Perfect recollection.... while asleep

I heard Sandi Thom´s "I wish I was a Punk Rocker" on the radio the other day. It was one of those "new songs" I liked. Yes, I am aware that it is by no stretch of the definition of the word, new. But as I have not listened to the radio with any discernible regularity in years, and as I have not bought a new release album in any form in about as long, unless it´s a Classics or Retro station, almost any song I hear on the radio is new to me. I´d heard it before of course, but did not know it well enough to know the lyrics by hard. So I tried to pick up what I could as I listened, and by the second verse was singing along, sort of. It was a nice accompaniment to an afternoon of baking. Eventually the song ended, and after few other songs were played and sung along to, I realised that I had forgotten the but of lyrics which I hard tried hard to learn. There was something about I wish I was a rocker and something about born too late, that was all I knew. I was somewhat annoyed that I could forget the lyrics so easily. It makes no sense that I can almost perfectly recall the lyrics to every Sound of Music song (which I have not watched in twenty years at least) but could not remember lyrics to a song I heard just ten minutes ago. But anyways, it´s just a song, eh? After briefly noting my annoyance, I did not think about it again.

The next morning, I was lying in bed in the blissful state between dreaming and wakefulness. I was awake enough to know that part of me was still caught in a dream. The part of me which was still caught in a dream was happily singing "I Wish I was a Punk Rocker"! And lo and behold, I knew all the words!! The waking part of me deduced that the words were somewhere there in my subconscious but the conscious me had trouble accessing the information, for whatever reason. Even in my half asleep state, I was quite amazed. For a few minutes, or maybe it was just seconds, I lay in bed and listened to the subconscious me wishing to be a punk rocker with flowers in my hair... 

Then the phone rang and I had to get out of bed. A quick shower, breakfast and a few minutes of television later, I realised I could not longer recall the lyrics. I was back to ´something about punk rock´ and ´something about 70s´, but that was it. It goes without saying that I have since turned to the ever reliable Google, found the song and listened to it enough times that the chorus, at least, is stuck in my head. 

I still wonder though, what it is my brain does while I am asleep. While the perfect recollection of lyrics is new, this thing with sleep and songs is a recurring theme. I often wake with one song or other stuck in my head. Occasionally they are songs which I could recall having heard or having been reminded of one way or another the day before. But more often than not, they are songs which I have not heard in a long time and cannot find any explanation as to why I would be thinking about it in my sleep. For I assume I must have been thinking about it in my sleep. Why else would I wake up with it stuck in my head? But how or why eludes me.

On the subject of information stored in the subconscious, I know someone who was working on a diploma thesis (sort of like a Masters thesis) woke up with it stuck in his head, that there was a mistake on page 47, eventually went to check page 47, and lo and behold, there was that mistake! Obviously his subconscious realised he had made a mistake. And then reminded himself in his sleep? It sure seems like it. Again, I really wonder how or why that happens.

Perhaps there is an answer, and it´s just that I do not know what it is, and honestly am not really bothered enough to try and find out. I just find it fascinating, is all.