From this link: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/londoncuts/articles/19903160

'iPods could make you hallucinate'
By Mark Prigg, Evening Standard
25 July 2005 Listening to an iPod could leave you with psychological problems, an expert warns.

He says exposure to music is causing more cases of musical hallucination, where a song "plays" constantly in the head.

"People find they can't sleep and can't think properly," said Dr Victor Aziz, a psychiatrist at Whitchurch hospital in Cardiff.

In May, a Bristol audiology expert warned that listening to music at high volume could cause tinnitus and inner ear damage. Dr Aziz said the condition he is warning about causes the brain to hear phantom music. This is different from the common occurrence of having a song "stuck" in your head because the sound is continuous and appears real.

Dr Aziz, whose research involving 30 sufferers is published this week in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, said: "Having a song in your head every now and then is quite normal but musical hallucinations can be quite distressing." He predicted the condition will become more common as people are inundated with music from their iPods, radios and TVs, plus music played in public places.

"People who are bombarded by music tend to hear music," said Dr Aziz. "I suspect the rates of hallucinations in orchestral players will be higher than normal. So, as we hear more music every day, cases will probably go up."

His research suggests sound hallucinations occur when people move from a stimulusrich environment to one with few auditory stimuli - for instance, from using an iPod on the Tube to entering a quiet office.

With no sound via the ears, the brain generates random impulses it interprets to be sound. It then matches these to memories of music and a song begins in the head. This may explain why Beethoven was able to compose after going deaf.

Officially, one in 10,000 people over 65 suffers but Dr Aziz believes younger people are also affected and the true number with the condition is higher due to poor diagnosis. Some sufferers find the condition a comfort. One 28-year-old said it was like a film soundtrack. Twenty patients reported hearing religious music, with six hearing the hymn Abide With Me.
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Oh those wacky Brits! I saw that someone commented about how nobody seemed to care back when people were using their cassette and cd walkmen to listen to their tunes......