Observations on the Perpetual Music Track

Charles T. Tart

Volume 13, Number 6 (2006) of the Journal of Consciousness Studies
arrived in
the mail a while ago, and, after a quick glance at the table of
contents, I put
it aside until I had time for serious reading. I thought I would
probably be
interested in Steven Brown's article on "The Perpetual Music Track: The
Phenomenon of Constant Musical Imagery."

As I started dinner last night I decided I had time for some serious
reading.
As I reached for the Journal, my personal Perpetual Music Track (PMT)
instantly
switched from whatever tune it had been playing to looping the first
line of the
theme from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:

Oh Ho Hi He, Hi Ho, It's Off To Work We Go…..

while an undetailed visual image of the seven dwarfs, picks and shovels
over
their shoulders, marched off into some corner of my mind. What more
apt
representation of my mental intentions could there be? And perhaps a
prediction
that this was going to be work…

My mental version has drifted from the original I heard in the film
more than 50
years ago ("Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Its Off to Work We Go"), but I'm sure the
tune is
right, even if my words have changed slightly.

Reading Brown's article, I at last discovered my "diagnosis." I have
(pick any
or all of the following) (1) got, and/or (2) been cursed with, and/or
(3) been
blessed with PMT. Life has not been a silent movie for me, it usually
has a
rich and varied sound track. Now I have a scientific sounding acronym
for it,
PMT, which is cool!

As Brown reports that his is the first and only serious scholarly
article on
PMT, I will share some observations of my personal experience,
collected over
many years as part of a general project of attempting to understand my
own mind
better, thereby doubling the scholarly literature. I'll generally
write in the
mode of number one, above, I've "got" it, and will try to comment on it
neutrally and as objectively as possible. But there have been many
occasions,
mostly in years past, when the second perspective has been strong and
I've felt
I've been "cursed" with PMT: these have been times when I've wanted my
mind to
be quiet, as in practicing various forms of meditation in order to see
more
deeply into myself, and here's some idiot song using up my mental
capacity! I
also believe that most of the time I'm "blessed" with PMT, as it adds a
generally cheerful emotional tone to the rest of life.

This report can be read on its own, but will be much richer if the
reader has
first read Brown's article.


Frequency:

For most of my life my PMT has indeed been "perpetual," in the sense
that if I
am not concentrating on some other internal process or engaged in
external
sensing and responding, a song will start up, usually just one to a few
initial
lines, and begin to loop. Sometimes these loops will go on for minutes
or
hours, but often a new song will come in and displace the previous one.
Since
learning some basic vipassana meditation skills some years ago, mostly
from
Shinzen Young (www.shinzen.org), I can now have long (minutes to
occasionally
hours) periods without the PMT background if I wish to. Left to
itself, though,
my mind will almost always be playing some music.


Choice and Content:

The "decisions," if such they be, as to what music or song will play in
my PMT
are usually not a conscious process. Some song starts, another song
eventually
takes its place, "I" have not had anything to do with most of these
choices that
I know of, they just happen without conscious intent on my part.
Sometimes an
external stimulus will be clearly responsible for the choice, sometimes
the song
that starts will be related to what I'm consciously thinking about in
an obvious
way.

Occasionally I will deliberately wonder why I'm hearing a particular
song on my
PMT that does not have an obvious relation to what I'm sensing or
thinking, and
with more examination will see that it is actually a relevant comment
or
addition to my conscious thought and feelings. The song theme might
reveal an
emotional undertone to conscious thoughts that I hadn't been aware of,
for
example. As a psychologist, I'm inclined to attribute causality to my
"unconscious mind" in such cases, although some of these relationships
may be
either coincidence or a rationalization on my part.


Control:

I can deliberately decide on a song I want to start and the PMT will
usually
pick up on it and start looping it. If there is already a persistent
song
going, though, I have to keep exercising some conscious intention or
the PMT
will revert to looping the previous song or switch to a new one of its
own
choice instead of the one I've consciously chosen.

At this point in my life, with some skill in concentrative and insight
meditation, I can usually deliberately stop the PMT if I wish.
Sometimes it
will stay stopped, but often it starts again in a few moments after I
stop
consciously intending for it to stop.

