Earworms — and the power of radio
Friends, you may have an earworm and not realize it. Check out the program I've linked below.
I have one -- have had it most of my life.
Earworms are tunes or snippets of music or speech that get stuck in your head and repeat like a broken record ("broken record" -- wow, that really dates me, doesn't it?). They are related to musical hallucinations and manifest differently in different people. Sometimes they are associated with disease or injury or, as in my case, with no particular event that can be identified.
Thankfully, my earworm has been pretty dormant lately, but in some periods of my life I was tortured by earworms. When they weren't causing insomnia, the sticky tunes would play in the background while I slept, and I'd awaken to the same song that was playing when I fell asleep.I tried all kinds of techniques to stop my earworms. Sometimes I could stop one tune by substituting it for another -- but then the new melody would become the tormentor. An anti-depressant helped for a while, but then its side effects became the problem. Being at work and engaging with people pushed the earworm into the background. But it would resurface as soon as I'd be alone.Listening to the radio show made me realize how fortunate I've been; earworms and musical hallucinations affect many others far more seriously, taking over and ruining their lives. Mine is a minor problem compared to theirs.
I was stuck by the attempts of neuroscientists, doctors and psychologists to grapple with the malady. One psychotherapist would look for the hidden significance of the songs that got stuck in his head -- for example, "My Bonny lies over the ocean... oh bring back my Bonny to me..." was, to him, his way of lamenting the loss of his wife, who had passed away. He said it started on the anniversary of her death; he ended up making friends with the song, because it somehow brought his late wife closer.
Listening to the program brought tears to my eyes at several points: the Holocaust survivor who heard Nazi marching songs in her head, year after year...the man who became an orphan at a young age and was haunted (yet comforted) by lullabies repeating in his head for the rest of his life.
It's encouraging to see the emergence of some breakthroughs of understanding and treatment of this mysterious and perverse, invisible and silent (to others) malady. Eg, the guy whose brain symphonies instantly disappeared after he had a cochlear implant. At this stage of my life, and with my earworm behaving itself, I'm not looking for treatment. Inner peace remains evasive, but growing.
Anyway, the Radio Lab segment is worth listening to whether or not you have an earworm. Enjoy! The power of media! The power of radio!