That sounds like audio hallucinations. Not sure I'd want that. On the other hand, it must be incredible to listen to a song once then reproduce it on an instrument.
I think that part of the issue is that we can make sounds and we can draw pictures and we can imitate movements, but we have no tools for making smells. So the performance part of absorb-remember-perform is totally unavailable. It may also be because most people, in everyday life, have little practice using language to describe smells. But as a perfume freak, I can say that perfume freaks do have language to describe smells--and I'd say that wine drinkers do, too, even though they might say they're describing tastes. Now, often the smell language refers to other smells: To my nose it smells liked a corner of a small French grocery in summer, in the exact spot where the smell of floor wax meets that of ripe peaches. (from Luca Turin's review of Bond No. 9 Chinatown.) but not always. Terms like fuzzy, silky, smooth, prickly, slushy, powdery, syrupy, sticky, etc. are often used in discussion of perfume.
I think it's safe to assume I recall smells much like everyone else, but everyone I've mentioned this to says the same thing, namely that we recall smells in exactly the same way we recall sounds. My point was just that I couldn't get my head around how we recall a smell when we can't actually smell it, but as a friend pointed out today, we don't need to be able to hear a sound to recall that either. I'm happy to conclude I'm dwelling on this too much. I'm done with it now.
Did you read the post I replied to? Pretty sure the average person doesn't hear an audible sound when they remember a sound.
I did, yes. "A recording in [your] head" is not an auditory hallucination. An auditory hallucination is a perceived external sound. Have you never had, like, a song or jingle stuck in your head? Can you not imagine a sound, and 'play' that sound in your head? It's definitely different from a hallucination. Can anyone else back me up that these are different things?
Sure, they're different things. I should note that I'm responding solely to your post and am fuzzy about what the argument is. I'd say that the closest I've had to an auditory hallucination is when I've been dozing and had a dream while not far from waking.
I just take umbrage with the notion that imagining/remembering a sound is the same as an auditory hallucination. I have the Song of Storms from Ocarina of Time stuck in my head right now, and it's very much inside of my head. It's not perfect recall - I could have some bits wrong or missing or even have thrown some extras in, because it's a memory. And I can imagine a fresh tune that, if I knew how to properly play an instrument, I could create, because that's imagination. Also %100 inside my head. Neither of these things is equivalent to a hallucination.
If you think @pyroglyphian was not talking about actual sounds in one's head, perhaps you might clarify that with him/her.
I do think that @pyroglyphian was talking about sounds in one's head, as in imagination or memory. My point is that audio hallucinations are not 'in' one's head, as perceived by the hearer - they are physically located in the brain, yes, but seem to be 'outside' one's head to the hearer, so hearing 'actual sounds' inside one's head is not what an auditory hallucination is like. My issue is not with what they said - you and I agree on what they said - my issue is with your erroneous statement about, and seemingly understanding of, audio hallucinations. Whatever ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah I'd go with that. The sound is experienced internally, as you would picture a tree in your mind. It's recalled at will; the 'listener' is the driver of the experience. I guess everybody has the ability to do this, just that the musician will have developed and refined the faculty to the point that it does seem like an audio recording playing inside – though thinking about it now it's never as satisfying to 'listen' to a recalled song as it is to actually hear it; the imperfection of memory perhaps.
I've experienced visual, auditory, and olfactory hallucinations, and I often hear music in dreams, but I don't think I've ever smelled anything in a dream. Have you? Don't think I've ever tasted anything in dream either. Do you think Chefs taste things in their dreams?
I've tasted things in dreams, and since they weren't just the sour/sweet/etc., I argue that means that's smell in dreams as well.
In other words, what I said initially that you challenged. Either you hear sound in your head like you hear actual sounds, (auditory hallucination), or you recall the sound which is what I said. As for recalling smells, it's the same, I can imagine the smell the same way I can imagine a sound, you don't actually hear the sound. I don't actually smell the odor but in my mind I know exactly what that odor smells like. There is evidence one can dream smells, it just rarely dominates our recollection of the dream. I remember being told one doesn't dream in colors. I do. I still remember an incredibly colorful dream from my childhood. I also remember one where the touch of something creeped me out so much so that things which felt the same once I was awake also creeped me out recalling the emotion the dream evoked. If you can dream it, you can imagine it. Here's an example where one doesn't have dreams dominated by sights and sounds: The rest of the article rambles without much in the way of evidence. The following report was more insightful: Let me ask you this: 'Why aren't there smells in dreams?' The answer is, they are. There is a reason: But lest you question why smells are such an important part of writing a description:
I don't think we're in disagreement. I was just pointing out that someone with a sufficiently developed ear - i.e. a musician with refined ability for aural discrimination, and a memory full of sound – will be able to recall a sound with a clarity and accuracy that might surprise a non-musician. For all intents and purposes it is like having an audio recording, or an instrument, in your head. And so Beethoven penned his Ninth whilst almost completely deaf. Many thanks for putting that other info together – interesting stuff.