If my PMT is looping on some song or music that annoys me and is very
persistent, my efforts to stop it sometimes have almost no effect: I
can't quiet
my PMT. In such cases the only effective way to stop it is not to
actually stop
the PMT but to "switch records," to deliberately start a more congenial
tune
going that I don't mind being stuck on as much. It may take repeated
efforts,
as the PMT repeatedly reverts to the original, annoying tune, but can
be done.

There is one situation in which it is almost impossible to stop my PMT,
short of
a continuous effort of will or strong outside distraction. That is
eating. The
rhythm of chewing activates my PMT and it plays along in
synchronizations to
that rhythm. This has been especially annoying to me, the "curse,"
when I've
been on meditation retreats and trying to practice continuous
mindfulness in all
activities, like at meals, not just during formal meditation practice.
Some
song, often (by meditation retreat standards) an idiotic one like

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts,
There they are a-standing in a row.
There stands me wife,
The idol of me life,
Singin roll or bowl a ball a penny a pitch.

takes possession of my PMT, synchronizing with my chewing. If I
deliberately
stop chewing the song will go on hold, silent - but pick up again right
where it
left off on the next chew! There's no conscious effort on my part to
have such
an exact pause and pick up, it just happens that way. The only thing
I've found
that reliably works, that gets me back into the spirit of a meditation
retreat,
is to deliberately substitute some Sanskrit mantra for the song. That
at least
reminds me that I'm on a meditation retreat and lets me give more
attention to
conscious mindfulness of the external world.

If I'm eating in a social situation, conversing with others, I don't
notice the
PMT at all. Similarly if I am absorbed in reading while eating, I
don't notice
it. I say "don't notice it" to be as accurate as possible, but I think
the PMT
actually stops in these circumstances.

I have no idea why chewing is such a powerful stimulus to the PMT. Was
I so
bored with eating as a child that I had to entertain myself with song?
I don't
know…


Dreams and My PMT:

Unlike Brown, I don't believe I have my PMT running during dreams. I
base this
not only on current observations, but ones from years ago when I was
extremely
interested in my dreams and was a rich dream recaller. While I can
hear sounds
appropriate to the action in dreams, I believe musical accompaniment
has been
rare, if it occurred at all.


Range of Music:

Brown finds his PMT frequently repeats the first lines of music he has
heard
within the past day or two. My music is much more wide-ranging,
probably
including every song or musical composition I've heard in my life.
Frequently I
find my PMT is looping the first lines of some song, musical piece, or
radio
commercial that was popular in the 1930s. While I undoubtedly heard it
on the
radio as a child, or heard my father singing it around the house - he
was a
musician and popular singer in our home town - it's probably the case
that I
haven't heard it played in the external world for more than 40 or 50
years. It
often amazes me when I hear my PMT doing an oldie like this, apparently
quite
accurately as regards the tune and words. Why do these early musical
memories
have such permanence in spite of a lack of external reinforcement?

With an N of two at this initial stage, Brown and I, speculation about
this
difference can only indicate possibilities for future research, but I
will
briefly make one. Brown is a musician, much more consciously involved
with
listening to and creating music in his everyday life. I like to sing,
but have
no training to play any musical instrument. Music is generally
background music
in my life, rather than foreground, as is my PMT. Perhaps this
accounts for
recently heard music being a major determiner of the content of his
PMT. As a
child, I very much wanted to be a good singer like my father, but felt
terribly
inadequate. From an adult perspective, of course I was inadequate,
comparing my
child's voice to his. Too bad I took it seriously. Perhaps as a
semi-conscious
tactic to get better I wanted my mind to get automatically good at
remembering
songs and music? Perhaps these are dimensions that might account for
individual
differences in PMTs?


Quality of the PMT:

I do not have Brown's musical training and so cannot comment on
discrete musical
aspects of my PMT like pitch, tonality, rhythm, etc. But to my
layman's ear,
what I hear in my mind sounds just like what I would hear if the music
were
played on the radio. I was going to write "on the stereo" to indicate
high
fidelity, but realized that my PMT is basically monaural, in the center
of my
head, rather than having clear stereo separation. Could this be the
result of
almost all of my early music exposure being to old-fashioned monaural
radios or
my father singing around the house, rather than to live music? As to
internal
volume, it can range from quite soft, on the fringes of audibility if I
am
distracted by other sensations or thoughts, to experientially quite
loud.


