 52nd birthday. I de-compose in my sleep! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[JimD]

Oh, yes, I have these experiences and I both love and hate them. #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif # http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

My solution (though I haven't tried it yet) is to learn techniques of lucid dreaming so that perhaps I can #consciously identify more of what I was doing or hearing and thus be able to recall it in the light of day.
Could work...

There has been much written about this phenomenon. the subconscious has a very strange influence on creativity. Ideas come to us in a wide variety of different ways, both conscious and unconscious.

Many composers claim to have gotten their best, and in some cases, most well known pieces that way. My own most successful pieces are those that I remember the least about their actual composition.

Not exactly the same thing -- there is a letter from Mozart to his father saying that he composed the first movement of his new symphony while playing billiards, then (this is my faorite part) later WHILE COMPOSING THE 2ND MOVEMENT, HE ORCHESTRATED AND WROTE DOWN THE 1ST.

Stravinsky (I think) claimed that he wasn't really the composer but the conduit for a piece that was composed THROUGH him.

As a composer, I have a great interest in these processes and my wife has an interest in other areas of Psychology. #If you are interested, I could chase down a few book titles for you.

[justwrite]

My teenage dream was to be a songwriter, not that I've done much of it as an adult. But once I dreamed I was at my old piano teacher's house and Emily Lou Harris was singing a song that I wrote. When I woke up, I couldn't remember the song!

[Ted Eschliman]

Not so much when I sleep, but certainly when I swim...
I alternate daily long distance running with swimming to maintain my rapidly deteriorating middle-age physique. I go from 30-40 minutes, and between the sensory deprivation of the pool and the heightened aerobic state, I do my best thinking and writing then.
Some of my best ideas come from out of the water.
Go endorphins!!!
(Or is that, go in dolphins...)

[ShaneJ]

I've written a couple of my best songs in my sleep. Heck, I've probably written a LOT of really good ones dreaming. Most of the time, though, I don't remember them well enough. If I don't wake up and write it down, it's usually history.

[Flowerpot]

Yea, I've done that. Woke up in the middle of playing a song that I'd never heard before, wrote it down. A couple of them were songs that worked really well for church band, so I chalk them up to divine inspiration. A few nights ago, I dreamed I was playing with IIIrd Tyme Out, filling in for their mandolin player for one show, and went through the most of a set, playing every note in my sleep, some tunes from their albums and some I'd never heard yet. Woke up during the final number, which was a cranking gospel tune in G... forgot to write it down! What a great dream though; the sound through the monitors was spot-on, and I was playing my new mando (which is under construction now) and it sounded killer.

[JimD]

Flowerpot,

Let's hope that your dream is one that predicts your future.

[J. Mark Lane]

Tommorrow is my 52nd birthday. I de-compose in my sleep! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif
Hah! That's funny. Happy Birthday, Johnny.

I dream songs all the time, but rarely manage to remember them well enough to do anything with them. Oddly, I also dream pages of books. In the dreams, I am reading page after page after page, and in the dreams, I know what the books are saying and it all makes sense to me. Rarely do I remember.

Dreams...fascinating stuff. The stuff of our innermost being. Stuff we almost never get to really see....

[Emmiemando]

What's really weird with me is that I'll be writting a song and then get a brain fart. So I leave it be for a while. THen, while I'm falling asleep I run through the song in my head and I get a new idea. SO............I must get up and write it down. SO I do and then get back in my bed. Run through the song again and get more ideas. It's a very tiring process!!!!http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
But yes, that has happened to me-give or take a few hours.
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[J. Mark Lane]

Hey Emmie,
Do you ever write the exact same song twice?
Mark

[Songbird]

Thanks for the replies, very interesting to read http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif and cool to hear other people do the same thing too. I always remember hearing Paul McCartney's Yesterday was from a dream.

[springer_spaniel]

J. Mark --- I "read" books in my sleep also... Very good ones as a matter of fact .... but can never rememebr them enough to write them down by the time I have showered.

Very frustrating ... but kind of fun. Unfourtunately, the mandolin muse doesn't hit me the same way.

If I have a fever when sick, I keep reading the same page over and over all night. Does this happen to you also ? Would be curiuos to hear if this a common occcurance. Maybe certain personalities dream in similar ways ?

[mandocaster]

A couple of months ago I had a very vivid dream. Some kind of cool musician dude was telling me that what I needed was a giant pop hit. I agreed, and he obligingly played a tune that I thought was really great.

I woke up and the melody was still seared into my brain. As soon as I got out of bed I got my mandolin and some notation paper and wrote it down. I think I got it pretty accurately. The only problem was that it is a really boring song. I tried to teach it to my band, but no one was interested.

Oh, well...

[Harrmob]

I learned "Flop Eared Mule" the other night right before I went to bed. Apparently I had the song in my head the entire night as I slept. My wife woke me up b/c I was chomping my teeth together real loud to the melody of Flop Eared Mule (strange but true). I had to laugh when she woke me b/c she said I was chomping my teeth making it sound like a horse, I said "no, honey it's a mule." I didn't bother explaining.

[John Bertotti]

I ask for what I want to dream, in my head not out loud, and most of the time I get it. If I know I want to remember my dream I tell myself out loud before I fall asleep that in the morning I will remember my dream and invariably I do. Careful what you ask yourself or the powers that be, to dream. I verbalized a dream I wanted and woke up very tired and bruised. Great dream but I'm convinced it was quite dangerous. John

[mandodebbie]

I remember all kinds of tunes, including Classical in my dreams. They often awaken me, and I have a hard time falling to sleep as a result. I have suffered a sleep disorder for about ten years, so it really is no picnic. On the other hand, have had some really profound dreams were I have been attempting to chat with some composer, but they aren't really interested in talking to me. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

[TommyK]

Hey SONGBIRD,
Have you thought about hanging a 'dream catcher' near the bed?

Serilusly though, why not try this:
Keep a recorder next to your bed. One of those little battery powered hand-helds. They're really cheap on garage sales with the release of the new fangled electronic recorders. #I have one all cued up, ready to record with the push of a button if I come up with a really cool idea at night. Become real familiar with it so you don't have to hunt for the REC button when you wake up.
When you first wake up hum the tune and record it immediately. #Our brain, for some reason, quicky scrambles the details of a dream upon waking up.... # http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif I don't know why. #If we concentrate, we CAN remember some of the details. #But by the time you wake up your mando and find a pick, Songbird's 1st symphony has turned to 'Go tell Aunt Rhodie'. #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif #If you can record it before your mind scrambles it, you might just salvage the gist of the song. #You can fill in the blanks later.
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/coffee.gif