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This post was made in March of 2017, where I first discovered that I may have a rare form of synesthesia (unfortunately I did not post what the song was, and I no longer remember what triggered it):
One of Franklin's posts mentioned how he doesn't viscerally *feel* music. This was the first time I had ever heard that some people don't feel music physically. It's a stunning revelation for me but I don't have a long, insightful post on that subject right now.
This concept, however, keeps rattling around in my head, so I suppose I will eventually write something about it. Right now, though, I just listened to a song that immediately made me tear up and feel awash in a complex set of emotions that I have no real-life situation from which those emotions could be applied or are coming from.
I also felt the physical sensations of liquid fur bouncing around inside my head. None of those descriptors makes any sense at all when put together like that, but that's still the sensation I feel.
When I hear certain male voices in certain pitches and timbers, I get this soft, smooth, comforting tactile sensation in my skull that my only analogue for is my former cat's utterly soft fur. Her fur was so soft that even rabbit fur doesn't do it justice, but it wasn't that airy, thin, fluffy sort of fur of a long-hair cat. It was the thick, dense, *weighty* fur of a short-hair cat or, well, a bunny. It was the softest fur I have ever felt.
When it's a bass voice of the right tonal qualities, the sensation flows like a liquid down my ear canal and into my throat. When it's a baritone voice, it bounces around like a springy ball of cotton fluff in the general vicinity of my ears on the sides of my head. When the voice is rough like many rock singers' voices are, the soft furry feeling takes on just a hint of abrasiveness, but a pleasant scratch like a somewhat stiff makeup brush on a patch of skin that you didn't quite realize was just a tiny bit itchy. Maybe more like a soft dog fur than my bunny-cat's fur.
So I'm sitting there, listening to a song that has no personal relevance in my life at the moment, feeling this scratchy, furry cotton ball bounce around behind my ears and feeling an overwhelming sense of loss and yearning for something that doesn't exist, and feeling the exquisitely painful relief that comes with the physical act of shedding tears.
And it occurs to me that some people can't experience this. My first thought is that I am extremely fortunate to have this experience. My second thought is prompted by my depression, which has to butt it's head in and ruin everything, and which says that if I didn't exist any more, I wouldn't have to feel all these feelings that are threatening to overwhelm me right now.
So my "real" brain, the part of me that is "me" in between depressive episodes, wrestles back control for a moment to remind myself that these feelings, even though they're threatening to become too much to handle and even though some of them are sad because of the content of the song, these feelings are exactly what we fought to have back. As many songs say, sometimes we try to feel pain just to stop feeling nothing at all. These sensations are *exactly* what make the experience worth it.
And then I remember once again that some people don't experience music this way. And this all happened in less than one bar of music.
There's no point or moral lesson here. I'm just sharing a glimpse of what it's like in my head when I listen to music to hopefully illustrate how powerful and important music is to me, and maybe to provide a connection point to others who experience music similarly and maybe aren't aware that there are others like them or that there are others who aren't like them.
I wish everyone could experience music the way that I do, at least once.
And then later, I made this post:
April 23, 2017 · Shared with Public
So, remember how I have begun wondering if I might have synesthesia because of how I "feel" sound? Someone mentioned that touching a certain thing tastes bad to them and I have that same sensation but with other items. Newspaper, chalk, and chalkboards taste bad when I touch them with any part of my skin but my fingers are the strongest, and they also make my inner ears hurt when I touch them - the ear canal near my throat.
Which, incidentally, is where I "feel" a lot of music too. Touching newspaper feels like someone rubbing sandpaper on the inside of my skull behind my ears, and it "tastes" kinda like what sandpaper feels like. The action of rubbing sandpaper doesn't have a "taste", but that's what it feels like.
It's like how, nowadays we can say something tastes "blue" and everyone knows what that means because of blue, vaguely fruity-ish flavored candy and drinks. But to me, "rubbing sandpaper" has a "taste", that isn't like if you put a piece of sandpaper in your mouth and tasted the physical paper. And I don't get that taste *from* sandpaper, either. But "rubbing sandpaper" has a taste, and that's the taste I get, along with a sensation of rubbing sandpaper around inside my head about where my ears and sinus canals are, whenever I touch newspaper, and to a lesser degree, chalk and chalkboards.
So if I refuse to pick up a piece of newspaper when we're hanging out together, that's why. It's very unpleasant. Now if you'll excuse me, just thinking about this for this long has made me really need to eat or drink something to get the taste out of my mouth, so I'm gonna go finish my Fanta and french fries, and go to bed, and try to not think about newspaper anymore.
