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Re: [AUDITORY] paper (re)quest: R.I.P. Hayman: Listening to Dreams: A project for Middle Ear Muscle Activity Audio Level Telemetry.

Dear Hans,

Thank you for including that excerpt.  I'd be interested to hear if you uncover more reports from that work.

The MEMA that you mention makes me think of the French ENT Tomatis who had a therapeutic approach targeting striped muscle in the middle ear based on the differential between bone and air conduction. It also included the idea of recreating a nascent dream state as part of listening therapy.  Perhaps you've come across him?  If not, google Tomatis method.

Don't want to start a flame war in quarantine, but last time I looked at the Tomatis stuff it seemed pseudo-scientific, at best. 

Cheers
David


David Jackson Morris
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D. 27.04.2020 06.17 skrev "AUDITORY - Research in Auditory Perception på vegne af hans w. koch" <AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx på vegne af hans.w.koch@xxxxxx>:

    dear colleagues,
    
    during a seminar a student mentioned a paper by the composer Richard (R.I.P.) Hayman from 1976, cited in a book by ione “listening in dreams”.
    the papers title "Listening to Dreams: A project for Middle Ear Muscle Activity Audio Level Telemetry” and its topic, referenced in iones book seem interesting, but i couldn´t find any trace of that paper.
    also i would be interested, if there has been further research in this direction, as recommended by hayman, who run into technical limitations in his time.
    
    as a reference i quote the relevant passage from iones book below.
    
    thanks for any pointers, even debunking the whole :-)
    
    best
    
    hans w. koch
    professor fuer sound
    kunsthochschule fuer medien koeln
    peter-welter-platz 2, 4. OG
    50676 koeln
    hans.w.koch@xxxxxx
    
    from ione “listening in dreams” p3-4:
    
    Does the eardrum respond to Dream Sounds, much as the eyes respond to visual dream stimuli? In 1976, Composer and dream specialist R.I.P. Hayman was a self-described “guinea pig” in the studies of sound perception in sleep done at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center. These studies monitored the phenomenon called MEMA(Middle Ear Muscle Activity), assessing the feedback response of the nerve endings on the tympanic tensor muscles of the eardrum. These nerve-endings control muscle tension in response to outside sounds. During dreams these muscles twitch in response to dreamed sounds, much as eyes move tracing the movement in our perceived dream events.
    
    Hayman describes the experience in his paper Listening to Dreams: A project for Middle Ear Muscle Activity Audio Level Telemetry. Using a system in which a pressure—strain gauge was embedded in a custom plastic ear mold fitted next to the tympanic membrane, the movement of the muscles was registered on a polygram, alongside REM and brain—-wave readings from Electrodes. The MEMA was registered at sub audio frequencies, which none—the-less exhibited surprisingly dynamic variations. The subjectively estimated sounds were loud-85 decibels and over.
    
    Hayman subsequently performed a preliminary experiment. The goal was to make an audio—level recording of MEMA; and-during six hours of sleep in an audio studio, an attempt was made to record
    sounds emanating from the eardrum. Though many sounds were recorded, the results were blurred by the interference of the sounds of breathing and circulatory systems. It was apparent that in order to get an accurate result, direct access to the nerve endings would be reqitired, which with our current technology, would be an invasive and dangerous process. Hayman speculates that eventually technol- ogy will advance enough to create a method of listening to dreams that is safe for the dreamer.
    “A great new frontier could be opened, giving a wondrous wealth of imagination to the waking world,” he surmises.