Lately there have been times when I've become aware of faint and/or distant music playing, like from a tinny transistor radio left on in another room, or from headphones lying on a desk. This has happened on and off for years, it comes and goes. When I lived in an apartment building I was always certain it was really out there somewhere, some thoughtless neighbor forgot to turn off his alarm clock radio or something. But it always reappeared, despite a series of different neighbors in the adjacent apartment, despite moving into a house in which such variables could be controlled or discounted. Eventually I realized it was only in my head, which was, naturally, simultaneously reassuring and terrifying. But I've gotten used to it; the frustrating thing is that it's always too faint for me to make out a melody or words. I hear singing (a male voice), a chorus of some kind, I can sense the tempo, and can tell that it's a pop song. But that's it, it's maddeningly elusive, like when a car goes by in summertime and you catch a few seconds of a song from its radio, but it speeds off before you can identify it. Very rarely I'll hear a weird kind of crosstalk, like two stations getting mixed up, a male speaking voice fading in and out of the music, or sometimes washes of static. It's all definitely radio-based.

I'm choosing to label this phenomenon a harmless and even endearing example of mental whimsy, a delightful synaptic caprice, rather than, say, the first mild signs of looming schizophrenia. I've always resisted allowing it to bother me or frustrate me, since it's pretty benign and I guess I've intuited that it's here to stay so why tie myself up in knots over it.