7 ms·

Tangentially related, but I have stopped taking pictures on hikes nowadays. I just listen to an instrumental piece of music a couple times and when I play it ba

by aprao 7y ago

Tangentially related, but I have stopped taking pictures on hikes nowadays. I just listen to an instrumental piece of music a couple times and when I play it back a couple weeks or months later, I am able to vividly recall the experience which I could never do from photos.

zpallin 7y ago
I wish we could do the opposite because every time I listen to the cool music I discovered in high school I'm unfortunately teleported back to all the emotional distraught of those years.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  I've found that the associations I have with a song do get weaker the more I listen to it in another context, so it may be possible to disassociate those memories by forcing yourself to listen to those songs enough times. But I've only noticed this with songs that conjure relatively benign associations. Stuff from times and places I really don't want to evoke I also avoid.
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    > Stuff from times and places I really don't want to evoke I also avoid. There are songs I can't listen to like before anymore after some conversations (eg lightning crashes by live) or some time (Champagne supernova by oasis). But likewise, there are places I don't have the energy to hang around anymore.
- jraph 7y ago
  This sucks. I live with music but when I feel really bad, I no longer listen to music, to avoid tainting it. Now, days when I feel bad are quiet. Though I mostly enjoy travelling back in time through music, including to high school. Fortunately these years were not traumatising for me. Specific songs are particularly strong for that. Some songs are strongly associated with specific emotions that were not very enjoyable at the time, but are strangely comforting...ish today. I hope someone gets this and formulates it better / differently. This is probably a kind of nostalgia, but not really in the sense that it was better back in the day.
- tfha 7y ago
  The first time I ever heard the Numa Numa song was when I was 10 and had the flu. I was puking in the hallway and had intense nausea for hours. My classmates kept playing the song because it was the new viral thing. It took me over 10 years before I could listen to the song without feeling sick. It's fine now though.
- _Microft 7y ago
  Maybe there are ways to build up tolerance to the music by combining it with activities that do not allow the mood to catch on because they are too incompatible? Like running or working out vigorously while listening to this music? Maybe the link between the music and the memories would wear of with time? I'm not a therapist but this sounds like something I would try on myself if I were in this situation.
phonethrowaway 7y ago
I do this with code and architecture, or any complex system really... It works pretty well! It's similar to physical space having a sort of memory... except it's mental space.
- jraph 7y ago
  Yes, I do see some specific pieces of code I wrote up to 13 years ago when hearing some songs. Although It's not on propose.
- jimmaswell 7y ago
  I like listening to ambient Fallout music while working on the Fallout-like game I volunteer for. Seems to actually work pretty well.
munk-a 7y ago
Back in 2005 I was gifted both Guero (by Beck) and Guild Wars on my birthday and ended up listening to the album on repeat while playing the game and I really vivid visual flashbacks to that game's art style whenever I hear that album.
- mikey_p 7y ago
  As a child I was gifted an album (cheesy christian rock, but it's what my parents would buy me) and a full set of the Chronicles of Narnia. Album went on repeat while I read the first few books and now they are forever, deeply linked in my memory.
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    I read the Lord of the Rings while listening to the 1492 OST on a tape. That album is the real and best soundtrack of the book and the movie to me.
- armenarmen 7y ago
  Jimi Hendrix and Morrowind for me
  - joe-collins 7y ago
    Switchfoot and Morrowind.
  - ozzmotik 7y ago
    along the same lines, red hot chili peppers and halo 2 on Xbox live for me! also morrowind since somehow I managed to accrue 250+ hours of play time on that despite spending about 16 hours out of every day that I wasn't at school (those days were more like 8-10 hours ಠ_ರೃ) playing halo 2 online.
  - spats1990 7y ago
    Ultimate early 2000s combination: Linkin Park and Tribes 2.
  - 7y ago
anonytrary 7y ago
I also have experienced this "musical recall", but I don't think vivid memories completely replace photographs. No matter how well you can recall a memory, there's still the task of communicating that memory to others. Photographs and videos greatly help with this.
- wahern 7y ago
  No, but photographs can destroy vivid memories, or at least commingle and taint in ways that make them impossible to distinguish from the original memory. I avoid looking at photographs of events I've personally experienced. Taking photographs is disruptive in a different way, but it's difficult to take photographs and not look at them later.
  - anonytrary 7y ago
    > No, but photographs can destroy vivid memories If anything, our brains taint and alter memories over time, which causes them to be misaligned with photographs. The photograph doesn't lie. The brain lies to us and often.
    - wahern 7y ago
      Sure, memories fade and become distorted. But that's precisely the problem with photographs: they're intensely vivid. So every time you look at a photograph you're creating, transforming and reinforcing an experience you never actually had, accelerating the loss of aspects of your personal experience.[1] Photographs aren't the only way to do this: simply hearing people recounting stories can do this, but photographs are just an immensely powerful and almost instantaneous way to have such vicarious experiences. I'd rather have my own memories, however faded and worn, though there are strategies (like music association) that can help minimize that. Nonetheless, however distorted, they're principally distorted by my own emotions and desires; they're faded by my own lack of interest; they're mine, which I'd argue is the very definition of a personal memory. Many people couldn't care less. And that's fine. And if you don't know (or believe) this happens to you, then I suppose it doesn't matter, either. [1] I want to say that losing the personal visual memory might be related to losing the memory of other aspects, like the emotional experience, but that's more of a fear than anything I'm confident I've experienced personally or have read in the literature.
jcims 7y ago
Works really well with podcasts for me. My memory of daily experiences is generally incredibly poor, when I first experienced nearly photographic recall after re-listening to a podcast I almost cried. It's a cruel joke that this capability is in there but I can't seem to activate it on my own.
oriel 7y ago
I've taken to playing certain songs for certain scenarios. My favorite example of such being Blast Off (Human Pyramids) played just as my flight is taking off, that windup taxi and the acceleration to flight. I've kept that particular song pure specifically because I've captured the essence of traveling/vacation in that 5 minute period.
beckler 7y ago
I visited Washington DC on a band trip in high school about 15 years ago. Right before I left, I bought Five For Fighting's CD: The Battle For Everything. I listened to it the entire time I was there (as I only had a CD player). Anytime we were on the bus, I was basically listening to that CD. Now, If I ever hear any of the tracks from that album, I have a flood of memories that come back, and I think that is the reason why I remember that trip so well.
ehnto 7y ago
I have a really strong memory for that kind of stuff yet minor details like what time my flight is I have to re-check constantly. I can also recall music itself pretty much verbatim regardless of the complexity but not the lyrics. Fingerstyle guitar pieces I heard years ago are still burned into my brain yet I couldn't sing you the same song if it had lyrics. I would just remember the notes. Entirely baseless speculating here, but I wonder if music as notes, instruments and structure aren't stored in memory more similar to spatial memory which I also find to be rather permanent.
mirimir 7y ago
For me, it's LSD and "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" by The Incredible String Band.
Vinnl 7y ago
The problem I have with recalling memories/feelings through msuic, is that the recollection gets weaker every time I listen to it. So there are a number of songs I listened to often to relive a particular moment, but listening to them now only vaguely recalls that moment, and additionally also has the association of reliving the moment later. Reliving the reliving of a moment is less vivid than the initial reliving, unfortunately.

