The great Russian composer, Tchaikovsky, says that the germ of a future
composition comes to him suddenly and unexpectedly. He says, ‘I forget
everything and behave like a mad man; everything within starts pulsing
and quivering; one thought follows another.’ He describes this as a magic
process which occurs to him when he is in a ‘somnambulistic state.’ Brahms
told one biographer that when the inspirations for his most famous compo-
sitions came to him ‘they are clothed in the right forms, harmonies, and or-
chestration. Measure by measure the finished product is revealed to him.’
Richard Strauss, the composer, also says that when the ideas flowed
in him, ‘the entire musical, measure by measure’ followed. It seemed to
him that he ‘was dictated to by two wholly different Omnipotent Entities
...and was conscious of being aided by more than an earthly Power.’ Puccini
described in similar terms. He says that the music of the opera, Madame
Butterfly, was ‘dictated’ to him by God. He says, ‘I was merely instrumental
in putting it on paper and communicating it to the public.’
This echoes the view that normal people with intact brains have ex-
periences which make them feel as if they had more than one mind or one
person in their bodies — like split-brain patients. George Elliot told J W
Cross that in all of what she considered her best writings, something that
was ‘not herself’ took possession of her, and that she felt her own personal-
ity to be ‘merely the instrument through which this spirit, as it were, was
acting. The German poet Goethe reported that he wrote his first novel,
Werther, ‘almost unconsciously, like a somnambulist,’ and was amazed
when he realised what he had done.
‘Inner listening’ is the term that is often used when the creative ideas
output from what seems to be another person. In many of the experiences
the communication even seems to come in the form of an audible voice.
The left brain often views the right brain which is delivering the solu-
tions as another mind or person — which is not far from the truth — as evi-
denced in experiences of split-brain patients. The illusion of a unitary self is
caused by the fact that, for most of the day, we normally only hear the vocal
left brain talking. When the right brain intervenes, using the left brain’s
speech centres, we attribute the messages to ‘another person.’
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