Every person have probably experienced the unpleasant state of the haunting music playback in their head. It is quite normal if once having heard the pop song on the radio you can’t get rid of it during the whole day until you fall asleep. The reason for worries is the fact of haunting music coming out of nowhere. The British psychiatrist Victor Aziz have been studying this problem for many years. Victor Aziz together with his colleague Nick Warner have recently attracted the attention of world psychiatrists to the problem of “music inside the head” again.
A 70-year-old woman from California called Maggie (her surname is concealed according to her own wish) woke up late at night from a slight earthquake. Minor earthquakes are quite typical of that region and the local people consider them to be as common as rains. As soon as the earthquake ceased Maggie tried to fall asleep. But she heard a familiar tune which sounded not too loud but rather distinctively. When Maggie was a little girl she used to hear her father play this tune on the piano. The senior woman sat in her bed for several our listening to than simple hunting tune. She didn’t remember how she managed to fall asleep. However she woke up hearing the same music. New York Times compared the brain of that woman with iPod. After a while the “repertory” of her brain got richer. She started hearing another melodies while driving a car, going shopping and reading books. The never ceasing playback prevented her from falling asleep and distracted her while she was counting in her mind. Of course this state began disturbing the old lady. She finally found a way to put the kibosh on that music inside her head. She decided to fight fire with fire. When it was time to go to bed Maggie turned on the radio.
Along with the annoying tunes this disorder make even the favorite melodies sound in an unpleasant way to Maggie. Each time she heard the familiar tune on the radio she switched t to another station. After several months of torture Maggie decided to make an appointment with a psychiatrist Victor Aziz. The doctor wasn’t surprised to hear her story. He explained Maggie that she suffered from musical hallucinations, an abnormal state of mind when the patients hear the tunes and songs “from nowhere”. This is a rare mental disorder which was likely to be considered in the context of schizotypal disorders. The main part of the people developing this specific disorder are of the senior age. The tunes and melodies come to their mind from the deepest corners of their subconscious. Some of them hear the Italian operas that they used to listen with their parents. The most common musical genre of the senior patients is religious hymns. A few of these people enjoy their altered state of mind, while the most part of the patients tries to stop the haunting music by all means.
