Music Triggers

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy Forums

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy forums - a peer support community for folks dealing (directly or indirectly) with seizure disorders. You can visit the forum page to see the list of forum nodes (categories/rooms) for topics.

Please have a look around and if you like what you see, please consider registering an account and joining the discussions. When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including no ads, access to members only (ie. private) forum nodes and more. Registering an account is free - you have nothing to lose!

MMRocks

New
Messages
85
Reaction score
0
Points
0
I am interested in compiling a database of sound triggers, starting with music.

Are there specific songs that trigger a seizure for you?
Are there specific genres of music that trigger? (ska, reggae, rap)
Are there specific instruments that trigger? (flute, banjo, etc)

I want to put all these together to help people so they can listen to music without fear, and just enjoy it.

Thanks for your help!
 
Here are a few threads from the CWE archives on the topic:

http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f23/music-causes-seizures-7736/
http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f23/can-music-trigger-19214/
http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f23/partial-seizures-music-trigger-goosebumps-13235/

It can be tricky, because what is bad for someone can be good for someone else. There have been some studies done suggesting that listening to a certain Mozart composition can lead to reduced seizures or abnormal brainwaves in the brain. (see https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/treatment/mozart-effect). But that same music might be triggering for others.
 
I find being in place with loud music seems to be a trigger for me, but only in combination with other triggers. To give you an example: working out hard in a gym, in a hyped up atmosphere, with loud music (coincidently or non-coincidently rock type music), struggling to hear what my friends are saying, and talking loud so they can hear me . . . In a sense all these are stresses, I suppose, even if I am having a great time. My brain must decide enough is enough, and 99% of the time it seems like I have a bad night (my seizures are nocturnal).
 
I find being in place with loud music seems to be a trigger for me, but only in combination with other triggers. To give you an example: working out hard in a gym, in a hyped up atmosphere, with loud music (coincidently or non-coincidently rock type music), struggling to hear what my friends are saying, and talking loud so they can hear me . . . In a sense all these are stresses, I suppose, even if I am having a great time. My brain must decide enough is enough, and 99% of the time it seems like I have a bad night (my seizures are nocturnal).

I have started using noise cancelling headphones at the gym. They have a jack so I can listen to my own music or tv without hearing all the loud background noise. After leaving the gym twice in tears and got them.
 
Shortly after being diagnosed I returned to DJing, but quickly found that trying to match 1 set of beats in my phones with another through the speakers triggered a seizure instantly.

I can quite happily listen to lots of different styles- even the most layered, manic types- at home or extremely loud in the pit of a gig, or dancing on the top of a huge speaker stack in a rave with strobes and lasers constantly going (don't do that anymore lol) without bad effect.

But the mental process of myself mixing causes them every time.

Sold all my fancy DJ kit :(
 
Shortly after being diagnosed I returned to DJing, but quickly found that trying to match 1 set of beats in my phones with another through the speakers triggered a seizure instantly.

Sold all my fancy DJ kit :(

SlimBlue sorry you had to give up mixing. *hugs*

My goal is to factor as many variables together as possible, to find solutions for just such situations.

If you kept a spark of hope, know that I'm building billows.
 
Music isn't a huge trigger for me (thank goodness, as I'm a musician), but if the song has really fast and repetitive sounds switching from left to right, I get an aura type of migraine. (dubstep is the main culprit)
 
SlimBlue sorry you had to give up mixing. *hugs*

My goal is to factor as many variables together as possible, to find solutions for just such situations.

If you kept a spark of hope, know that I'm building billows.

I don't think you understand- it's not the sounds/music that trigger my seizures, it's the mental process of listening to different BPMs at the same time and mixing them.

I'd be able to listen to them individually without any problem.

So unless you can repair my brain damage that causes it, there wont be a solution to 'just such situations'.
 
Back
Top Bottom