For decades, it was believed that music therapy was effective simply because it was pleasurable, or distracting, taking our minds off our pain, both bodily and psychic. We now understand that music is one of the few things that is present across all these different modes of attention (even sleep—many people hear music in their dreams). Music can then help to serve as a unifying source, a glue that connects our different modes of awareness with our internal narrative, our sense of self, where we’ve been, and, perhaps most important, where we want to go.
