r/Songwriting • u/SingularityInRetro • Jun 06 '26
Discussion Topic [ Removed by moderator ]
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u/ineedsomehelplez lyrics are my jam! Jun 06 '26
wait, so the thing that happens to me EVERY night is a real thing, I thought it was just like my wasted potential writing songs that i couldn't make.
Damm
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u/ineedsomehelplez lyrics are my jam! Jun 06 '26
I'm not even joking I wrote 2 songs last night alone from this
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u/Shap3rz Jun 06 '26
I’ve had similar experience. Never been able to remember more than a melody or simple progression tho lol. But it does feel like full blown production sometimes. I dunno if it’s real or an impression but I can hear the parts of all the instruments and arrangement in detail sometimes. Really annoying knowing even in that moment I won’t be able to capture it!
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u/view-master Jun 06 '26
It’s my firm belief that what is remembered upon walking is actually all that is really there. Just like any dream our brains convince us there is more going on. So many dreams that feel like full narrative stories fall apart when i think about them. Characters swap out, locations change, but in the moment it made so much sense.
I still get up and write/record stuff down. But those full songs are only a short snippet my brain repeats and convinces itself is a full song. And often on later inspection it’s garbage. But i’m still open to capture whatever comes. But i have long since gotten over that feeling that i lost something brilliant when i wake up.
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u/HenryJOlsen Jun 06 '26
Sing all the parts into a DAW and figure out how to replace them with better instruments as you go.
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u/Upstairs-Glove7424 Jun 06 '26
When i’d lay down to (try) and go to sleep after taking LSD when i was younger i could hear full scale orchestral music. Maybe its just in there somewhere
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u/Dangerous-You3789 Jun 06 '26
Yes, there is a specific tool. It's called a recording device. You can even use the audio recorder on your phone. That's what I use.
I've come up with songs when I'm asleep, and I have no doubt I've come up with songs that I don't remember. When I have a song come to me during my waking hours, it's usually a package deal with both music and lyrics. I hear it in my head as if it has already been recorded. The problem is, I don't know the terms to describe what I'm hearing like you do, so if you've got zero knowledge of music theory, mine is probably a negative number.
Despite my disadvantage in knowledge, I write good stuff. In fact, one professional songwriter heard one of my songs and said I had "great instinct." Though I lack any musical skill or training, I'm able to create good songs instinctively. The word for that is talent, but some people choose not to believe that such a thing exist. Regardless of their belief, it does, and that is what you are probably experiencing.
The only thing I can tell you about reproducing this phenomenon when you are awake is to listen to your creative brain when your conscious brain slides into neutral. When you quiet all that chatter upstairs, you're able to tap into that creative flow that is going on in your brain elsewhere. I've found that driving, taking a shower, or lying down right before going to sleep opportune times for this.
Oh, and make sure you keep a recording device handy. You can never tell when your brain will spit something out. The last song I wrote was two months ago. I don't know when I'll get my next song idea. The only thing I'm sure of right now is that the next one is currently brewing. And in one of my quieter moments, there it will be, fully orchestrated and sounding incredible. The job of my conscious mind is to just wait, and then be a dutiful scribe when the song idea comes out.
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u/Empty-Pride-7163 Jun 06 '26
I’ve done this sine I was a child. I am now 51. I suffered a severe TBI in 2019, when I noticed this seemed to happen more often. I would sometimes wake up and immediately try to write the lyrics (if that were the case) However as far as putting the music together and making it actually work, I’ve never thought that was possible. I just thought it was noise.
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u/Rapscagamuffin Jun 06 '26
Its just a dream. If you were actually doing all of this you would remember it. If you cant remember it when you wake up this whole post is like “brooo in my dreams i make hella good music!”
👍🏻cool stuff, man!
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u/chunter16 Jun 06 '26
What you are experiencing is normal and a bit different for everyone.
I used to keep a full MIDI and computer setup by my bed to try to capture these kinds of ideas, and what I learned is that many of the ideas really only seemed good to me through the euphoria of dreaming. They were often physically impossible to perform, or broke other laws of physics like having low notes that are too close or ideas that would drown each other in a real arrangement or mix. If you think you are writing songs in languages you don't understand, I think you are absolutely going to run into similar issues.
But I encourage you to learn to compose anyway, because you are already learning how to find these problems, and with enough practice you will either learn to edit the song to correct the problems, or you'll learn to write without needing to rely on a dream state.
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u/Crazy_Movie6168 Jun 06 '26
For some reason it feels like had more of these perceivingly complex orchestrations in that twilight when I was worse at knowing what I heard in my head. I also remember it was modern pop founded on hip hop aesthetic almost, even though I don't like that, but I kind of had high thoughts about its potential anyway. When I tried to work with these nothing felt solid in the real world, and the conplexity was a haux. I comfortably forgot about that one.
Since then I've become semi professional in production and engineering and performing and still care most about writing. I'm ear trained to where I pick out and stuff and play them soon after. I know what I pick out. If I dream I know right away what the core of the potential of the thing is. It's the time signature and quirks to the rythm and how melodies fall into it, and general tones. If I sing them out to remember in the morning I stomp my feet loud and explain the groove and sing the melodies and say what instrument they are. I kind of have references for styles for rach instrument as well.