by aprao 7y ago

zpallin 7y ago

I wish we could do the opposite because every time I listen to the cool music I discovered in high school I'm unfortunately teleported back to all the emotional distraught of those years.

roywiggins 7y ago
I've found that the associations I have with a song do get weaker the more I listen to it in another context, so it may be possible to disassociate those memories by forcing yourself to listen to those songs enough times. But I've only noticed this with songs that conjure relatively benign associations. Stuff from times and places I really don't want to evoke I also avoid.
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  > Stuff from times and places I really don't want to evoke I also avoid. There are songs I can't listen to like before anymore after some conversations (eg lightning crashes by live) or some time (Champagne supernova by oasis). But likewise, there are places I don't have the energy to hang around anymore.
jraph 7y ago
This sucks. I live with music but when I feel really bad, I no longer listen to music, to avoid tainting it. Now, days when I feel bad are quiet. Though I mostly enjoy travelling back in time through music, including to high school. Fortunately these years were not traumatising for me. Specific songs are particularly strong for that. Some songs are strongly associated with specific emotions that were not very enjoyable at the time, but are strangely comforting...ish today. I hope someone gets this and formulates it better / differently. This is probably a kind of nostalgia, but not really in the sense that it was better back in the day.
tfha 7y ago
The first time I ever heard the Numa Numa song was when I was 10 and had the flu. I was puking in the hallway and had intense nausea for hours. My classmates kept playing the song because it was the new viral thing. It took me over 10 years before I could listen to the song without feeling sick. It's fine now though.
_Microft 7y ago
Maybe there are ways to build up tolerance to the music by combining it with activities that do not allow the mood to catch on because they are too incompatible? Like running or working out vigorously while listening to this music? Maybe the link between the music and the memories would wear of with time? I'm not a therapist but this sounds like something I would try on myself if I were in this situation.

phonethrowaway 7y ago

I do this with code and architecture, or any complex system really... It works pretty well! It's similar to physical space having a sort of memory... except it's mental space.

jraph 7y ago
Yes, I do see some specific pieces of code I wrote up to 13 years ago when hearing some songs. Although It's not on propose.
jimmaswell 7y ago
I like listening to ambient Fallout music while working on the Fallout-like game I volunteer for. Seems to actually work pretty well.

