music in dreams that doesnt exist

I've had incredible dreams where ive either been listening to something on the stereo or its just a soundtrack to my dream but the music doesnt actually exist in the real world...and its one of the best things ive ever heard (at least it seems so in the dream) sometimes, rarely though, right when i wake up, its still there in my head and it still sounds amazing but ive never been able to transfer that to something ive written. it fades away too fast. most of the time its gone right when i wake up.

i would think this has happened to most people who love music. i read that paul mccartney got the chords for 'yesterday' this way.

i had another one of these dreams last night where the music was my own and the dream had something to do with the upcoming p168. the 2 songs were incredible and now they are long forgotten.

how many of you have been able to take something that your subconscious has 'written' and turn it into your own music? ive been inspired by dreams to create songs, but if its a great melody in a dream, the melody is always lost before i can get it down.

i dont know how to read or transcribe notes, i cant really play any instruments with any skill whatsoever, any tips for not letting it fade away again?

Great thread.

I've had several dreams, it seems to help when you're spending the greater part of your waking life thinking about your music. One thing I've noticed too is that your creativity and random melodies popping up in your head seem to be far greater when you listen to as little music as possible aside from your recording.

I think you kind of become passive with music, just like watching the TV, if all you do is sit and listen to great mindblowing music, and then when you go and try to record something of your own you feel all "emptied up".

Usually I wake up in the middle of the night with a very distinct and usually great and innovative melody, but I always go back to sleep thinking I'll remember it, but never do. The sounds are usually very muffled, like filtered down sawtooth sounds, only "plucking" instead of like they're being pressed by keys. I have no doubt aphex twin dreamed some of the sounds in SAW 2, the sounds are usually very surreal, strange, eerie, not always pleasant.

I have this kind of mental block thing when it comes to making melodies; I always think the melodies have to be incredibly complex, like just a simple progression up or down is "too simple" even though that's basically what melodies are. The melodies I get around sleep are usually very simple but effective. It's kinda taught me that a good melody says alot with few notes.

One thing I've noticed is that creating a tune in "your head" before you sit down and play around with keys is a pretty good idea, instead of just sitting and randomly pressing keys until you stumble upon something, or go with a generic melody that you've played a thousand times before. It helps planning a feel etc. Definitely something I need to work more on. This may help with the creative aspect of the music coming to you as well, instead of vice versa.

Before I go to sleep, I make sure at least one music program is open with the qwerty keyboard available for midi input, "just in case". Reaktor preferably, so if I wake up in the middle of the night i can just get up and see if I can record the melody.

you bring up a lot of great points about music. thanks for that post. i do a lot of writing by experimentation rather than trying to sit down with an idea in my head already. i used to do it the other way around. both methods are good i think.

for me, it is far too rare that i actually wake up with the melody still in my head. distractions from the alarm clock or just moving on to a different dream are what keep me from remembering the melodies usualy. since sleep is such a different state of consciousness, its possible i wouldnt be as fond of the music in waking life. but the few occasions when i do remember the melody in the morning, it was still very good.

a dream recorder would be an excellent invention.

very true, although i want it, make this music please. thank-you

i've made some great melodies in my dreams before, but always forget them the next day. it sucks

maybe it would be a good idea to purchase a cheap old keyboard and a tape recorder for those occasions, keep it next to the bed.

  Derelic7 said:

Before I go to sleep, I make sure at least one music program is open with the qwerty keyboard available for midi input, "just in case". Reaktor preferably, so if I wake up in the middle of the night i can just get up and see if I can record the melody.

  androne said:

maybe it would be a good idea to purchase a cheap old keyboard and a tape recorder for those occasions, keep it next to the bed.

Man this sounds like a good idea!

ive always had a very repetative boc - gyroscope type beat going on in my dreams especially nightmarish ones, alot of the other stuff i remember is pure ambient and it also depends what noises are going on around me while im asleep such as a tv left on or animals outside, they can be incorperated into my dreams which i think is dead interesting.

I remember when I preordered Geogaddi and it arrived real early on a Saturday morning. I took it upstairs and went back to sleep but dreamt that I heard the album, it were flipping awesome and when I finally woke up I was humming the melody of one of the tracks for about an hour. Took me ages to realise that I hadn't even stuck the actual copy of Geogaddi in the CD player yet.

i sometimes remember the rhythms and am able to sequence something at least pretty close to what i was hearing in my dream. i havn't remembered or at least successfully translated a melody yet... which sucks because they always seem pretty cool.

as soon as i try to play a melody or re-create a sound like that it always goes. each wrong key i press sends the actual tune further away.

best thing i've dreamt is a full orchestral piece. it was really complex and it was just as i was drifting off so it wasn't even a dream really. i could see all the parts and had it all figured in my head, i wasn't just hearing the tune. i'm not good enough with notation to get up and try to write it down so i just thought fuck it, and that if it's in my head it'll come back to me again some day and went to sleep.

dreams are fucking wikkid.

