Hey, it's Flora Licksman, and you're listening to Science Friday. We're revisiting some of our

favorite conversations from 2025, and you're going to love this one. It's a conversation Ira had about

musical hallucinations. Here we go. Imagine you're sitting at home, and then all of a sudden, you hear a men's choir

building out the Star-Spangled Banner.

You check your phone, your computer, radio, nothing's playing.

You look outside.

No one's there.

This scenario is not a hypothetical.

It's what happened to my next guest after he

received a cochlear implant. But he's not just a patient. He's also a neurologist. So of course,

he had to learn everything he could about his condition called musical hallucinosis. And he

recently published an article in a medical journal about his experience to

raise awareness about this surprisingly common condition. Dr. Bruce Dobkin is a neurologist

at UCLA Health based in Los Angeles, California. Welcome to Science Friday. Thank you. Nice to be here. Nice to have you. You know, Dr. Dopkin,

what a story. It almost sounds like a tale out of an Oliver Sacks book. Actually, Oliver Sacks wrote

about musical Lovicinosis. He suffered with it as his hearing got worse over time.

So were you surprised what had happened to you then if you had heard about it in Oliver

Sachs' book?

Well, I'm listening to the Star-Spangled Banner being sung by tenors and baritones

every 62 seconds on a loop nonstop for three and a half weeks.

And like you said, I was looking all over the place to where it might be,

and then it suddenly struck me, do I have musical hallucinosis?

...