One Woman's Struggle to Live in a World With Music

March 5, 2008— -- At first, Stacey Gayle thought she was losing her mind. Just the thought that music could cause a medical disaster seemed ridiculous … after all, five years ago, Gayle was a normal college student. But that was before.

"Before, life was great actually. I had a good job. I was going to church, I was going to school," Gayle said. "I had big dreams."

But then, her life was put on hold. One night while asleep, she passed out.

"All I remember is waking up in the hospital and … the nurse was standing over me and telling me that I had a seizure and I didn't even know what a seizure was at that time, so I was a little bit frightened."

After two years and many more seizures, she finally got a diagnosis: epilepsy. Like nearly three million other Americans, Gayle had an abnormal pattern of electrical activity in her brain.

Medication didn't help much, and worse yet, Gayle and her doctors had no idea what was triggering her intense seizures, or how rare a case she really was, until one day in the summer of 2006.

She was at a barbecue and remembers hearing a hot new hip-hop song called "Temperature," by Caribbean singer Sean Paul.

"My friend and I were just standing there — all I remember is the song came on. And I just remember like falling out and having a big seizure," Gayle said. "I realized that every time it came on, I was there having seizures. I could — as soon as the first beat came on, I'd just go into a seizure, I'm not certain why."

Was it possible that her seizures really be triggered by a song?

"I definitely thought I was crazy," she said.

It sounded strange, but Gayle's doctors at the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center had actually heard of such a thing.

As bizarre as it sounded, Gayle's suspicion was finally confirmed when doctors admitted her to the Long Island Jewish Medical Center for a series of tests.

After hooking her up to a brain imaging machine, they waited.