  Josefmcb said:

as soon as i try to play a melody or re-create a sound like that it always goes. each wrong key i press sends the actual tune further away.

yes. i like androne's suggestion but just waking up and being disoriented would make me hit the wrong keys 10x worse than normal.

im thinking a dream expert might have some kind of insight as how to have better recall. i wish i knew someone.

yeah i was thinking about trying to do more lucid dreaming just because of this but then sometimes i think i don't want to know if i'm dreaming... you know?

i have nothing helpful to add, but this has reminded me of an amazing dream...

the apocalypse was upon us and there were only a handful of people left alive. myself and a few others were hiking up a mountain through debris and over bodies while the earth quaked and screamed in pain. we began humming a tune, subconciously influencing the remaining people on earth to hum the song along with us. the melody pulsated and grew until it was heard throughout the planet, resonated in my mind with an unheard of power, and the apocalypse ended.

i woke up, laughed, then cried. it was an amazing experience. the melody was so beautiful, words could not describe it.

thats a very poignant dream luke, and i guess it echoes the healing power of tunes and songs in the world, did you remember any of the melody??

i have had dreams before where i've heard the most unbelivably simple yet breathtaking melody, and sometimes i have attempted to recreate these with my midi keyboard, but it's never had the same effect even though i might be convinced the melody is identical to that in the dream.. i think our emotions are on a different level in the subconcious and we respond differently...but it'd be amazing to translate one of these and retain its original beauty and power

it's like before i've dreamt of the most complex beat ever which moves at a bpm of more than 1000 yet i can explore every nuance and complexity of the beat as though it's clear high definition images placed side by side forever there for my perusal

i rarely hear tracks in my head maybe because i'm not a hardcore ekt'r. i just remember the feelings of tracks i hear in my dreams mostly. i have made music in my dreams though, yeah.. usually involves a bunch of different sample sources, the feeling i get, maybe something like dj shadow's "preemptive strike"

i don't often dream with sound, but i've had two lately which were awesome.

one's an idea for a live performance which i can still remember...

the other was being at a renegade soundwave gig in a warehouse, which was frankly amazing. they were playing with 3 drum kits all synced off each other perfectly, with turntables, a mixing desk, and gary asquith on vox, playing cocaine sex. and then i woke up and remembered that they split up about 11 years ago, and got disappointed...

anyway, i digress. yea. rock on.

i find this sort of stuff really interesting, especially given the way people say drugs help to expand and enhance your brains in odd ways... like, my best example of this was being shrooms and hearing a full symphonic orchestra playing this ditty... i asked people if they heard it too but it was in my head... and it was really crisp... and at will, i could bring in other parts like woodwind, timpani etc... or all together ... and i kept experimenting with it in my head by making a full track, and all the time i was thinking 'omg, i have to remember this', but of course it was impossible.

it got to the point where i had full orchestral tracks going on and on and it was actually very fun, i had full control over it... and it all sounded so clear in my head, as if i was actually hearing it!!! the funny thing was, was that i then tried to do other things (other than sit in a chair with an inane grin) there were still violins playing in the background softly and it got really annoying! it was truely quite amazing... of course it could just of all been me remembering classical music i'de heard in a oddly visceral way...

but this was probably my best drug experience evar...

as for dreaming riffs etc... i don't really do that as such... it's mainly concepts and overall compositions i dream and try to remember... stuff i can't really explain.

I dreamt this orchestra idea once and once when I was outside walking I suddenly remembered it. Like 4 bars of a beginning orchestra: I still remember every aspect of it. It's really beautiful, could definitely be part of a movie soundtrack or something of those likes if I could record it.

I haven't got the guts to try and record it though, partially becaue I don't know if I could play every chord and note the way it's played, plus that the piece had a female vocal.

I think I tried it once with the piano instead of the female vocal and it sounded great. Let's just say i'm lazy. I dunno what to do. I could experiment with some scales and chords and see if i come up with the song. Just that once when I tried

I've suffered from this too. I've had a few dreams that involved some awesome little tunes, often with very trancendental lyrics. But only five minutes after waking up, they're gone.

It'd probably be best to get a keyboard or something similar. So you could quickly get them down. Although actually recognising notes would be just as helpful.

Great thread.

i don't make music but i've had this happen numerous times as well. the best one was a dream where i was walking over a mountain ridge and this finger picked acoustic guitar melody started echoing through the valley and up to where i was. i woke up humming it and then immediately forgot how it went. it's infuriating really.

i think the same thing occurs with words in dreams as well...i've had people talk to me and they're speaking pure poetry, so i'll wake up and if i remember it i'll write it down but it simply doesn't make sense, where in the dream it was perfect. i think with this kind of thing it's all reliant on subjective context. the dream falls apart as soon as you try to make it concrete in the real world.

Last night i dreamt of programming a 303 and a 909 and made an amazing tune. I mean, I distinctly remember programming the thing and the 909 in a very slow and compicated process and it turned out great. I remembered it in the morning and still remember just a little bit.. It's way too complicated to even try and start imitating it.

TS Pitch-To-Midi Convertor

Digital Ear

MIDI Yoke, for routing the MIDI output of one program (i.e the above two) to the input of another (i.e Cubase, Live etc..)

Terratec Axon AX100 Mk2 Guitar-To-Midi Convertor (w/monophonic audio input)

If you can hum or whistle your melody, these will get it into your synth or sequencer with surprising accuracy. I've tried out the first two sofware packages, and after tuning them and trying out various microphones and preamps, got great results. I'd love to hear how the Terratec guitar synth handles a microphone, I expect it will be even better.

fuuuuuuuucckkking hell. i cant afford it... but if i ever get hold of that program...... LOL!!