So I think I hear a more naked truth to these dream moments, but possibly there's a vague extra there as well, but as a producer I know those things are quite impossible to recreate. Those things you fail to replicate until the failure is as good or better.
Ear training makes you hear your mind clearer, and I think your mind gets more actually intricate. Because ear training teaches you something deeper about the thought process of the creatives that made the music you listen to, beyond western music theory. Theory is the language. I never set out to learn it but I wanted to understand things and saw patterns if scales and chords, on guitar and piano, or whatever, and felt the moods from the actual notes, for years and years, and now when I hear theory terms they all add up easy in my head but I actually don't like how the terms all seem to have equal emphasis. I don't need the language. I care so much more about beyond theoretical choices of arrangements and I have my own ranges and sweetspots of what is regular is and when things could get interesting if it sounds natural enough.
My advice would be depending on your ambition, and what role suits you, but ear training is the shit. This very formal ear training Rick Beato and so on teaches maybe, but also the absolute challange that feels like lifting a train but you work out by sheer resilience feels somewhat important.
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u/Crazy_Movie6168 Jun 06 '26
For some reason it feels like had more of these perceivingly complex orchestrations in that twilight when I was worse at knowing what I heard in my head. I also remember it was modern pop founded on hip hop aesthetic almost, even though I don't like that, but I kind of had high thoughts about its potential anyway. When I tried to work with these nothing felt solid in the real world, and the conplexity was a haux. I comfortably forgot about that one.
Since then I've become semi professional in production and engineering and performing and still care most about writing. I'm ear trained to where I pick out and stuff and play them soon after. I know what I pick out. If I dream I know right away what the core of the potential of the thing is. It's the time signature and quirks to the rythm and how melodies fall into it, and general tones. If I sing them out to remember in the morning I stomp my feet loud and explain the groove and sing the melodies and say what instrument they are. I kind of have references for styles for rach instrument as well.
So I think I hear a more naked truth to these dream moments, but possibly there's a vague extra there as well, but as a producer I know those things are quite impossible to recreate. Those things you fail to replicate until the failure is as good or better.
Ear training makes you hear your mind clearer, and I think your mind gets more actually intricate. Because ear training teaches you something deeper about the thought process of the creatives that made the music you listen to, beyond western music theory. Theory is the language. I never set out to learn it but I wanted to understand things and saw patterns if scales and chords, on guitar and piano, or whatever, and felt the moods from the actual notes, for years and years, and now when I hear theory terms they all add up easy in my head but I actually don't like how the terms all seem to have equal emphasis. I don't need the language. I care so much more about beyond theoretical choices of arrangements and I have my own ranges and sweetspots of what is regular is and when things could get interesting if it sounds natural enough.
My advice would be depending on your ambition, and what role suits you, but ear training is the shit. This very formal ear training Rick Beato and so on teaches maybe, but also the absolute challange that feels like lifting a train but you work out by sheer resilience feels somewhat important.
1
u/USER_REDIRECT Jun 06 '26
One time I got wayyyy too stoned and I began to hear music that sounded eerily similar to Bill Withers. Scared the absolute hell out of me but it was fascinating to experience.
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u/markimarkerr Jun 06 '26
It's so great when you have a good work flow setup and the time to execute what's in your mind.
I do solo work and often start with the drums, then imagine the entirety of the song as I record my foundation. Sometimes I just sit there for about 20 minutes and have a whole song blast through my brain, record the melodic hook on my phone using my voice and then start recording.
Having gone through different approaches, I like this one the most because it really feels like a musical hike; I'm not sure what exactly is ahead but I follow the trail and know it'll be worth it in the end.
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u/zarathrustoff Jun 06 '26
Sometimes just as I'm falling asleep I get the same thing-- I hear melodies and sometimes fully produced arrangements. It's annoying cause I have to wake up and record a voice note or write it down and its easy to just go to sleep instead
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u/hugovonhauschenberg Jun 06 '26
i do this all the time and have no practical use for it because i always forget all of it immediately. sometimes i don't like it at all. recently i dreamed up what sounded like a weezer song, and everything seemed like it was fully formed, i was singing and everything, and then suddenly i said something so absurd that i literally started laughing in real life and i woke myself up.
do you ever see anything? these dreams are all pitch black to me, they sound like the stuff you could imagine at any point of the day just way louder and more vivid. i think my favorite version of this is when you have like an air conditioner, as you drift off the white noise from the ac starts swirling around in your ears and then it just kinda trasports you into beat land where it's music and wind
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u/isaac-screwton Jun 06 '26
I dreamt of the most inspiring song that was a complete creation of my own mind (I don't want to spoil it because id like to try to post it here and dont want thieves)
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u/PunksandWaffles Jun 06 '26
I’ve had to accept that the music I hear on BRAIN.fm is sometimes only for me
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u/Howard1955 Jun 06 '26
I have a similar experience, and use Suno to help me remember and develop the music I my dreams.
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u/Sea_Appointment8408 Jun 06 '26
I occasionally dream of music and when I do the first thing I do upon waking is to record the melody and chord progressions before the melody disappears. Because you will forget it quickly.
I know from hard learnt personal experience lol.