Do you see colors when you hear music- or hear music when you look at art?

If you do, you are in good company:

About 4% of the population is estimated to have some form of

Synesthesia

This is a condition that could be described as “wires crossing”- meaning that you hear musical notes when you see colors, smell a certain scent or have a specific taste in your mouth corresponding with a certain word or sound, perhaps associate colors to numbers or letters, or even associate a specific shape to a scent. Laura Moss explains, in an article from Mother Nature Network, what it is like to live with this- link below.

This fascinates me – My own experience of color is wonderful and rich already- I get all happy and excited when colors “talk” to me- my way of describing what it feels like when I am in the flow because I have dropped from my head to my heart while painting.

Imagine hearing colors for music and seeing sounds- especially when you read or do math! WOW!

I find myself wishing for this trait or condition-thinking wistfully that maybe I can train it? But no, the experts say that is not possible. However, I did find an article that says that we may all be born with this ability but we learn to ‘turn it off’ as we grow up because it is not encouraged in social conditioning.

I also find this tale of Vincent Van Gogh; against all odds (he grew up in a very strict and non-creative household) – societal conditioning did not pick this out of Vincent. Today, we agree that Van Gogh was way ahead of his time but back then he was constantly bumping up against norms; norms to which he could just not conform. And so, when taking piano lessons he had told the teacher he saw colors when he heard musical notes. The teacher thought him insane and ordered him to leave.

Fortunately, we know more about our brains today. My guess is that synesthesia will become more common as we evolve as a species. You know how we’ve heard so often that we only use 5 to 15% of our innate brain capacity? Seems some of these people use their brains in a most effective way.

For instance, Anna Akana claims her synesthesia has made her a power house of organization (citing Laura Moss). If you don’t know about Anna Akana, and have a chance, look her up. It is most impressive what she has accomplished already. Her humorous and poignant videos always make you think (after and while you laugh).

Here are some more famous people with synesthesia:

Marilyn Monroe,Tory Amos, Duke Ellington, Franz Liszt, Lorde, Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Wonder, Jean Sibelius, Billy Joel,and on and on….

I choose to believe that we are (quickly) evolving into having more brain capacity- even being aware of this special ability is a sign of this manifesting.

Repeat Patterns

What I do KNOW about my experience of looking at art and creating it, is that repeated patterns evoke a sense of and a sound of rhythm. It may not be the same but I sure enjoy the effect it gives when used in paintings and drawings.

This using repeat patterns started quite early for me- back when I was a child in Denmark we were supposed to do MANY, many repeat practices of math problems. This was supposed to build character, make us math experts, and good citizens… I think. But for me it resulted in daydreaming… and craftiness. The brown math notebooks were printed up with squares on every page; and so these ended up glowing with color- this looked much better to my 8 year old eyes than 7+7 = 14 in those squares. I still remember the excitement of transforming straight columns of mind-numbing boredom into patterns of yellow, red, purple, blue, green, orange…. I will have to apologize to my poor math teacher posthumously. He did his best, he really did. I am sorry, Hr. Christensen. I know it wasn’t easy to deal with me.

Ancestral Memory

BUT- maybe this pattern-creating goes way back into ancestral memory, deep in our DNA. Take a look at this cave painting from Lascaux (“Megaloceros with Line of Dots”) or think of the many hand prints found in caves all over the world. In Evelyn Rysdyk’s book : “Norse Shaman” she ties these repeat patterns in to Shamanic drumming and that makes sense to me. Artists, aka the painters and the rock carvers were the visionaries and the shamans for the tribes. Shamanism IS the oldest form of spirituality and it is still here for a reason- it resonates deeply with the original parts of us, the ones that know that if we ask we will have answers, if we feel for the truth through our bodies we will know.

The “Clairs’

So maybe it’s not synesthesia when we sense rhythm from visual patterns but something is definitely going on. The more I get in tune wth my “Clairs”- (Clair-sentience, clair-voyance, clair-audience, clair-gustance) the more I realize that I can smell or taste things that are not really here in 3D reality. I know these ‘clairs’ will become more and more clear to all of us as we evolve and tune in.

And, the more open to our ‘clairs’ we become, the less we can nurse the idea of being separate. And that, dear reader, will make all the difference.  Happy Full Moon today on August 7th! with a partial Lunar Eclipse even.

I promised a link- here it is: Synesthesia

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Am I being delusional, thinking that ‘clairs’ will make a difference for the better?

I would also love to hear about your experiences with color, sound, and synesthesia. Please use the link below to comment – I promise I will answer,