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Is it an autistic thing to have songs (not just words you hum to, but the tones and all of the singer, with all the pauses and intonations) going through your head nearly all the time? The specific song choice seems to be situational to what's going on with me right then. They will go on a loop for a while, until the next prompt switches the selection. And interestingly, it seems to be songs from decades ago, so maybe there's a component of my memory loss at play here?

I can still function with this din going on, but I might be a bit more distracted.

This is different from an earworm.

@autistics #ActuallyAutistic #InternalMusic

in reply to Alex

ergifruit (they/he/she)

in reply to Alex • 2 weeks ago • •

idk, but I also have this!! I've never heard of anyone else having this, so TYSM for posting 🙏🏼 i also kinda… silently hum? Like my throat makes the movements, but i don't make noise. the songs always in my head usually have kinda 'swooping' melodies, which feel the best to silently hum, so I wonder if that's linked.

in reply to ergifruit (they/he/she)

Alex

in reply to ergifruit (they/he/she) • 2 weeks ago • •

@ergifruit Wow, how wonderful we are alike in this way! 😀

I can really relate to the swooping melodies.

@ergifruit (they/he/she)

in reply to Alex

eirias

in reply to Alex • 2 weeks ago • •

I love this question. It’s been an issue for me too, and how intense it is seems to be a measure of stress, somehow. I remember a difficult time in my early 20s where it was causing me notable distress — I remember walking around a foreign city on vacation and just trying to *listen* to the sounds of the place, to be present, and I couldn’t, because of my unsilenceable internal radio.

in reply to eirias

Alex

in reply to eirias • 2 weeks ago • •

@eirias That's fascinating correlating it with a stim! That fits me at times.

Sorry you had your internal songs overwhelm your desire to be present in that city.

@eirias

in reply to Alex

Flesh & bone by the telephone

in reply to Alex • 2 weeks ago • •

Yes, I am AuDHD and I have music playing in my head pretty much non stop.

It can be an earworm (which is torture) or just a song I like, or just something I heard recently like a TV show theme song.

@autistics

@Actually Autistics

in reply to Alex

Dave J

in reply to Alex • 2 weeks ago • •

It's an AuDHD thing and also, apparently, some migraine sufferers experience it at as a prodromal symptom.

in reply to Dave J

Alex

in reply to Dave J • 2 weeks ago • •

@davej Good to hear that tie-in. I'll have to do further research to find ways to cope/integrate that better to be less of a distraction.

@Dave J

in reply to Alex

Hugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷

in reply to Alex • 2 weeks ago • •

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@Actually Autistics

in reply to Hugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷

Alex

in reply to Hugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷 • 2 weeks ago • •

@Tooden Neat; you described my experience to a "T". Nice to hear it was a proper attribution to being autistic/AuDHDer.

@Hugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷

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Hugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷

in reply to Alex • 2 weeks ago • •

Sensitive content

@Actually Autistics

in reply to Alex

ɘniɿT

in reply to Alex • 2 weeks ago • •

I have this too. Not all the time, but very often. Sometimes, when I notice it consciously, I wonder what triggered that particular loop.

It might be fx. I said to myself “I feel happy today” and then the song “Oh happy day” will start looping.

in reply to ɘniɿT

Alex

in reply to ɘniɿT • 2 weeks ago • •

@Trine_DK I hear what you're saying. And sometimes I don't realize I've shifted songs in my head, and then have to look back to try and discover what the trigger was for picking that specific one, just like you do.

@ɘniɿT

in reply to Alex

Shiri Bailem

in reply to Alex • 2 weeks ago •

@Alex @Actually Autistics I'm struggling to understand how this is any different from an earworm? An ear worm is just a song stuck in your head on repeat and people can be more or less prone to them. Often they relate to incomplete memory (the song doesn't complete and the brain basically just glitches and loops it)

@Actually Autistics @Alex

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in reply to Shiri Bailem

Alex

in reply to Shiri Bailem • 2 weeks ago • •

@shiri The distinction I was making is that earworms for me were prompted by something external, such as hearing a jingle or reading a memory post.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Shiri.

@Shiri Bailem

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in reply to Alex

Shiri Bailem

in reply to Alex • 2 weeks ago •

@Alex @Actually Autistics Honestly I don't see much difference, I think half the time it's triggered externally and you forgot the moment it was triggered. The rest of the time it's random memory associations that are set off (which you'll extremely rarely notice).

Hell, just reading this post about earworms gets them going in my head. And because thinking about earworms will make one go off it's unlikely you'll notice when you don't have one going because the mere fact of noticing cancels it out.

Regardless, definitely not something autism specific.

@Actually Autistics @Alex

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in reply to Shiri Bailem

Alex

in reply to Shiri Bailem • 2 weeks ago • •

@shiri Thanks for your thoughts. Yeah, what I said could be a nuance that isn't complete.

@Shiri Bailem

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in reply to Alex

n_to

in reply to Alex • 2 weeks ago • •

Yes! It's been like that for most of my life! Sometimes it is so intense that it feels almost like the music was playing for real. But not like a delusion, I'm always sure it is just in my head. (np: Rocky Horror Picture Show - Time Warp )

@autistics

@Actually Autistics

in reply to Alex

Raphaël Pinson

in reply to Alex • 1 week ago • •

I can relate.

I wonder to which degree it is the byproduct of hyper attention to our surroundings and a coping mechanism similar to special interests (I wrote about this recently in dev.to/raphink/the-constant-ba…)

The constant background hum

The constant background hum — why the autistic brain never quite stops gathering information, and why that has nothing to do with anxiety as most people understand it.

^{Raphaël Pinson (DEV Community)}