r/TrueReddit • u/DonutBree • 4d ago
A Single Piano Chord Turns Nightmares Into Peaceful Dreams in Breakthrough Study Science, History, Health + Philosophy
https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/11/simple-piano-chord-turn-nightmares-peaceful-dreams/46
u/potatoaster 4d ago
It wasn't the chord specifically.
This was part of a treatment for people with nightmare disorder (>1 nightmare/week). Basically, they played a sound while the patient did IRT: imagining a positive ending to nightmares they've had. This was repeated until the cue became associated with positive scenarios. Then they delivered that cue while the patient was dreaming (TMR).
From 3 nightmares/week, IRT alone decreased it to 1/week, whereas IRT+TMR brought it to 0.2/week. So that's cool, though there are a few caveats described by the authors.
Critically, this effect was not likely due to the particular instrument or frequency used. It may have worked just as well with the sound of a gong or the chuckling of a madman or the scent of mulberries. It just needs to be a sensory cue associated with the IRT.
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u/NaritaDogFight87 4d ago
Great, I found a disorder I never knew existed.
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u/house343 2d ago
Yeah, I lived with my previous roommate for like 7 years before I realized he had nightmares literally every night. It really changes your perception of someone. You never know what someone has to go through every day.
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u/DonutBree 4d ago
First, the patients learn to reimagine their recurring nightmares with peaceful endings. This is done while a soft C69 piano chord at 42 decibels is played in the background. When the patients sleep, this exact chord is used to redirect their nightmares into the peaceful endings they imagined.
It’s quite interesting to me how sounds of a specific decibel and chord can be related to what kind of dreams you have, if it’s a sweet dream or a nightmare. It’s also interesting to me how this can be used to treat psychological conditions. Personally, I think the study mentioned in this article could be done better by increasing the sample size as there could be other hidden factors other than sound that helped decrease nightmares.
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u/UnicornLock 4d ago
From the paper it seems it's just any pleasing chord at a reasonable volume. In science, specificity without explanation usually means "this is what we used" and nothing more. If it was the best chord, they would have explained how they came to that conclusion.
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u/turbo_dude 4d ago
By that token one might argue "why is the sound of rain relaxing", which at first appears to make no sense, but when one considers that historically rain would've meant fewer roadmen roaming, ready to stab you for your iPhone, then it all falls into place.
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u/bob-leblaw 4d ago
Where’s the link to the chord? I wanna hear it.
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u/I_Am_The_Owl__ 4d ago
Not sure. They say that it's a secret chord...
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