munk-a 7y ago

Back in 2005 I was gifted both Guero (by Beck) and Guild Wars on my birthday and ended up listening to the album on repeat while playing the game and I really vivid visual flashbacks to that game's art style whenever I hear that album.

mikey_p 7y ago
As a child I was gifted an album (cheesy christian rock, but it's what my parents would buy me) and a full set of the Chronicles of Narnia. Album went on repeat while I read the first few books and now they are forever, deeply linked in my memory.
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  I read the Lord of the Rings while listening to the 1492 OST on a tape. That album is the real and best soundtrack of the book and the movie to me.
armenarmen 7y ago
Jimi Hendrix and Morrowind for me
- joe-collins 7y ago
  Switchfoot and Morrowind.
- ozzmotik 7y ago
  along the same lines, red hot chili peppers and halo 2 on Xbox live for me! also morrowind since somehow I managed to accrue 250+ hours of play time on that despite spending about 16 hours out of every day that I wasn't at school (those days were more like 8-10 hours ಠ_ರೃ) playing halo 2 online.
- spats1990 7y ago
  Ultimate early 2000s combination: Linkin Park and Tribes 2.
- 7y ago

anonytrary 7y ago

I also have experienced this "musical recall", but I don't think vivid memories completely replace photographs. No matter how well you can recall a memory, there's still the task of communicating that memory to others. Photographs and videos greatly help with this.

wahern 7y ago
No, but photographs can destroy vivid memories, or at least commingle and taint in ways that make them impossible to distinguish from the original memory. I avoid looking at photographs of events I've personally experienced. Taking photographs is disruptive in a different way, but it's difficult to take photographs and not look at them later.
- anonytrary 7y ago
  > No, but photographs can destroy vivid memories If anything, our brains taint and alter memories over time, which causes them to be misaligned with photographs. The photograph doesn't lie. The brain lies to us and often.
  - wahern 7y ago
    Sure, memories fade and become distorted. But that's precisely the problem with photographs: they're intensely vivid. So every time you look at a photograph you're creating, transforming and reinforcing an experience you never actually had, accelerating the loss of aspects of your personal experience.[1] Photographs aren't the only way to do this: simply hearing people recounting stories can do this, but photographs are just an immensely powerful and almost instantaneous way to have such vicarious experiences. I'd rather have my own memories, however faded and worn, though there are strategies (like music association) that can help minimize that. Nonetheless, however distorted, they're principally distorted by my own emotions and desires; they're faded by my own lack of interest; they're mine, which I'd argue is the very definition of a personal memory. Many people couldn't care less. And that's fine. And if you don't know (or believe) this happens to you, then I suppose it doesn't matter, either. [1] I want to say that losing the personal visual memory might be related to losing the memory of other aspects, like the emotional experience, but that's more of a fear than anything I'm confident I've experienced personally or have read in the literature.

jcims 7y ago

Works really well with podcasts for me. My memory of daily experiences is generally incredibly poor, when I first experienced nearly photographic recall after re-listening to a podcast I almost cried. It's a cruel joke that this capability is in there but I can't seem to activate it on my own.

oriel 7y ago

I've taken to playing certain songs for certain scenarios. My favorite example of such being Blast Off (Human Pyramids) played just as my flight is taking off, that windup taxi and the acceleration to flight. I've kept that particular song pure specifically because I've captured the essence of traveling/vacation in that 5 minute period.

beckler 7y ago

I visited Washington DC on a band trip in high school about 15 years ago. Right before I left, I bought Five For Fighting's CD: The Battle For Everything. I listened to it the entire time I was there (as I only had a CD player). Anytime we were on the bus, I was basically listening to that CD. Now, If I ever hear any of the tracks from that album, I have a flood of memories that come back, and I think that is the reason why I remember that trip so well.

ehnto 7y ago

I have a really strong memory for that kind of stuff yet minor details like what time my flight is I have to re-check constantly. I can also recall music itself pretty much verbatim regardless of the complexity but not the lyrics. Fingerstyle guitar pieces I heard years ago are still burned into my brain yet I couldn't sing you the same song if it had lyrics. I would just remember the notes. Entirely baseless speculating here, but I wonder if music as notes, instruments and structure aren't stored in memory more similar to spatial memory which I also find to be rather permanent.

mirimir 7y ago

For me, it's LSD and "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" by The Incredible String Band.

Vinnl 7y ago

The problem I have with recalling memories/feelings through msuic, is that the recollection gets weaker every time I listen to it. So there are a number of songs I listened to often to relive a particular moment, but listening to them now only vaguely recalls that moment, and additionally also has the association of reliving the moment later. Reliving the reliving of a moment is less vivid than the initial reliving, unfortunately.