I'm sorry to hear about you condition (glad it is in remission, though), and thank you for sharing your experience with us. I'm glad you could get a sense of peace from Sacks' explanation of hallucination, knowing that your hallucinations have nothing to do with those of people with severe forms of psychosis. In many of those cases, those suffering from the hallucinations cannot always be sure that they are hallucinating, and can often choose the hallucination over reality because it is so strong and convincing for them. Since you are aware that what you are seeing is not real but a symptom of the disease you know you have, you are definitely far more grounded in reality than those with psychotic related hallucinations.

Again, thanks for sharing. I hope you are feeling ok lately.

It's fascinating to consider. Do the hallucinations follow the rhythm precisely? I wonder what mechanism accounts for our 'internal clock'. The delay between each note must somehow be stored. I know, that happens even when you memorize a song. But talking about hallucinations just made it a bit clearer for me. How do neurons store a period of time? Now I need to go read a Dennet book.

It is interesting that you bring up internal clocks and timing. I believe I read in "This Is Your Brain On Music" by Daniel Levitin that our musical memories are quite accurate in tempo. That is if you play a tune in your head, the beat is going to be very close to the piece that you are remembering. (Don't hold me to this, I have a terrible memory).

When I was in college, I developed some interest in classical music. The cool thing about classical was that you could pick up some great music for little cost. There were a lot cheap records made by struggling post war European orchestras. In listening to these, I developed an internal program of what a particular piece sounds like.

In the late 80s (after my MS attacks) my interest in classical returned. My stereo and turntable had long fallen into disrepair so I got a new stereo with a tape deck. I couldn't play my old records, so I went about replacing my records with tapes, which was still a bargain. But for the most part I couldn't replace the exact recordings of my records--that had long faded from the market. I could get stuff recorded in the 60's by Bernstein and Ormandy for a fraction of the cost of what newly recorded pieces were going for, but it was not my original music. Any "new" music I bought sounded fine, but the pieces that I tried to replace from my record collection never sounded right. The french horns are too muted. Where the hell did the cellos go. Why do they play it so fast. My replacement tapes did not sound like the music that I remembered from my records. My records sounded right and this new crap was just all wrong and always played too damned fast. What is the rush? I ended up not listening to any of my replacement music because it was irritating. It was like going into a Karaoke bar and trying to convince your self that yeah! That really is the Beetles!

Last summer I bought Led Zeppelin 3 & 4 (Zoso) on CD. I had heard neither album since the 70s (before my attacks). At first listen the Immigrant Song sounded a little too fast, and then as it went on it was OK. The rest of the songs were fine. Truly the same Led Zeppelin that I remember (as to whether it really is could debated--but it certainly sound the same). So buying the same music sounds the same (except for that first little tweek), but buying different orchestral music sounds all wrong. Different conductors emphasize different things, but the modern guys always play the damn thing too fast.

I had two nasty MS attacks in 1984. And while I have been fortunate and not had any additional attacks, I still live with the damage wreaked in the original attacks, bad balance, weak shoulders, numb hands, a loss of IQ (didn't have much to begin with so the loss was somewhat devastating), terrible memory, and I don't think as fast as I used to. The best way to describe it is that my clock speed slowed down. I have no basis of saying of how slow, but I know that it takes me a lot more time to process information than it did before my attacks. I have found the intellectual and memory problems from the MS to be more troublesome than the physical.

Last fall I read an article in Vanity Fair about the big fight that Jackie and Robert Kennedy had with William Manchester over "The Death of A President". This piqued my interest and I found a copy of the book at Alibis and read it. Fascinating, a bit naive, but really a great book. Anyone old enough to get junk mail from AARP probably remembers watching Kennedy's funeral on TV. I can remember the solemn drone of Walter Chronkite's fatherly voice giving us the details while caisson went slowly through the streets of Washington to the beat of the drums:

Boom boom boom...ratatatatat...boom boom boom...ratatatat...boom boom boom...ratatatat...boom boom de boom......... (Yeah I know it sucks, but you get the idea). I can hear those drums in my mind's ear as though it were yesterday.

Well in the process of reading "Death Of A President", I started to look at YouTube videos while I read. I watched the motorcade at Dallas, Johnson taking the oath on Air Force One, and the various videos of the funeral at the same time that I read the chapters in the book. I found the one with Walter Chronkite and the drums. Walter sounds fine, the drums are ridiculously too fast. This can't be right. They speeded it up on YouTube to save server space! OK Sherlock, but why doesn't Walter Chronkite sound like Minimouse and why aren't the cars moving about at 25 miles an hour rather than walking pace. Only the tempo of the drums sounds fast, everything else seemed normal.

Suddenly a light goes off...BINGO! My clock speed slowed down! The drums are the same in video that they were in November of 1963. The tempos of the replacement symphonies are probably fine. It is my slow clock speed and memory that makes everything seem too fast. The symphonies did not sound right because they were not exactly the same. The emphasis of instruments is different but the tempos are probably OK. Led Zeppelin started to set off an alarm then I made an internal adjustment and it was fine. Led Zeppelin still sounded the same but just a bit too fast until I adjusted the timing. So perhaps I should lend my brain to science so it can see where the lesions are in the myelin sheathing and thus find the location of the internal BIG BEN! I probably wouldn't miss it much, it has been rather unreliable for past two decades.

Growing up in Vienna, Austria, I was always surrounded by classical music to the point where I could identify a specific orchestra by the sound of the piece or even tell if Herbert von Karajan conducted. I could identify the composer and the piece within a few measures. Later, after many years in this country, I collected classical music on vinyl, mostly Deutsche Grammophone, they always sounded most authentic. I bemoan the fact that all this knowledge is gone due to neglect on my part. I tried to rekindle the passion with some CDs even later in life, but it was not the same. Things happened, life moved on. I’m sure the vinyls are still around in the shop, probably all wharped. And the turn table? Music sounded so much better then.

However The Tinnitus is a common condition and can affect different people in different ways. Some experience, such as low-frequency hum or rumbling noise. Others will have their music heard songs or music tunes in their head illusion .