Poop Shute

Holy hell

I have had migraines once or twice in my life. I've never been prone to them, like my friend Brian, but I have had the experience.

Yesterday I had the worst one I have ever had in my life. It was so bad, for so long that I was kind of hoping I would die, just so it would stop.

I remembered that the last time I had one that it comes with a heightening of the senses. The eyes and ears especially become so sensitive that the slightest sound or light can make your head pound and your stomach churn. This time this part of the experience soared to new heights. I actually experienced momentary synesthesia.

DICTIONARY.COM describes synesthesia as "a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color."

I didn't experience the example listed of seeing sounds as colors, but my senses seemed to be having crosstalk, like mutual interference on a cell phone or walkie takie. Any one sense seemed to overlap with the others. I cut off sight by keeping my eyes shut and covered, smell was covered by a stuffy nose, and taste was irrelevent because I wasn't eating, but hearing and touch seemed to blur the normally rigid line between them. I didn't see sounds, but I felt them. I mean every sound became a physical wave that traveled up and down the length of my body and it hurt like a b*tch! Worse than the pain was the waves of nausea. The girls were watching a movie in the living room and I was in the bedroom with the door closed and a swell of music in the movie's score made my entire body feel like it was being beaten with reeds on a rocking boat in a storm. Each car that drove by outside the window felt like needles in my hands and feet. The sound of my own voice as I whimpered from all this felt like being pelted with hot, peeled grapes.

These sensations lasted only for maybe an hour or two, but the migraine lasted for about fifteen hours. I woke up with it around ten a.m. yesterday, and it finally faded away early this morning around two or three. I still have a slight, residual ache in the back of my head as one last, little souvenir.

I'm writing this, not for sympathy, but to share the experience about synesthesia. It was incredible! I mean, yes, it was horribly painful, and an experience I would not wish to repeat, but I'm glad I had it the one time. I was in too much of a state to really appreciate it yesterday, but looking at it now, when I can distance myself from the pain and nausea, it really was an amazing experience. Imagine if every sound you hear could also be perceived as a tactile sensation.

Kinda cool.