hearing clarity after a mini-nap?

[Nepenthe]

For years this has happened to me: I'm listening to headphones on the couch or bed. I fall asleep. I wake up and it feels like it's been an hour, but in reality it's been 5 or 10 minutes... and the music has MUCH MORE CLARITY.

It's uncanny. It's to the point that I like to get comfortable and let myself take a short catnap, knowing that I'll probably wake up in just a few minutes and the music will sound better.

Before falling asleep it can sound flat and dull by comparison. I seem to hear more high frequency detail, a more dynamic sound, more texture, and more energy in my music after waking. And as a bonus the little micro-nap alleviates the drowsiness that caused me to fall into light sleep in the first place so I can concentrate on the music for an hour.

(Maybe I'm strange because I like to find time to do nothing BUT listen to music on headphones -- i.e., I'm not studying or reading or cleaning or working or doing other tasks, I'm *just* listening.)

Anyway, does anyone else experience this? I wonder what physiological or psychological changes occur between drowsiness and waking...

 

[Nepenthe]

Is that a no?

I can't be the only person to ever experience the sensation that my hearing has gained a lot of acuity after waking up from a quick doze.

It used to piss me off, because I'd intend to listen to an album and then go to sleep after, but instead I end up falling asleep two songs in, and then I wake up five songs in and then I can't go to sleep at all... but I realized that if I kept listening that the music sounded so much more "real."

 

[overlunge]

Hi Nepenthe,

I have some experience similar to this, but more so to the background noise/sound like a TV that was left on before I fell a sleep. Maybe it is due to the temporary lost of vision that hightens your neural activity to sound?!


Overlunge

 

[HiWire]

I find that it gets much more LOUD if I fall asleep then wake while the music is still playing... I'm not sure about the rest.

 

[tennisets]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nepenthe Maybe I'm strange because I like to find time to do nothing BUT listen to music on headphones -- i.e., I'm not studying or reading or cleaning or working or doing other tasks, I'm *just* listening.

You're not strange at all! That's one of (most) audiophiles' favorite pasttimes. You don't think we spend all of this money on speakers and headphones and amplifiers and sources just to listen to backgroud music do you? I've met so-called "audiophiles" who don't even really care about the music, they just care about all the little micro details and everything they can hear; instead of getting into the music, they get into the equipment (and they can still enjoy that, and that's cool, it just seems so wrong somehow, like driving a car to admire its finely tuned parts instead of to just enjoy the driving).

For example, someone I met over the summer told me a story about a friend of his: he (the friend) spent upwards of $100,000 on stereo equipment. His music collection consisted entirely of approximately the 40 best sounding albums he could find, regardless of genre or musical quality. He spent his time listening to all the little things he could hear, instead of to the music. On one of the albums, of an orchestra or onsemble or something, during a quiet passage you could hear a bat fly across the hall near the ceiling, up above the stage. He would spend hours listening to that bat flitting around over and over, and he enjoyed it. Now that seems WAY over the top and very strange, but that guy is part of a tiny minority.

Most audiophiles are into audio in order to better enjoy their music: we're almost all music lovers at heart. So anyway, you're not weird for listening to music for its own sake, because that is what you should do. It's certainly my favorite thing to do in the world, no question.

Oh yeah, and I've never experienced what you're talking about, because when I'm beginning to fall asleep I take off my phones and go to bed.