Experiencing Euphoria from Music

[Redbone]

Maybe I don't hang around the right people but I'm the only one I know that experiences intense euphoria from listening to music. I've read a few studies that said some individuals experience a spike of dopamine activity--similar to what happens with food and sex--while listening to music. But the study was done on people who have musical training--I don't have any (I wish I did).

Anyone else experience this?

 

[Phantonym]

Yes, I've experienced it all my life. It's difficult to explain. I can get attached to one song and then listen to it for days on end because it's just...wow. Only that one song. Then it subsides, like I get satiated with it and it loses it's effect, and I move on to other songs, listening to that song again might or might not have the same effect. Or it can come and go. It certainly doesn't happen with every song.

 

[Halla74]

Yes!

This happens to me all the time, and has my whole life.

I am an auditory learner, and so whenever a piece of music grabs onto my inner gears and starts cranking them with new efficiency/synergy/intensity it effects the totality of my being.

I identify with sounds more than anything else. Period.

I love it. It's given me a chance to bust into an extremely good mood and to be very happy and productive every single day of my life.

 

[Stanton Moore]

Maybe I don't hang around the right people but I'm the only one I know that experiences intense euphoria from listening to music. I've read a few studies that said some individuals experience a spike of dopamine activity--similar to what happens with food and sex--while listening to music. But the study was done on people who have musical training--I don't have any (I wish I did).

Anyone else experience this?

Yes. Not often, but yes. And I love it. (I'm a 'trained' musician)

 

[Unkindloving]

This is probably one of the best places to ask this, actually. I've roamed through the lists of Typec's favorite groups and a lot likely do get this. Their tastes say too much about it.

I definitely get this. Music can affect my entire mood and brings on interesting sensations. Most often, it is tingly and like an internal uprising. Hm.

 

[Redbone]

Woohoo (hand-clap)!

I'm glad I'm not alone in this. I stayed up almost all last night getting off to music--it was so wonderful. I'm really into now because I've been experiencing depression.

The experience is so intense that I usually prefer to listen to it in private (man, does that sound like somebody finding a quiet corner to enjoy their rock or what?). Until I looked into this, I thought I was having an abnormal response.

It doesn't happen with every song but there are songs that I'm guaranteed to experience it with. Oddly enough, I don't always want to listen to them because it can be overwhelming and I'll just want to listen to 'regular' music.

Bjork's "Headphones" is like an anthem. Yeah--they saved my life...or make life really worth living at times!

 

[gromit]

I do feel this way occasionally. I can't think of any recent experiences/songs, but I definitely feel almost like transported, or like I AM the music or something... I dunno how to describe exactly.

Well actually, now that I think of it, there's Sufjan Stevens that I really looooove to just LISTEN to. So many layers and so many variations and different textures and moods and styles. And the lyrics are fabulous (though I'm pretty sure he didn't write them). It's like ten minutes, and you've gotta listen to all of it at once to get a sense of the motion of the whole piece...

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma-l-2izB_s"]You Are the Blood[/YOUTUBE]

It's funny you mention Bjork, Redbone, because my roommie/good friend (who is a classically/professionally trained violinist) has these intense reactions to her music.

 

[rhinosaur]

I experience euphoria from music.

 

[Vasilisa]

Redbone, I hadn't heard of that study before. I did hear an interview with the author of this book: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession and it was interesting and sounds up your alley, although I have not read it myself. Music is so powerful to me, too, but maybe not as intensely physical as some are describing.

 

[CuriousFeeling]

I get euphoria from listening to music quite a bit. Started happening before I became trained in music, and I think it intensified when I received training. The physical responses vary depending on the context of the music, the harmony, melody line, etc.

 

[Lux]

Yes, I've experienced it all my life. It's difficult to explain. I can get attached to one song and then listen to it for days on end because it's just...wow. Only that one song. Then it subsides, like I get satiated with it and it loses it's effect, and I move on to other songs, listening to that song again might or might not have the same effect. Or it can come and go. It certainly doesn't happen with every song.

^ This exactly.
It can happen with entire albums as well. It has only happened a couple of times with an entire album, but when the whole thing just fits together... *sigh* It's bliss.

 

[Nonsensical]

Euphoria from listening to music? Yes, all the time.

Euphoria from playing music? A High tens times better than simply listening..as you actually become the music and can feel its rhythm inside you.



"A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence."

 

[Synarch]

Maybe I don't hang around the right people but I'm the only one I know that experiences intense euphoria from listening to music. I've read a few studies that said some individuals experience a spike of dopamine activity--similar to what happens with food and sex--while listening to music. But the study was done on people who have musical training--I don't have any (I wish I did).

Anyone else experience this?

Musical notes mimic the feeling of real emotions. This is why you can manipulate your own emotions with music. Hardcore rap when you need to feel full of vim and vigor. Classical when you need to relax. Electronic when you need to get the house clean.

 

[Redbone]

Redbone, I hadn't heard of that study before. I did hear an interview with the author of this book: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession and it was interesting and sounds up your alley, although I have not read it myself. Music is so powerful to me, too, but maybe not as intensely physical as some are describing.

Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion — PNAS

Really good article. I've got another one around here somewhere (digging in my article pile)...

 

[Redbone]

Euphoria from listening to music? Yes, all the time.

Euphoria from playing music? A High tens times better than simply listening..as you actually become the music and can feel its rhythm inside you.



"A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence."

Oh, come on--you're not serious, are you?

I better stay away from playing then 'cause with what I feel, I'd keel over dead from playing.

I'd end up like that physician who after being struck by lightning, can't stop playing the piano.

 

[Nonsensical]

Oh, come on--you're not serious, are you?

I better stay away from playing then 'cause with what I feel, I'd keel over dead from playing.

I'd end up like that physician who after being struck by lightning, can't stop playing the piano.

you belong in a tree. because you're a nut.

Yes I was being serious.

Have you ever played music for people?

 

[rhinosaur]

Playing music with other people sometimes doesn't work out so well.

But other times, when you and the other people "click" musically, then it's amazing. You get into this groove and you know what they're feeling just like you're feeling.

 

[Redbone]

you belong in a tree. because you're a nut.

Yes I was being serious.

Have you ever played music for people?

What a compliment!!!!

I know you were being serious--I just can't imagine what that experience must be like....

No, I've never played music for people. I have no musical training and I cannot play any instruments *wistful envy insert here*.

What you describe sounds...oh, I lack words! What--maybe a little frightening? I was listening to some music in the wee hours of the morning and I had to shut it off because I was reacting so intensely to it.

I love to spend time analyzing the different sounds and instruments and how they weave together or run parallel to each other. Hell, I just love getting high off of it.

I love to dance, too, but my RA puts a bit of a crimp in that at times.

 

[Sunny Ghost]

it depends on the music, but yes.

 

[OrangeAppled]

Music affects me very much so. I got the impression this happens to most people in varying degrees, so that it shocks me when I meet people who aren't much affected by music at all (yeah, these people exist).