Faces and Places in the Chord

Dictionary definitions of synesthesia center on the ability to, or the condition of, simultaneously interpreting sensory input through two ordinarily separate modalities. Most often a blending of visual and auditory senses. So a “synesthete” in the presence of a c-sharp chord, for example, would both hear the tone as we would, but would also “see,” perhaps, a bright blue. I first came across the idea when using Gene Youngblood’s seminal work Expanded Cinema as a text back in 1970. Buckminster Fuller wrote the Introduction, a tour d’force in its own right.

Anyhow, I have remained fascinated by the notion ever since. It is one of those things I wish I had been born with - like perfect pitch, a photographic memory, or the ability to draw recognizable scenes, objects or people. But as is often my wont, I have learned how to fake it. Here’s how that goes:

One of my great frustrations is the “tyranny of the eyelids.” No doubt many of you share this condition. There you are, reading along in the tiny hours of the morning, 2:30, maybe 3:00, and your eyelids just ring the curtain down. Slam! Your brain is still up for “the rest of the story,” but "No Way!" say the eyelids - Slam, bang, locked up, like those metal curtains in front of little shops around the world. "Wait! Wait!" cries my brain, but alas in vain.

OK, despite my best efforts I still haven’t figured out how to read through my eyelids, but I have figured out how to use what may be some vestigial synesthesia ability to continue some entertainment after hours. As I have mentioned before, I have music or nature sounds playing all night long. The synesthetic part comes in when I draw rather complex scenes behind my eyelids as I listen to the music. Well, I’m not really drawing behind my eyelids - yech, a little Hannibal Lecter-ish. Rather, I’m imagining a variety of scenes, sometimes animated, sometimes “real life,” as the music supplies the soundtrack. 

There are a couple of advantages to this system. First and foremost, behind my eyelids, I can draw anything in any style. From Disney to Da Vinci to Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun to Picasso - you name 'em, I can paint 'em all behind my eyelids. My problem has never been imagining the images. The problem has always been moving those imaginings in my head to the paper in front of me. That doesn't work so well. However, behind my eyelids, all I need to do is think and, ta da, there it is.  On paper what I end up with are my own rather strange efforts, some of which I share with you here on Schrag Wall. 

Second, when I am drawing behind my eyelids I never forget how I did something.  The issue is this, I can look at look at a drawing that I did years or decades ago - often a blend of photoshop and hand drawing like some of the ping pong paintings I have shared with you. Sometimes multiple blending of those images, and I wonder "How did I do that?" "Clicking what keys in what sequence and in what order?" "How many layers?"  Time was my fingers just remembered the sequences. Like what I imagine touch typing is like. Something else I never mastered. Nowadays often my reply to myself is "I have no idea."  Incredibly frustrating. When drawing behind my eyelids, no problem. I just think it.

However, recently I have become more aware of what may be the most fascinating, empowering, enjoyable aspect of my truncated version of synesthesia. Synesthesia is a time machine.  I have mentioned that I do a blend of meditation, relaxation, reiki, etc., before going to sleep. And as with everything, I play music throughout the exercise.  Every once in a while, while my attention is elsewhere, a song will fight its way to the foreground, and flings me into the WayBack Machine where I find myself reliving some previous part of my life. These are incredibly powerful recollections? recreations? lucid moments? I'm not sure which. I, invariably, am startled out of my revery. I cling to these moments longer than my "normal dreams." Long enough to wonder who was that? Where was I? When was I? I can usually figure out parts of it.  I do know that the “when” was always in the past. The who and where usually boil down to more of a multiple choice question.  Both answers obviously were incredibly powerful moments, strongly harmonic with my chord sometime and somewhere in the past.

I'll have to think about it; to sleep, perchance to dream.

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