Apparently, 98% of people get songs, or pieces of music, stuck in their head. Such songs, or pieces of music, can be "heard" in the absence of any external music or cue, and, going round and around, they can be very hard to get rid of.
Various words or phrases have been used to describe the phenomenon of having a song stuck in your head. "Earworms", "Musical Imagery Repetition", Involuntary Musical Imagery", "Obsessive Musical Thought" and, my favourite, "Tune Wedgy".
But is it only music and songs that can get stuck in your head or can movement patterns get stuck as well?
It seems to me, from personal experience, that there is a movement equivalent to earworms and I'd love to know if other people experience something similar. If they do, I want to know all about them.
I've had three small movement sequences that have played out in my mind over and over for over 25 years. I've got a ballet one, a tap one and a jazz dance one. Here they are. The ballet one is simply: temps leve chasse, pas de bourree, pas de chat, pas de chat. That's it. The tap one is a bit longer: drop shuffle hop step step, drop shuffle hop step step, drop shuffle hop, drop shuffle hop, drop shuffle hop step step. [repeat]. And the jazz one is really short. It is simply a movement image of the right leg stepping across in front of the left leg, a retire with the left, arms in third (right high) and a curved lean to the right with the top half of the body stretching to the left.
For me, these "Moving Wedgies", or "Involuntary Movement Imagery's" come and go, but when they come they can be persistently stuck in my head for a very long time, just like earworms. When I get one I "see" it in the first person, as if I am dancing it. I don't see myself dancing, rather I see what I would see if I was dancing it and the patterns just repeat. I also find myself moving, in a subtle way, as a response to the movement imagery but I don't ever execute the movements in full.
What I've noticed about my episodes of involuntary movement imagery is that the movement patterns are all movements that I've learned personally and danced in full hundreds of times each, but not for many, many years. I don't have involuntary movement imagery of dance sequences being danced by other people or of dance sequences that I've never danced myself and I've never yet had an involuntary movement image of a partner dance.
I'd love to know the following about involuntary movement imagery. Is it a dance-based phenomenon or does it occur for all types of movement? Who gets it? How long are the movement sequences? Is it a pleasurable experience or are people irritated by them? Are they alwys expeienced in the first person, or can they be seen in other people? Are they of movements that you can do, or have done, or are they movements which you have seen but could never do? If you've had repetitive involuntary movement imagery please email me at p.j.lovatt@herts.ac.uk and tell me about it.
Dr Peter Lovatt
www.dancedrdance.com
