Music and Spirituality

I am not a big fan of most music, I pretty much have a strong aversion to most of it. So much so that I have a rule in my house that no one can listen to it in the common areas, unless they are using headphones or whatever they are calling them these days. I do have some songs that I like, maybe twenty or so. I get an urge to listen to a song or two occasionally, maybe twice a year. Yesterday I was bored waiting for the guys to deliver and install my new dishwasher, so I was just randomly looking at my youtube feed. I saw that there was a music video of one of my favorite songs, "Halleluja" by some unknown group (unknown to me) so I decided to listen to it. 

I was hooked immediately. It was extremely beautiful, and I started feeling tingling all over, in my body and mind. It was pretty much exstasy .

I have never had this experience before. So I searched around a bit on the internet. It appears this is something called "frisson", which is an intense physical and emotional reaction to music. It isn't well understood, but appears to have a release of dopamine as one of the components. I have been on meds for ten or eleven years, meds which I believe suppresses my dopamine and seratonin. So I am not used to it, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I think this is probably what happened. But I'm not sure whether there is a spiritual component as well. (and I don't mean religious, it definitely wasn't that.) But I know even atheists have what they consider to be spiritual experiences, when they see a spectacular sunset or things of that nature. Something that uplifts the soul, in a very profound and positive way.

I almost forgot to add, the group is called "Pentatonix" I think, and their version of "Imagine" also hit me pretty hard as well.

Without music in my life I would go crazy. 

Do you get experiences like I had? And do you think they are spiritual?

Yes I have had strong physical reactions to music. I think art is spiritual anyway. It elicits emotional reactions that change our vibrations. But when something like what you describe happens definitely. 

Yep, well considered.

Call it ecstasy, call it frisson, call it spirituality.

I will refer to it as a (positive) internal response to an external stimuli.

Music lifting your spirits, as it were.....Like sunshine.

But don't forget that you can easily over do it......Repetition will ultimately result in apathy, or sunburn.

One of the greatest gifts mankind ever bestowed on him/herself.  I honestly couldn't imagine the world without music. 

I have this reaction to a lot of different music, at times even being moved to tears! I find it has a lot to do with harmony in the music (gospel choir version of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For on U2's Joshua Tree is the first song I recall eliciting this reaction). Sometimes I think it's because one of the things in life I find most profoundly uplifting is what humans are capable of when we decide to work together. It's the reason I find the third act of The Martian so moving, too. Sometimes it has to do with something in the voice and lyrics, like the hook in Under Pressure, where Bowie sings about how love "dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night." Or recently in a song called "Freedom" by Elena Boynton and Anthony Hamilton, given the context from the film (escaped slaves), where the music stops and she sings "Life hasn't been very kind to me lately...but I suppose it's a push, for movin' on. In time, the sun's gonna shine on me nicely...something tells me good things are comin', and who am I to not believe." 

So, yes, you can have these reactions without any supernatural associations at all! It's totally natural and human and why music has existed for as long as people have.