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Purple Haze

Writer's picture: Paul CotterPaul Cotter
Colorful abstract photo shot with polarized light

When Jimi Hendrix walked into a recording studio, he tried to communicate the mind-bending musical sounds that were in his head. To describe the feelings he wanted to convey with those sounds, he used a language that was as distinctive as his guitar planning.

 

“He didn’t talk about music in technical terms," his producer Eddie Kramer said. "He used colors. He’d say, ‘I need more purple,’ or ‘Let’s add some green here.’"

 

When I first heard about Jimi’s color-driven concept of music, I assumed he was speaking metaphorically — or maybe it was the acid he'd taken. But I’ve since come to realize that he was literally experiencing sounds in a completely different way than the rest of us.

 

Today, Jimi Hendrix is widely recognized as a synesthete: a person with synesthesia. First documented in 1812, synesthesia occurs when our senses overlap so that an experience delivered through one sense will trigger a simultaneous experience through another sense. For example, some people will taste words … or see shapes when smelling certain scents … or see letters or numbers appearing in different colors … or, as in Jimi’s case, they will hear colors.

 

It makes sense to me when I think of it this way: Our five senses are like isolated grain silos, each collecting and storing information separately — but reality isn't actually divvied up into isolated silos like this. People with synesthesia are experiencing the grain spilling over from one silo into the next.


John Daido Loori wrote in his book The Zen of Creativity that all the myriad things we experience through our senses are "unified in a single, ineffable reality." That's why Chan Buddhist Master Dongshan invites us to "see with the ear, listen with the eye."

 

Unlike Jimi Hendrix or my photographer friend Andy Ilachinski, I'm not a synesthete. I'm not able to hear colors; I can't see letters or numbers jumping off the page in different hues. But I'm truly enthralled by the colors I do see, and I’m wonderstruck by the interconnectedness of all things.

 

 

Photographer’s footnote: This abstract photo was part of my recent polarized light explorations. To learn more about shooting with polarized light, see my previous post That Sense of Awe.

 

"Paul's Reflections is meant to be a fusion of my photography and thoughts about life and living."

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