MRI tones seem to organize into a waltz-like rhythm

I found a legitimate explanation for why I bode well during an MRI and often fall asleep.

According to Oliver Sacks:

There is certainly a universal and unconscious propensity to impose a rhythm even when one hears a series of identical sounds at constant intervals.

John Iverson, a neuroscientist and an avid drummer, has pointed this out. We tend to hear the sound of a digital clock, for example, as "tick-tock, tick-tock"—even though it is actually "tick, tick, tick, tick."

Anyone who has been subjected to the monotonous volleys of noise from the oscillating magnetic fields that bombard one during an MRI has probably had a similar experience. Sometimes the deafening ticks of the machine seem to organize themselves in a waltzlike rhythm or threes, sometimes in groups of four or five.

Sacks, O. (2007). Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. New York: Random House.