100 Days Challenge | Musings | #13
How Certain Words Trigger Songs in My Mind
“Songs are pivotal. It can ingrain deeply in our unconscious minds without us realizing it.”
Last night, I caught myself singing a song that I never listened to for a long time. It began when I was brushing my teeth. As usual, most people have their enlightenment era when they are in the bathroom — telling you from my real experiences because the first-ever article I published here was coming from my adventurous thoughts in my bathroom.
I did it unconsciously, though.
Never came across in my mind, that I would sing that song again.
I never played that song in my playlist for years, even that song was never added to the daily playlist I listen to.
That realization stimulated curious thoughts of mine, to find out why that happened to me — which surely others might’ve experienced as well.
Then, I asked ChatGPT to provide me with the theories that relate to what I just experienced and to summarize them in simple terms.
Here’s one of the theories that I think resonates with me the most:
When a catchy tune or piece of music gets stuck in your head, playing over and over without you trying to think about it. This is called Involuntary Musical Imagery (INMI). It often happens when something in your environment, like a word, phrase, or feeling, reminds your brain of a song you’ve heard before. For example, if you often hear the word “sunshine” in a song, just hearing that word might automatically trigger the song in your mind.
It was coming from a study by Williamson and his colleagues in 2012 about how earworms start.
From what I experienced, it was the word ‘Story’ from this lyric:
“I’ll tell you a story before it tells itself”
It carried me to a song called This Feeling by The Chainsmokers in my head.
Well, I listened to that song hundreds of times back when I was in middle school. No wonder it lingers in my mind because I used to listen and sing that song over and over again in the past— I was kind of a big fan of The Chainsmokers’ song.
This wasn’t my first experience, but I just found it intriguing to be talked about as a topic with a friend who has a similar interest in songs.
More trigger words to songs of mine:
‘Cinnamon’ to Lana Del Rey’s song — Cinnamon Girl
‘Sunshine’ to Ariana Grande’s song — Eternal Sunshine
Not words but names: ‘Diana’ and ‘Olivia’ to One Direction’s songs
Even some numbers like ‘22’ to Taylor Swift’s song that’s exactly the same with its title.
So, we are coming to the conclusion that songs are pivotal. It ingrains deeply in our unconscious minds without us realizing it.
Being mindful of what you consume is one of the best things to do, including what you regularly listen to.
Anyway, what is that certain word that triggers you to a song?
Thank you for reading!
With Love,
Jesica ❤
