Touched by sound. Sensing Synesthesia.
"It is not until we find ourselves in dire moments that we allow our senses (even if we don’t want to) to open and receive the world without filters..."
Welcome to the section called The Void, where I share personal and trippy stuff from the slopes and tangents in my head. My series about the human senses has found its way into this section, and I suspect it will be jumping to different sections as I keep discovering different angles to explore them.
Hit play below and keep reading.
Have you ever heard a sound that made you see and feel things that aren’t there?
Recently I was in a situation in which hope was at the bottom. I was already out of tears, and then I heard ‘it’. It was the deep voice of a tibetan buddhist, chanting, in podcast interview that I hit play to not because I was looking forward to it, but because I was looking for something to quiet my inner screams.
Such a voice, such a chant, made me feel the presence of family members that were far from me, but that I needed to be close at that precise moment, from dead relatives that I didn't even imagine I was going to sense, and from people that I had never met in person.
I refer to ‘it’ (the voice) and not ‘him’ (the Buddhist) because while it was a person who was speaking/chanting, the sound didn’t come from him or the podcast he was in. He was channeling from somewhere else. At one point (in that podcast), after his chants, his voice and that of the podcaster’s formed into a vibrating sound that continued through the duration of that episode. Words became mumbled and all I heard was something like what you are hearing now (if you hit play before you started reading). It was as if the monk’s voice consumed the other one to intensify its frequency, and I started feeling and seeing things.
I felt a hand over my left shoulder. It was my grandfather from my mom’s side (dead). Then I felt the hug of my father (dead), and then I felt a bigger group hugging me. My mom, my sisters, my brothers, my niece, my nephews, and a few other people that I don’t really know. While I was aware that I was in a physical place (a cold and dark hospital waiting room), I was also sensing these things.
I know that they weren’t really there, but I felt their touch, and their warmth; and they told me to stay strong. It was synesthetic moment. Sound turned into images and sensations. Through that Buddhist’s voice I saw, heard, and felt other people. In that moment, between tears and a sense of impotency, that voice gave me what I needed the most, a sense of calmness, and someone to hold me together as I was breaking apart.
Being honest, calmness is not something that I was looking for that day. I wanted numbness, of the kind that I knew alcohol could give me. I wanted to just not feel, because what I was feeling was hurting me, but I ended up feeling calming sensations.
Has something like this happened to you?
I already went back and forth in my head trying to come up with a logical explanation for that experience, but honestly, I have no rational way to explain it.
The truth is that no matter who held my physical body at that time, and no matter how much I wanted them to be there with me, it wouldn't have made me more comfortable. At that moment, in that cold chair, there was no physical need for touch.
I am not religious, but I can recognize that there are practices out there that through their prayers, chanting, or sounding can touch us, deep within, even when we are not in the same space or timeframe, and when we are not in the same line of ideals.
I have experienced these energies a few times throughout my life, mostly in moments of hopelessness.
Our senses can capture things that we can’t even imagine, but they are not easily perceived. We live in a society that disconnects us from our sensory potential. It is not until we find ourselves in dire moments that we allow our senses (even if we don’t want to) to open and receive the world without filters, cultural expectation, or even personal beliefs.
I know this may sound weird coming from a non-religious person, because it is assumed that we lack the capacity to sense beyond the physical. But I assure you that such is not the case.
Moved by sound
This post came as an impulse while I was researching about how Tibetan Buddhists sense the world. I opened the word editor to draft what would have been titled ‘The Tibetan Buddhists sense of sound. Reaching beyond time, space, and existence.’ (which I plan to post later), but I couldn’t finish it.
I had decided to search for sounds to give the writing (and you) and deeper sensory experience, but whenever I played anything like what you are hearing now, and I found myself drifting to that moment, that experience, that sense of synesthesia that I lived at the hospital.
Sound, not reason, took me here!
I keep finding unintended slopes and tangents in this series about the senses. I set to write about one thing, yet I find myself writing about something else. There is a mystery to the senses that I can’t quite grasp. Many cultures (ancient or existing), focus more on allowing their senses to flow and feel, rather than training and controlling them. That is, (perhaps) how we should face the issue of learning about our sensory capacity, ourselves, and our bodies.
In a society that is all about controlling our actions, sticking to plans and rules about what directions we should take, we can allow ourselves to just flow. We can let our senses engage each moment as it comes and goes without too much reasoning, or without trying to shape them based on what someone said they should be.
In my head I already analyzed all the logical possibilities that I could to produce an explanation for this Synesthetic experience. My non-religious ideals told me one thing, my technically educated mind about the human body said another thing, and yet my soul experienced something different. Synesthesia!
Thank you for reading (and listening).