Updates on Sleep and Music Perception

Multiple years after first writing about the music perception change during sleep effect on this blog, not much progress has been made on my end.

General hearing research is very active, though. Lots of breakthroughs are being made yearly. The most intriguing ones are related to building an accurate cochlear model, as it would allow us to run all kinds of experiments on the human hearing system without needing actual humans. Of course, we still don't know if the phenomenon is localized to the brain, the inner ear, or both.

So far, my approach is to keep waiting, collect as much relevant information as possible, and keep mentioning this effect to various people I encounter. Hopefully I'll meet someone with the relevant niche expertise on this exact subject.

Here is a list of latest links that I find useful, including papers and popsci articles:

1. JB Allen - Nonlinear Cochlear Signal Processing and Masking in Speech Perception
2. Neuroscientists uncover how sound processing shifts during sleep
3. Jourde and Coffey - Sleep State Influences Early Sound Encoding at Cortical But Not Subcortical Levels
4. The CARFAC model
5. Discussion - How the cochlea computes (2024)
6. Disccusion - The Effect of Noise on Sleep
7. Peterson et al - Neuroanatomy, Auditory Pathway
8. Hawkins - Cochlear nerve and central auditory pathways

So far, I haven't attempted any new experiments, mostly because my sleep is already poor as it is. I can report that one of the previously tested songs still sounds noticeably different when it pops up on the radio, but I "adjust" pretty quickly to it and it becomes normal again by the end. Even so, the change is definitely less pronounced now than it was before.

Overall, this means there are still no simple ways to compare or even describe the phenomenon objectively, for now.

Here are (most of the) blog and forum posts mentioning this effect to get different descriptions and perspectives:

1. Reddit - A song I listened to on repeat while I was sleeping changed
2. Reddit - I recently discovered sleeping while listening to a song on loop can cause the song [...]
3. Reddit - does sleeping while listening to a song repeat change the audible perception of the song?
4. Reddit - ELI5: Why does music sound a different pitch after you listen to it while sleeping?
5. The Student Room - Listening to a song overnight changes the way it sounds completely.
6. Ultimate Guitar - Have you ever fallen asleep with the same song on repeat?
7. Altered Perception of Music After Listening During Sleep
8. Neural Adaptation and Perception of Music

Last update: 2025-12-25