For two years, a 19-year-old woman heard music that was not playing. Not a ring, not a hum, but vivid and complex music with melody and structure. Her hearing tested normal. Her imaging was unremarkable. Her psychiatric evaluation turned up nothing.
Audiologists reported her case in the American Journal of Audiology, published online March 17, 2026. Selva Samaei of the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences in Tehran worked with Prashanth Prabhu and colleagues at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing in Mysore. Their diagnosis was idiopathic musical ear syndrome, and the word carrying the weight there is idiopathic.
