Why Does Marijuana Enhance Music Perception?
You take a deep breath of cannabis smoke, close your eyes, and let your mind soar to the sound of your favorite music. Even if you’ve listened to these tracks countless times before, with cannabis, you seem to hear every note, rhythm, and melody with an intensity that’s hard to achieve when sober.
As Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac once noted, “After working for hours on a new song, I smoke a joint and listen to the finished track as if for the first time.” Throughout history, countless musicians from around the world have observed that cannabis dramatically enhances their perception of music. However, this knowledge only became widespread among recreational marijuana users in the early 20th century, when jazz musicians introduced their audiences to the “funny tobacco” they often used before performances. Notably, jazz legends like Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong were known for their regular cannabis use and even dedicated entire songs to it.
But why does cannabis enhance music perception after consumption? While science has yet to pinpoint the exact cause, researchers have proposed several hypotheses to explain this phenomenon.
Cannabis Use and Music Creation
Most experts believe that marijuana enhances music perception by blurring and slowing down our sense of time. Medical professionals note that cannabis can speed up the body’s internal clock, making real time seem to slow down after smoking. Studies show that, on average, the perception of real time slows by about one and a half seconds, based on differences in how smokers and non-smokers perceive a 15-second interval.
“A review of the literature on time-slowing effects from marijuana use shows that even small doses can have this effect on anyone’s nervous system,” says Professor Jörg Fachner, a music and psychology professor at Anglia Ruskin University in Eastern England. “In other words, cannabis affects perception: users feel that standard units of time are lengthened. This change may allow people to better analyze melody and rhythm, enhancing both listening and composing music.”
This ability was especially useful for jazz musicians, who played fast, improvised music. By accelerating internal time perception, musicians gained extra moments to process the music, aiding both group performance and individual rhythm. However, these “facts” are currently supported only by musicians’ experiences, as scientists have yet to develop reliable ways to measure musical response after cannabis use.
Marijuana Use and Enhanced Music Perception
So how does marijuana’s ability to “stretch” time directly affect the average listener’s music perception? Several factors may explain this phenomenon:
Improved Ability to Focus Attention
Some experts and users believe that cannabis enhances music perception by helping the brain focus attention on specific objects. “Changes in time perception also alter our brain’s ability to focus and process information,” says Professor Fachner. “After using cannabis, people tend to focus more on the melody and rhythm of music, paying less attention to other stimuli. This may explain why music feels different after marijuana use compared to when sober.”
Fachner believes this phenomenon allows listeners to perceive every note, making sounds more vivid and unique. This effect is undoubtedly linked to the neurological structure of the human body.
In 2002, Professor Fachner conducted an experiment analyzing brain neuron activation while listening to music after consuming psychoactive cannabis. Using EEG, his team found slight changes in brain activity compared to a sober control group. To minimize outside influences, the test lab was set up like a regular living room. Participants listened to three different tracks: a chamber instrumental piece, a folk-punk song, and a Beatles cover. Both groups listened to the tracks, took a 30-minute break, then one group consumed 20 mg of THC and listened again, while researchers monitored brain activity.
The data showed that after marijuana use, subjects had slight changes in neural activity in the parietal lobe and both hemispheres of the occipital lobe. These brain regions are responsible for focusing attention and processing visual and auditory information.
The greatest increase in neural activity was seen in the parietal lobe, which is activated during high concentration tasks—similar to the brain activity of mathematicians solving complex problems. This suggests cannabinoids may enhance cognitive processing efficiency. “This effect relies on the body’s ability to focus on specific processes, in this case, music perception. Notably, concentration requires less energy after cannabis use than when sober,” Fachner explains. “In other words, cannabis not only boosts the brain’s ability to focus and process information, but also makes these processes less energy- and time-consuming.”
Increased activity was also observed in the right occipital lobe, which processes auditory information. This suggests that stimulation of this region may significantly improve a person’s ability to perceive melody and rhythm.
The Effect of Cannabis on Visual Information Processing
Besides affecting sound perception, Fachner notes that cannabis also influences the left occipital lobe, impacting the ability to process visual stimuli. “When listening to music, we perceive not only sounds. Sound vibrations also affect our ability to locate their sources,” he says. “From an evolutionary perspective, our brains are trained to detect sources of various sounds, especially sharp or loud ones, to identify potential threats. This ability is linked to connections in the left occipital lobe.”
Some users report experiencing synesthesia—seeing shapes and colors associated with sounds—when consuming high doses of cannabinoids. Fachner explains, “In these cases, perception is so enhanced that people literally ‘see’ the form and color of certain sounds.”
It’s important to note that the experiment’s sample size was small—just four participants—who may have had different ways of perceiving and visualizing sound, as well as varying tolerance to cannabinoids. Therefore, the results are not statistically robust.
Other studies, including research from the 1970s, confirm that marijuana use increases perceived sound intensity (loudness) and the likelihood of auditory hallucinations, as well as the ability to perceive high-frequency sounds.
The Effect of Cannabis on Memory Function
Finally, Fachner suggests that cannabis may enhance music perception by affecting memory formation. “After using cannabis, we don’t form short-term memories of the music we hear, allowing us to focus more on the sounds and rhythms,” he says. In other words, without active short-term memory, the brain can more easily process large amounts of new information, focusing on each new sound without dwelling on what’s already been heard.
“Without integrating past information or anticipating future events, our consciousness focuses only on the present moment. That’s why, subjectively, the brain perceives time as slowed down after cannabis use,” writes Frederick Melges, a psychiatry professor at Stanford University.
Fachner adds, “We perceive sound information differently from visual information, and with marijuana, this creates the effect of time slowing down and a deeper perception of melody and rhythm.”
Further Study and Practical Applications
Medical professionals suggest that cannabis’s ability to enhance music perception could be useful in treating hearing disorders. While this is currently supported only by user reports, some doctors believe cannabis may help people become more sensitive to quiet and low-frequency sounds. “It’s possible that the visual effects of this phenomenon could help people with hearing loss better identify sound sources by improving concentration,” Fachner says.
However, it’s important to remember that these explanations are only hypotheses about how neural mechanisms process sound information. Despite advances in cannabis medicine, scientists still cannot say exactly how marijuana affects the brain’s ability to perceive sound. Nevertheless, the reality of this phenomenon is widely accepted among users, suggesting that its true roots may soon be discovered.