One of Franklin's posts mentioned how he doesn't viscerally *feel* music. This was the first time I had ever heard that some people don't feel music physically. It's a stunning revelation for me but I don't have a long, insightful post on that subject right now.
This concept, however, keeps rattling around in my head, so I suppose I will eventually write something about it. Right now, though, I just listened to a song that immediately made me tear up and feel awash in a complex set of emotions that I have no real-life situation from which those emotions could be applied or are coming from.
I also felt the physical sensations of liquid fur bouncing around inside my head. None of those descriptors makes any sense at all when put together like that, but that's still the sensation I feel.
When I hear certain male voices in certain pitches and timbers, I get this soft, smooth, comforting tactile sensation in my skull that my only analogue for is my former cat's utterly soft fur. Her fur was so soft that even rabbit fur doesn't do it justice, but it wasn't that airy, thin, fluffy sort of fur of a long-hair cat. It was the thick, dense, *weighty* fur of a short-hair cat or, well, a bunny. It was the softest fur I have ever felt.
When it's a bass voice of the right tonal qualities, the sensation flows like a liquid down my ear canal and into my throat. When it's a baritone voice, it bounces around like a springy ball of cotton fluff in the general vicinity of my ears on the sides of my head. When the voice is rough like many rock singers' voices are, the soft furry feeling takes on just a hint of abrasiveness, but a pleasant scratch like a somewhat stiff makeup brush on a patch of skin that you didn't quite realize was just a tiny bit itchy. Maybe more like a soft dog fur than my bunny-cat's fur.
So I'm sitting there, listening to a song that has no personal relevance in my life at the moment, feeling this scratchy, furry cotton ball bounce around behind my ears and feeling an overwhelming sense of loss and yearning for something that doesn't exist, and feeling the exquisitely painful relief that comes with the physical act of shedding tears.
And it occurs to me that some people can't experience this. My first thought is that I am extremely fortunate to have this experience. My second thought is prompted by my depression, which has to butt it's head in and ruin everything, and which says that if I didn't exist any more, I wouldn't have to feel all these feelings that are threatening to overwhelm me right now.
So my "real" brain, the part of me that is "me" in between depressive episodes, wrestles back control for a moment to remind myself that these feelings, even though they're threatening to become too much to handle and even though some of them are sad because of the content of the song, these feelings are exactly what we fought to have back. As many songs say, sometimes we try to feel pain just to stop feeling nothing at all. These sensations are *exactly* what make the experience worth it.
And then I remember once again that some people don't experience music this way. And this all happened in less than one bar of music.
There's no point or moral lesson here. I'm just sharing a glimpse of what it's like in my head when I listen to music to hopefully illustrate how powerful and important music is to me, and maybe to provide a connection point to others who experience music similarly and maybe aren't aware that there are others like them or that there are others who aren't like them.
I wish everyone could experience music the way that I do, at least once.
And then later, I made this post:
April 23, 2017 · Shared with Public
So, remember how I have begun wondering if I might have synesthesia because of how I "feel" sound? Someone mentioned that touching a certain thing tastes bad to them and I have that same sensation but with other items. Newspaper, chalk, and chalkboards taste bad when I touch them with any part of my skin but my fingers are the strongest, and they also make my inner ears hurt when I touch them - the ear canal near my throat.
Which, incidentally, is where I "feel" a lot of music too. Touching newspaper feels like someone rubbing sandpaper on the inside of my skull behind my ears, and it "tastes" kinda like what sandpaper feels like. The action of rubbing sandpaper doesn't have a "taste", but that's what it feels like.
It's like how, nowadays we can say something tastes "blue" and everyone knows what that means because of blue, vaguely fruity-ish flavored candy and drinks. But to me, "rubbing sandpaper" has a "taste", that isn't like if you put a piece of sandpaper in your mouth and tasted the physical paper. And I don't get that taste *from* sandpaper, either. But "rubbing sandpaper" has a taste, and that's the taste I get, along with a sensation of rubbing sandpaper around inside my head about where my ears and sinus canals are, whenever I touch newspaper, and to a lesser degree, chalk and chalkboards.
So if I refuse to pick up a piece of newspaper when we're hanging out together, that's why. It's very unpleasant. Now if you'll excuse me, just thinking about this for this long has made me really need to eat or drink something to get the taste out of my mouth, so I'm gonna go finish my Fanta and french fries, and go to bed, and try to not think about newspaper anymore.
