Imagine if every sound you heard painted a picture in your mind. For me, this isn’t just a metaphor—it’s my reality. I experience the world through a rare phenomenon called synaesthesia, where sounds transform into shapes, and this unique gift has unlocked an extraordinary talent for languages. But here’s where it gets controversial: while some see this as a superpower, others might argue it’s a double-edged sword, especially when the world feels like a never-ending symphony of visual noise.
Car rides with my partner, an ex-DJ with a penchant for loud music, are a perfect example. As he turns up the volume, my mind erupts into a kaleidoscope of static images and flashes of light, making it nearly impossible to focus on the road. It’s like watching an audio recording come to life, with sound waves morphing into intricate patterns, or neurons firing like miniature galaxies exploding before my eyes. How do I describe it? Think of it as a silent movie playing in my head, synchronized to every beat and hum around me.
At 44, I only recently discovered I have auditory-visual synaesthesia, though its impact on my life became clear much earlier. In school, I effortlessly aced Japanese without even trying, because the words and sounds materialized as vivid images, making them impossible to forget. Later, at university, majoring in Spanish, Korean, and Indonesian felt like second nature. This led me to the air force as an intelligence officer—a role I chose specifically to avoid the predictable paths of teaching or translation. When I took the language aptitude test, I walked away convinced I’d either failed spectacularly or aced it effortlessly. Turns out, I’d done the latter. ‘No one’s ever gotten every answer right,’ they told me. But for me, it wasn’t about trying—it was about seeing.
The term synaesthesia first entered my vocabulary when I transitioned into speech pathology after leaving the military. While studying autism spectrum disorder and neurodivergence, I stumbled upon this condition where one sense triggers another. Yet, I didn’t connect the dots to my own experiences until years later. It wasn’t until I began working on speech-to-text computational linguistics that I realized my ‘sound shapes’ weren’t just quirks—they were a form of synaesthesia. I found a Facebook group where others described seeing sounds as colors, but mine were distinctly black and white, except for high-frequency sounds, which burst into a spectrum of whites, yellows, oranges, and reds. This ability even helped me ace hearing tests, as I could ‘see’ pure tones as colored flashes.
My synaesthesia became a professional asset when I was recruited by Apple’s head linguist for a 90-day project in Japan. On day one, I learned I’d be working on Siri. Those 90 days were a whirlwind of headphones and Australian voice recordings, and I loved every second. Since then, I’ve worked on speech-to-text projects for Tom Tom GPS, Bank of America, and now, as a speech pathologist, I help children and adults improve their communication and swallowing abilities. And this is the part most people miss: while AI is advancing rapidly, language’s nuances are too complex for robots to master. For instance, I can instantly dissect the western Sydney Lebanese accent—something I’d never trust AI to replicate.
But synaesthesia isn’t without its challenges. I rely heavily on earplugs to mute the world’s noise, and my brain rarely gets a moment of peace. Running to music is my sanctuary—the only time the visual symphony pauses, and my mind finds quiet. Yet, I wouldn’t trade this gift for anything. Even if I lost my sight or limbs, the thought of losing my connection to words and sounds would be devastating. This work feels like my ikigai, my reason for being. I’d do it for free if life allowed.
But here’s the question I leave you with: Is synaesthesia a blessing, a burden, or both? Share your thoughts below—I’d love to hear how you’d feel if your senses blended in ways you never imagined. And a special thanks to Anina Rich, cognitive neuroscientist and chair of the Synaesthesia Research Group at Macquarie University, for her insights in this series.
