Dreaming Music
Bruce Adolphe
Dreaming and Thinking in Music November 18, 2025 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197821640.003.0006 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Key points | Argues that the hypnagogic state between trance and sleep, likened to an alarm's snooze function, can enable creative dreaming, and proposes that dream-based exercises can guide a dream through improvisation and notation into an edited musical composition. |
Abstract
Abstract This chapter opens with an essay called “Cadenzas: Hypnagogic Visions,” which continues the exploration from the beginning of the book, looking more closely at aspects of the hypnagogic state, specifically in relation to the free-flowing dream-like qualities of a cadenza. The cadenza concept is compared to the snooze option on an alarm, which puts the person in a state in between trance and sleep, which can allow for creative dreaming. This is accompanied by two exercises: “Necessary Strangeness” and “Not a Nightmare.” These exercises related directly to dreams. The dream exercises are a pathway into the process of turning a dream into an improvisation, and that into notation, and finally into an edited composition.