Today I suddenly realized that I had been playing the same song over in my head for about an hour. And that is a startling thing to realize.
I guess on some level I had been aware that it was happening, but other things were going on, and so somehow I hadn’t really noticed. But then when I did notice, I became conscious of just how long that same tune had been playing non-stop in my head.
I wonder how common this is, the sudden realization that you’ve been harboring an undetected earworm. Maybe there is something in our brains that tries its best to protect us from this knowledge, lest we go mad.
If that is the case, then maybe we experience a lot more earworms than we ever realize.