I know I am a bit late to the party with Billie Eilish – but better late than never right? My ears are in love and I have found the perfect recipe for brain joy. I take extreme pleasure in music (ok, not always pleasure, sometime its agony – but when its right – its ecstasy) because I have synaesthesia, specifically chromesthesia. Some of her music is like an amplification switch for this. Most notable so far is a song called “you should see me in a crown”, this is just incredible.
Chromesthesia results in sounds, pitches and timbres generating corresponding colours and textures in my field of vision. I understand that the way it manifests is quite personal, for me I experience colour along with movement shapes. It’s hard to explain, but some sounds are an overwhelmingly sensory and emotional experience.
Synaesthesia, derived from “syn” and “aesthesis” meaning “together” and “sense”. The condition stems from the stimulation of one of the various senses and results in an automatic and involuntary stimulation of a second sense (colour from sound, taste from words, colour from numbers…).
Apparently, there are more than 80 different known types of synaesthesia affecting over 4% of the population. I never really knew that this was an unusual thing, I just thought that was how sound worked in our brains. It wasn’t until I had a partner whose whole entire being was made of music, he was a walking rhythm. He played the bass but was extraordinary in his abilities with creating sounds all round. It was only in our endless conversations in which I would try to explain, paint or draw what I was experiencing. Recently there has been research that has shown that people with chromesthesia are drawn to artistic activities, so I guess it makes sense for me.
So, that’s enough for now, I’m going back to my magical headphones and Billie Eilish with “you should see me in a crown” on repeat.
