It's like a dream, but I'm not sleeping.

I have film scenes, like epic car chases or slow motion bullet time style moments, depending on what sort of song. most songs can usually act as a soundtrack to some scene

I'm too busy jammin out and knockin stuff over to picture anything :(

But when its that guilty pleasure sappy song, I picture us walking down the beach together in nothing but flippers.

Holdings hands

Aw jeffey, since you've already seen me in nothing but my skivvies, it's probably not hard to picture for you, you poor poor soul.

i picture jeff, naked.

always.

wut?

And sometimes I guess i do see my own random video in my head, i remember i made up a bunch of videos in my head for some older Smashing Pumpkins videos from Adore and then i saw their videos and I was dissapointed at how pedestrian they were. I pictured them floating in a forest summoning fairies and nymphs flying around them and stuff.

If I've seen the band in concert, I visualize the show itself.
If I haven't, I imagine I have and create a show in which I can see them.

This reminds me of this. I've always wanted it for a day or so, but I'd feel as though I'd go crazy if I had it for my entire life.

Sure sure, Jeff is naked in my music, but only when I'm listening to Winger or Enya.

i see whatever story the song is trying to tell.
if a song doesn't tell a story it usually sucks.

also, your brain's presence is requested here FA!

Sail away, sail away, sail awayyyy

Cool stuff Johntiki, I'd like to try sensory deprivation chamber idea as well one of these days.

I really like knowing where a band or artist is from. Place, setting is very important to me, so usually if I know where the music is coming from I have a strong visual link. Iron & Wine, for example, sings a lot about American south and I always picture Savannah, Georgia...big trees and cemeteries and dripping Spanish moss

I see...

stuff

depends what I've taken.

*ba-dum-chish*

I used to play in a band in my younger days. So listening to music always puts me back on stage playing in front of all my friends. It had to be the coolest feeling when you saw a kid walking down the hall in high school with your bands patch sewn on their bookbag.

What Do You See When You Listen To Music?

I see you, Evan, because I listen to David Bowie songs while standing outside your window. Look out there now. That's me in the clown suit with the iPod Shuffle hooked to his nose. Wanna come out and play?

Polyester, that's a super cool way to visualize bands, setting them amidst their environment!

jshepp, ifthere's a picture of video that's blocked by my workplace's filter, I'm sure it's a super cool image.

If there's no image there but blank space, even better.

XxSLIPxX, that's kinda a fun name to type by the way, whoa, so every song you listen to you imagine yourself on a stage playing it? So you don't even need rock Band or Guitar Hero to get into the rock star mood, you do that every tune!

oh ya, it's epic

rob, the thing about that is I'm at work and i set up that dummy of me that is sitting in my bedroom chair completely naked there to mess with you since I've secretly seen you up there the last five nights in a row! Also, those sirens you hear rapidly approaching you right now are just the Rock-Out Patrol who I alerted to your presence to make you Star of the Jailhouse!

Music doesn't make me see stuff, it makes me burn things.

hahaha Hector, it's almost a slogan! Plus, you're a lot more like Ralph Wiggum than i thought, but only in the seeing things that tell you to burn things department.

DA POLICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Done, dude!

Is the wording alright?As you know I'm really rusty at this.

It depends on the music.
I usually associate a song with a feeling, then a memory I've had that gives me that feeling. Or anything that makes me feel like that, like something I'd want to happen, or stuff in movies.
Some music that makes me trip out and stuff takes me to space and stuff, and I'm just floating in some other dimension. Like the instrumental parts in SY's Schizophrenia, Modest Mouse, and some Built to Spill songs, like Timetrap or Kicked it in the Sun.
Some songs just sound like certain somethings, like for Animal Collective, Water Curses makes me think of going to carnivals while high on shrooms, and the intro to Derek makes me think of taking a bubble bath.
And Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds makes me think of a place with warm and neon colors and a kaleidoscope sky.

I just totally upped your slogan score Hector to get it nearly out of the teens!

That's awesome Mike! I agree, different songs do different things to me too, and I get your outer space feelings with Built To Spill songs and such. Yeah, guitar solos or sudden rushes in songs give me that out of earlobe experience.

More inner visions explained please!

sometime i try to imagine what the band looks like, if i havent seen them before, and how they would play live. i dont know why

and im hardly ever right, especially with female vocalist

What do you see when you listen to music?

Are you on acid? :P

I tend to listen to music whilst doing something else, so i see what i'm doing.... if i just close my eyes and listen, i often diverge into the lyrics and analyze meaning. I think i don't really "see" anything, but feel things. Some music really stirs a deep connection in me or makes me happy, you know?

in all honesty, i think about the emotions that the music stirs up, and then i think about things i associate with that emotion, and then certain people/events/things become the music and i guess thats what i visualize?

Efunk, there are some ugly-ass rock star bands, so do yourself a favor and avoid those google searches so you can imagine the Sex Pistols look like dreamboats Darryl Hall and john Oates!

GT, hahaha, nope, I'm not on acid unless the last couple years of my life have been one big insta-flashback directly following the first and last time i tried that stamp-licking crazy juice! I never wanna see circus clowns riding giant gila monsters running down the street again!

GT, that makes sense too. I just was wondering from my experiences with music if people mostly visualize the music in some pattern or if it's mostly an emotional thing, like the music is jabbing certain places in your brain that make you feel like you're back in summer camp inhaling lots of fireside carbon monoxide.

Haya, that's cool, that's the sensory feeling I'm talking about! I usually visualize the music in my head, but I sometimes also get transported back to an old emotion with some songs.

Like recently my friend played me this post-rock song from a band called Hammock which was like 12 minutes of slow-bubbling synth and such. It made me feel about those scenes from Pump Up The volume and music at that time that conjured up this emotional closeness and innocence within me, and makes my heart ache for that kind of innocent worldview and worries of the time, how your parents made those key decisions for you and sheltered you from the worst things in life so that you could continue to be a child and not grow up so fast to things that will make your heart heavier and heavier as you age.

I kind of visualise each element as a layer - vocals, drums, guitar etc. but that's about it.

dead hook..... oh wait...

It's different with every artist, every song, every beat, ever mood. Sometimes, I listen to "Between the Bars" and I imagine walking through a city where newspapers are like tumbleweed and it's late at night and everything sort of has a yellow glow to it and it's not really sad or happy but just is.

But I know there are times where I've listened to the song and it's pretty much the same scene but it feels...different. Like I can feel the loneliness because the buildings are spread further apart.

I see the flickering light from outside the windows of the train

or

the blogs

or

outside

I don't know, I hear.

FRICKINAWESOME on Oct 14 '09 at 2:29am
...I never wanna see circus clowns riding giant gila monsters running down the street again!

i think you have yourself a t-shirt design right there! :)