According to historical accounts, a number of great composers -- George Frederick Handel, Niccolo Paganini, Peter Tchaikovsky and Ludwig van Beethoven -- have had symptoms, such as seizures, which points to the possibility that they had epilepsy.

Another study, published in 2002 by the medical journal Neurology, reported two cases of “seizure-associated singing.” It’s not uncommon for a person with epilepsy to experience automatic body movements either during or right after a seizure. Most of these actions are small, like hand movements, mouth smacking, nose rubbing, repetition of a single word, coughing, grunting or screeching. But complex actions, like singing, are much less common.