Visualization with Music

[Charmed]

Hey, I've been kicking myself to be productive around here, so I decided to post one of my tips & tricks.

 

When I listen to music, I have memories of previous times I've heard the song. So for instance, whenever I hear Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle", I remember the time i was learning to play the song on the bass in a ski chalet in the Green Mountains. When I hear Bob Seger's "Night Moves", I remember the time I got hit in the eye with a tennis ball walking along the park listening to the song on my iPod. I've discovered that listening to the music, instrumental or not because some say lyrics are detrimental to focus, while visualizing makes it a lot easier to visualize the scene. My on-and-off wonderland is a treehouse in the middle of the White Mountains, so it's pretty close to what I get when I listen to "Cat's in the Cradle".

 

Of course, my experiences are only with my memories, but it might be open to have the music as a cue for visualizing other things. You could play Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" whenever you draw your wonderland, and it could theoretically help you visualize your drawing when you play "Aqualung" in the future.

 

https://www.bu.edu/today/2010/music-boosts-memory-in-alzheimer%E2%80%99s/ This seems to pretty much explain it, even though it focuses on Alzheimer's. The same principles still apply.

[waffles]

Couple of things. Your link doesn't talk about what you are - you're talking about recalling imagery via association, but that's talking about remembering semantic information via rhythm. You know if you were ever in middle school and had something like the water cycle song, or, way back, the alphabet song? That's semantic information. Association for imagery is like what you describe, when the song has a connection to some episodic memory.

 

For that reason I don't think it's true that you can have music as a cue for visualising arbitrary things. You'd have to form new episodic memories associated with that music, which I don't think is all that straightforward. In general, I guess if you use a place from your memory as something you want to visualise, the hard work is done for you. So maybe music will help in that case, but not in general.

 

Anyway, for that reason I'm not sure this is very helpful, or that what you say is really true.

[Sands]

Yeah seems like your link has nothing to really do with what you're saying - anything in particular you think is the same? Maybe you just didn't actually mention it/worded it poorly?

 

This is a very personal tip as it is currently written. Remember, when you submit things here, it's not about what you did or felt, it's about helping others achieve the same. Music can be used to help though, which is why I think it would be a great idea for you to think about this a bit more. Associating certain things with music is interesting - and not just as memories. You can set the mood with music and that could help you so much with forcing and such. If you dig deeper, do you think you can find more about how music helped you with tuppers or do you think you could rewrite this to be less about you and more about what we should do?

[Melisandre]

You know, I can say for a fact that this works.

My wonderland has a soundtrack for when I enter it, as well as other music for various other areas in said Wonderland. Usually it plays on it's own in my head like a remembered soundtrack.

But playing said music in the waking world while I'm tulpaforcing makes my visualizations in the wonderland more vivid, just like the guide says.

[tulpa001]

I hear more and more reports that the right music really helps with forcing or interaction. However, this tip is pretty badly written. As the original author has not replied to this thread, I strongly recommend that one or more forum dwellers who think they know a thing or two about this (you know who you are) write up or collaborate on their own music tip or guide or report.

[Kiahdaj]

Sands and waffles basically covered it. Being able to better visualize specific memories via music doesn't seem particularly useful in the grand scheme of visualization and tulpa-making. Maybe there's something to music being helpful with visualization practice, but that's not really how this is written. And I'm not sure if I'd approve of that kind of a tip anyway, because I struggle to imagine what it would contain besides a couple paragraphs of "listen to music while you visualize".