1) Do you LOVE music? Like REALLY love it? Is it your drug of choice, do you have a huge playlist, were/are you a dj or regular jazz club/dance club patron? Does music seriously activate chemicals in your brain and make you feel good and/or calm?
YES!!!
Music has always been like a medium for me, and a muse. Whatever I choose to turn on at any given time, it's like this cluster of connector cables that plug me directly into my imagination, my desires, emotions, aspirations, dreams and so much more. It's like it yanks any masks or pretensions right off me and shows me who I really am, who I really want to be, where I want to go and what I want to create.
Music does seem to set off chemical reactions in me physically, for sure. So much so that I can be one of those people that annoys others because certain music WILL just change my whole mood because of moods in the tones/melodies/tempo and I will ask to change the station. Like I know people who can listen to Beethoven and not bat an eyelash, and I'm like "How the hell do you DO that?" because I'll just FEEL it right down to my bones.
Music has always been the drug of choice. I never did drugs and I didn't drink, if I needed escape or just something to get me through, it was always music, movies, or books. Mainly music though, it just has this way of shedding light on bad situations, or helping me see the truth in myself, or helping me see the truth in others, etc. It just makes me feel ALIVE!
2) What music do you like? And this goes beyond a generic listing of bands and genres but really asks WHY do you like it? What turns you on about it? Or off?
I lean toward music that has an overall mood of positivity and hope, whether it's flat out "Take life by the balls baby!" in tone or whether it's "These are the pains of life, but you know it's worth living". That spans a whole bunch of genres for me, it's that theme that most attracts me whether it's alternative or techno, rock or pop. I like it because it's how I view the world I suppose; the world which is painful, challenging, and at times confusing but no less beautiful, rewarding, and lovely to be in.
BUT, my heart and danceable body belong to evocative music, to music that really makes you feel something, and to music that is very authentic and real.
I love to dance too, it just makes me happy! I love dancing by myself and always have, I just listen and go with it. I love dancing with other people too, but I love it most when I'm dancing with people that genuinely LOVE to dance rather than seeing dancing as a medium for appearing impressive or to attract mates, lol. I don't really care how I appear when I dance, I just love DOING IT. I love dancing with people who feel that energy and happiness from it like I do.
Also if I like a song, I can play it on repeat and listen to it AN HOUR or more.
Me too! Especially if it sparks my imagination for a particular scene or theme for my writing. I will play a song on repeat over and over while I write and each time it will paint some new element for me to write about. I love when that happens!
So I'm curious to see how much of this is an NF thing and how personality reflects your relationship to emotional/physical stimuli?
I'm very emotionally connected to stimuli like music, movies, art, and books. Sometimes I think it might be a very INFJ thing where I'm attempting sometimes to experience something from a safe distance without too much personal risk. That can definitely be an element, sort of like enriching the inner world that much more.
It's also just the desire to feel the experience of something with more immediacy. Not sure if anyone else is like this, but sometimes I have a hard time getting my head around how I feel about any given experience until after it's over, by reliving it in my head to process it all. Sometimes music can be like this glue that binds my experiences together into one big picture with a bigger meaning, if that makes sense. I enjoy that.
The drawback of this is definitely that sometimes (for me) music can paint such a glorious feeling and picture inside me that the real world can pale in comparison! In recent years I've tried to bridge that gap and bring what I have found in the REAL world into my imagination more than trying to twist the world to suit my imagination, if that makes sense!
In general, I think my passion for music, movies, art, and books does come from the type of personality I have. They're not just background distractions or entertainments, they feed my imagination and my desire to unravel the mysteries of things bigger than what lay on the surface of things.