How The OA Uses Sound to Make Its Strange Philosophy Hit Hard

Netflix’s The OA is one of those shows that defies logic. It’s part mystery, part metaphysics, and part interpretive dance. But behind the dimension-hopping and whispered monologues lies its real secret weapon - sound. The show’s audio design doesn’t just set a mood; it amplifies its entire message.

1. Sound as a Portal

Every time Prairie (OA) crosses into another world, the soundscape shifts. You hear airy drones, stretched echoes, and soft pulses that feel slightly wrong. That’s the show telling you: You’ve left normal reality behind. The sound becomes the doorway.

2. Music That Mirrors Connection

The score by Rostam Batmanglij, Danny Bensi, and Saunder Jurriaans is built on repetition and resonance. Themes reappear in new forms - like memories, or lives looping across dimensions. It’s the show’s philosophy in sound: everything connects, nothing truly disappears.

3. Silence Speaks

The OA knows when to be quiet. Moments of stillness hit harder than dialogue. When Prairie remembers something, or a movement begins, the sound drops away - forcing you to breathe with her. That silence is spiritual space.

4. Movement and Physical Sound

Those strange, synchronized “Movements”? They’re choreographed to sound. Every breath, footstep, and flutter of fabric is recorded close and crisp, making the physical feel cosmic. It’s the idea that gesture itself creates vibration - a literal frequency of belief.

5. Sound as Emotion

When hope returns, the sound opens up - long notes, airy reverb, shimmering highs. When despair hits, it closes in - dry footsteps, flat air, a hum that feels claustrophobic. The audience doesn’t just see emotion; they hear it.

6. Why It Works

Sound does the heavy lifting that visuals can’t. It pulls us inside the characters’ heads, blurs the border between seen and unseen, and turns the show’s abstract ideas into something sensory. If The OA is about crossing dimensions, sound is the thing that gets us across.

Final Thought

The OA asks you to believe in something you can’t see. The sound design makes sure you can hear it instead. So next time you watch, turn it up - because the message lives in the frequencies.