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2018-09-29

written by bchan:

i unlock, explore, and map internal space with music. Some space is very well-mapped and familiar. Wherever trip-hop goes is a pretty good example, most of that space is pretty well-mapped and understood, i know where that all leads, and have a pretty good guess as to what mental arc will happen when i go there. And when i want to visit, i have so much to choose from that will easily take me there. i like it a lot, and visit often.

New music allows us to explore new space. i think this is why listening to music is so profound for us - because it's also mapping out and exploring new internal spaces, and that process is how we make or discover new identity.

Not every music does this, and i don't know what makes music unlock something new. It's not just genre, and it's not just 'oh it has new sounds in it' although that is certainly part of it. And there are whole musics that don't unlock or explore anything for us, including tracks that i enjoy plenty (they just don't do the thing to our brain). Even sometimes within the same genre, one song works and another doesn't. And there are genres that i've stepped away from for years and come back to, and on returning, some have illuminated new spaces while others have not.

Also, we have to really listen for this to work. Usually on our best headphones, at night, in the dark, with no other distractions. i constantly have music on at work during the day, but internally mapping mental space isn't something that happens just when overhearing background music; it's only something that happens when i'm intentionally focused on it.

i also don't know how much of it has to do with the tracks being inherent keys that will unlock a particular mental space -- in which case, would i never unlock and map a space if i never heard those songs? Or is it because i'm listening to those particular tracks while i'm exploring a particular space? i can't tell them apart but i suspect it's a bit of both, because my mental state is highly susceptible to some musical influences. Not in any literal way (like 'this track has a bunch of bell sounds in it so now i am picturing churches' - doesn't work like that).

This is also why i tend to obsess over some songs, like i've gone down the rabbit-hole, and i play them over and over again; one listen isn't enough to understand the space the music starts to illuminate. Sometimes i'm able to have patience, and i'll leave the new space for a while and listen to something else. Other times, we listen over and over. Definitely over and over if the space or state is interesting or really good.

what does it feel like? The response is usually a soup of emotions and possibly memories, rapid internal abstract image jumbles, rare non-visual hallucinations (examples include auditory, smells, and body things that i can really only sorta describe as: feels like a sudden transient shift/pulse in gravity), very rare synesthesia, and a sort of 'resonance' that is both mental and physical. There's a texture, there are feelings, sometimes a mode of thought unfolds, and there are connections made, dreamlike processing, sometimes understandings are unlocked. Sometimes there can be drifting dissociation, but that's more rare and i generally don't wander far. Eventually the entire package -- the space -- becomes familiar, and i know it's somewhere i can visit at will later on.

i've been at this for two decades, and i have a lot mapped already (this started back when i did my very first round of internal rewiring, many years ago now). Right now we're mapping Prin-space, which is new for us. The best, most 'resonant' songs so far are:

John Tejada - Loss

Jon Hopkins - Neon Pattern Drum

That last one especially goes someplace we haven't spent much time in yet, someplace just massive and interesting. we find it very close to overwhelming through headphones; it's hard to imagine what it'd be like hearing it on a system so loud you can feel it.

we want very much to be able to do the same thing when making music, but we're pretty new at that, it's considerably more difficult, we struggle with it, and it is very slow. It's very easy to make derivative music based on songs, genres, compositions that already exist -- that's pretty much what presets allow you to do. It's kinda fun now and then, for the nostalgia sake, and because it's like solving a puzzle -- there's the 'aha so that's how they did this' aspect. But it's not sustaining for us; if we just did that we'd never get to map any new mental space at all, which sort of defeats the whole purpose. Same thing with listening; we have a huge colletion and history we can delve into, but seeking and experiencing new music is part of how we grow as a person, so we keep seeking.