Music and the Hypnagogic State
“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” Edgar Allan Poe
The hypnagogic state, also known as the hypnagogic phase, is the liminal or transitional space between wakefulness and slumber. It's a period where our consciousness isn't fully awake or asleep, and it can be a particularly productive state of mind for both inspiration and healing.
Thomas Edison considered sleep to be an unproductive state, and legend has it he slept no more than four hours a night. Edison did, however, hold the hypnagogic dreaming state in high regard and developed a technique for ‘hacking’ the hypnagogic phase between waking and sleep. “The inventor is said to have napped while holding a ball in each hand, presuming that, as he fell asleep, the orbs would fall to the floor and wake him. This way he could remember the sorts of thoughts that come to us as we are nodding off, which we often do not recall.”
My interest in the details of the hypnagogic healing effects of music is derived from personal experience. In 2003 I underwent surgery, and because I am self-employed I was highly motivated to recover full mobility as soon as possible. One of the keys, I was told, was to get off the prescribed heavy duty pain medication and transition to over-the-counter meds as soon as possible. I found that music was indispensable in this transition. I would extend time between doses of pain meds by entering a hypnagogic state using baroque music. The slower, Largo, passages of Bach’s Air on G string, Pachelbel’s Canon, and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons were particularly effective, as was Dvorak’s New World Symphony. I could suspend my mind and my entire autonomic nervous system and stay beyond the pain sensation for much longer than simply relying on the pain meds.
Once I recovered, I embarked on a research journey that has never stopped. I came to learn that the underlying mechanism of music that facilitates the hypnagogic state is rhythmic entrainment. Musical entrainment happens on multiple levels in the human body. For instance, the heart and respiration can entrain to the overall tempo and rhythm of a piece of music, while the brainwaves can entrain to more subtle oscillations that occur within the music. When I compose I like to use this tempo range and have found that it promotes a hypnagogic state. Many of my albums are used in recovery situations, and I often receive feedback on their efficacy. Well of Ancestors seems to be a favorite.
“I started listening to your CD a few days after I was discharged from the hospital and found that it calmed me and helped take my attention away from the pain, enabling me to sleep. I believe your music has healing properties that contributed to my quick recovery.” - Thandiwe, Nashville, TN
Music has long had an association with imagery and dreaming. In some cultures, such as the Australian Aboriginal culture, music is used as a portal into the Dreaming, the mythic origins of time and space. The Icaro songs performed by some South American healers are a deep connection to the plant kingdom, allowing for the sacred use of certain plants and potions that can create a shift in consciousness when used appropriately.
This power of music to support and promote healing has been one of its primary functions throughout history. Music is a narrative timeline, an ephemeral motion of patterns, like a kaleidoscope of sand paintings forming and reforming at the speed of sound.
Human entrainment can be sorted into 4 categories, perceptual, autonomic, motor, and social. All of these can result in the emotional experience that we associate with music.
The first 2 levels of entrainment, perceptual and autonomic, are the main drivers of the hypnagogic effect of music.
Perceptual entrainment is considered to be an underlying mechanism of altered states of consciousness like trance which has been correlated with the experience of flow. This can result in enhanced insight and focus.
Autonomic entrainment refers to tendencies of biological systems, under the control of the autonomic nervous system, to entrain to external rhythms. This phase of entrainment has to do with body processes, particularly those regulated by the vagus nerve and relating to vagal tone. Autonomic entrainment is primarily related to the effect of the tempo of a musical piece on heart rate. For instance, if you want to lower heart rate, deepen relaxation, and help lower blood pressure choosing music in a specific tempo range 60-75 bpm has been shown to be helpful.
Once the entrainment effect of slower tempo music begins influencing the perceptual and autonomic systems of the human body/mind the slowing down of metabolic processes sets up the conditions for hypnagogia.
I have found that natural sound fields woven into the music, such as the rainforest on my latest album, Forest Bathing, are helpful in supporting the hypnagogic state, due to the subtle inclusion of sonic imagery.
Music is a flow of present moment information that continually leverages symbolic association. When we hear music our minds scan incoming notes. Is a melody new to us? is it known? Does it have memories of time and space associated with it? There is a constant neural scanning that happens with the conventional music that we consume for entertainment. The interplay between novelty and the known is a stimulant that draws us into a narrow, linear mode of attention. Music in the healing space has a different function, and the hypnagogic state is integral in its healing effects. Using music as a therapeutic tool opens us to a different way of listening, an open field of attention where we hear and sense into realms beyond that which we define as reality.
“Our linear side is a narrow focus. Most of us are stuck in this narrow focus most of our lives…our intellectual linear side only has the ability to process past information.” Healing Ancient Wounds, John F. Barnes, PT
The analytic brain is wonderful for memorization and many tasks of our daily lives, but gaining access to the hypnagogic brain opens creative and instantaneous understandings and information unavailable to the more laborious workings of our conscious minds. On the edge of dreaming lies the inspiration, the moment of insight.
References:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj5866
Rhythmic Entrainment as an Affect Induction mechanism. W. Trost, C. Labbe, D. Grandjean. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28069444/
https://www.aboriginalcontemporary.com.au/pages/what-is-the-dreamtime-and-dreaming
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28069444/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9417331/
