Let’s start with my 95-year-old mom. Her memory is unreliable, but she’s still lucid, churns out sarcasm like a pro, and plays a lightning-fast game of double solitaire. Today I finally quit after she won seven games in a row, and, yes, I was trying my best.
She also hears music continuously, and it’s not the kind of music that drives us nuts when we can’t get a tune out of our head. She mainly hears original music, and she will sometimes try to hum or sing what she’s hearing. She says it’s coming from "the neighbors downstairs," and it doesn’t bother her, she says, because some of it isn’t bad and because it helps her fall asleep. The fact that other people can’t hear it doesn’t bother her either. She simply smiles slyly and says, "Maybe you should get your hearing checked."
Am I concerned? Well, just a bit — not about the music but about its source. As I told my mom the other day, I would be more comfortable if the inconsiderate neighbors lived upstairs. She laughed and said, "I see what you’re getting at, but don’t worry. I’m not going to hell." Very determined, my mom. Was she planning to negotiate the issue with a hand of double solitaire?
Where is all this original music coming from? My mother has never composed music, and she insists she would be incapable of doing so "no matter how much you paid me." That’s mom-speak for case closed.
In case you haven’t noticed, we are surrounded by mysteries like this. Some, in my view, are highly suspect, such as demonic possession and communication with spirits. Others are undeniably real: dreams, daydreams, hallucinations, the déjà vu experience, and so on. My staff recently came up with a list of 58 such phenomena. You don’t have to look far to find them.
