Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Music and Daydreaming: The Symphony of Creation

I was reflecting today about the music I listen to and what I use it for. I listen to a lot of different types of music: Trance to either dream or to focus on a task (depending on the trance), rock, soundtracks, etc. I use music in a variety of ways, anywhere from the above to writing a blog post (currently listening to Untitled 1 by Sigur Ros, for example).

It's amazing what music can do. I occasionally start twitching in the middle of a daydream if it's fueled by music; I'm reminded of going to see "Star Wars: Episode 1" and twisting this way and that as the podracers fly through the canyon. With music, I can construct any scenario and it becomes five times better than daydreaming without music.

In one daydream, I'm Astan, an exiled nobody from an ice-laden continent who was cast from society because he believed in the forgotten god Ursus. Astan journeys across the land whilst Ursus instructs him to the use of his new power. As I gain power, I gain followers from groups of bandits that crossed my path and are now fragmented. And that's just one daydream.

In another, I'm Phoenix, a warrior sent by the thousand gods of Ishar (the heavens) to bring down an unknowing emperor who has fallen into the ways of the Grungrak (hell or chaos). The battle is between pure order and pure chaos, the way it was meant to be. But chaos wants to take both the plane of Isharia and Ishar as its own, thereby unbalancing the planes and casting the universe into darkness. My companion is Dire, a guardian silver bear sent with me who serves as a mount as well as a fellow warrior. My lover is Ayla, originally an assassin sent to kill me since I defied her emperor's elite army.

Yet again, I'm Cy. After an accident on the highway, my brain is severed from my body. It just so happens that the government will stop funding Nano, Inc. if they don't supply the Army with a "supersoldier" (Several jokes are made regarding this term). I become especially powerful since to all outward appearances, I'm no different. But because I wake up during the operation and feel the nanites reorganizing bone, muscle and organ structure, I'm always battling the line between true humanity (which would start a battle between nanites and body ending in death) or true autonomy (which would cause me to react without any trace of my human animal present). The battle is fiercest when my one-time girlfriend asks if "protecting the United States" means that I'm protecting the government or protecting its citizens.

Daydream #4 consists of me somehow increasing my brain's reaction time which slows everything down, creating all sorts of dilemmas for me to solve. I can't move at the same level as my brain is processing information which creates lag; when people talk to me, they appear slowed down.

Finally, daydream #5 gets to the heart of the matter. I somehow fall into a coma. My brain activity indicates that I'm doing something, but doctors are unable to find out what. That is until researchers state they can see images real-time. So they look into my brain and see my dreaming. My own virtual world that I've painstakingly created. They evaluate that I will slip into a deeper coma if I continue to use as much of my brain as I have and work against time to "connect" my brain to a server where they can interface with it. The problem? Every brain sees differently. They must see things from my perspective.

That's what I want to happen. I want people to see what's in my head, and I want to show them without having to be skilled at creating CGI or even art in general. I want to show this in as much detail as possible. Writing it helps but it cannot possibly convey what I dream up.

And music has a part of all of these daydreams; the ones that I've listed are just a few. I've dreamt about being a reclusive soldier forced into war when Russia and China were seized by an extremist third-party group and were forced into an ongoing war with the United States. I've dreamt about spearheading the Marijuana Reform group and being elected as Chairman of the new Drug Reform Office which would take over the DEA. I've dreamt about this and more, but I can't show any of it to people. Therein lies the source of my frustration.

Perhaps my future children or my children's children will have this chance, but it irks that it's denied to me. At least I have my music library, where I can play out my fantasies and imaginings perfectly.

1 comment:

Zach Fifelski said...

sometimes i hear songs and they become a soundtrack to the daydreams in my mind... i actually began to build a soundtrack based around one of my short stories. props to the sigur ros ref.