Creativity:

Almost all of my PMT's song activity is an accurate reproduction of the
words
and tune of the original external song. Occasionally there is a
spontaneous
creative alteration of words that is an apt comment on an ongoing
situation, but
only occasionally. In terms of conscious abilities, I am good at
almost
instantly creating novel words to go with familiar tunes, a kind of
sense of
humor, but have no feeling at all for how one creates new melodies.


Corporeal Manifestations of My PMT:

Brown reports frequent corporeal manifestations of his PMT, ranging
from foot
tapping to the rhythm of the PMT to his fingers playing an imaginary
keyboard,
"air piano" as he delightfully calls it. I experience nothing like
this.


Parallel Processing:

Brown notes that "The evidence from PMT is that acoustic consciousness
can be
split into two parallel streams…..most of the time the imagery doesn't
seem to
impair my allocation of attention to other tasks and simply plays in
the
background as an acoustic stream." (pp. 54-55). I can elaborate on
this from a
different perspective.

For some years I have been practicing vipassana (insight) meditation,
mostly
along the lines taught by Shinzen Young (www.shinzen.org). For most of
these
years a major focus has been on cultivating the neutral, objective
observation
of aspects of body sensation, without becoming involved in judging
whether any
sensation is "good" or "bad," and practicing clarity and equanimity
toward
sensation. I had heard various meditation teachers talk about
observing
thought, but never had any luck in it. When a thought came along it
always
swept me up in it, I identified with it as "my" thought and would get
carried
along in some thought train for long periods before remembering that I
was
attempting to meditate.

In the last few years, though, Young has taught me how to observe
thought and
visual imagery quite well, mainly through "somatizing" it, localizing
it in the
tactile space of the body. For me, e.g., internally generated visual
imagery
appears on a "mental screen" which feels located in a plane parallel to
my face,
just behind my closed eyes. By keeping some contact with that area
tactually, I
am more aware of visual imagery and less likely to be absorbed in it.
Similarly, I have located my internal "talk" as occurring in a central
intracranial region on a line slightly below my ears, probably where my
vocal
cords are located, so much, if not all, of my mental talk may be
subvocalization. By keeping some attention on that physical area, I am
more
sensitive to and less likely to automatically identify with and be
swept away by
internal talk. I feel subtle sensations there when internal talk
occurs. By
physically relaxing this area, internal talk decreases.

(To my surprise, when I learned to observe internal imagery and talk in
this
manner I discovered that my vague category of "thought" actually
consisted
primarily of visual imagery and secondarily of actual internal talk.)

The relevance to PMT is this: I have no recognizable tactile sensation
in that
same talk area when PMT is occurring. In fact I have never been able
to find a
physical localization for PMT, and I have tried to find one many times.
My hope
was that if I could find a localized area, relaxing it would decrease
PMT, as I
can do for internal talk.

This is semi-disciplined observational data supporting the theory of
the
relative independence of the PMT process from the internal talk
process. I call
it "semi-disciplined" as I don't think of myself as really skilled in
meditative
observations.


In Conclusion:

OK, I'm ready to sit back, turn off the external background music, and
wait to
see if the next record the PMT puts on will be an apt comment on what
I've
written… I've never made a conscious demand on my PMT before, so I
don't know
how this will turn out. I'm trying not to consciously think about how
it should
turn out in order not to bias it. Perhaps the distraction of checking
my
email….

Wouldn't you know that when I would like a little PMT, my mind is quite
quiet… ;-)

Damn! I shifted my attention to another task and immediately the PMT
came on
with that silly,

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts,
There they are a-standing in a row.
There stands me wife,
The idol of me life,
Singin roll or bowl a ball a penny a pitch.

What kind of comment from my subconscious is that on this scholarly
writing?
That it's all nonsense? That we are starting to line up our coconuts,
our
nourishing bits of information about mental function so they will
become as
valuable to us as my wife is to me?

Perhaps I'd better end with that always safe scholarly admonition,
"More
research is needed."


Charles T. Tart, Ph.D.
Professor, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto CA
Professor Emeritus, Psychology, University of California, Davis
Home page & archives: www.paradigm-sys.com/cttart/
Editor, The
Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences
psychology.ucdavis.edu/tart/taste/