A musician who hit his head by blowing off 9 meters in an accident suddenly becomes able to 'see' music

Synesthesia is a phenomenon in which irrelevant sensations and cognitions are simultaneously triggered when processing information such as sounds and letters in the head, such as feeling colors when listening to music and feeling shapes in tastes and smells. One musician has been reported to have enhanced synesthesia after suffering a head injury in a motorcycle accident.

A case report of acquired synesthesia and heightened creativity in a musician after traumatic brain injury: Neurocase: Vol 0, No 0
https://doi.org/10.1080/13554794.2023.2208271

Musician's head injury triggered rare synesthesia, causing him to 'see' music | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/health/neuroscience/musicians-head-injury-triggered-rare-synesthesia-causing-him-to-see-music

According to the report, the 66-year-old man who was involved in the accident originally had a career as a composer and usually worked as a music lecturer. In 2021, a man had a motorcycle accident, was blown about 9 meters and hit his head. The man was immediately taken to the hospital, where a CT scan revealed a traumatic brain injury and a subdural hematoma. However, the bleeding was not enough to require surgery, and the man was discharged after three days.

And after leaving the hospital, the man said that he could 'see notes' when listening to music. The man said, 'I was constantly writing songs because my creativity exploded from midnight to 4 am. Not writing songs was unacceptable for me.' In addition, he seems to have acquired the ability to instantly understand the chords of the song just by listening to the music.

The man's composing impulse lasted for about four months, and he finally wrote an ensemble song, but later he forgot that he had composed it. After his recovery, the man listened to the song he completed with his wife and described it as 'funny and weird.'

According to the report, the man's symptoms disappeared as the traumatic brain injury recovered, and three months after the accident, the cognitive impairment was almost resolved.

According to the authors of the report, there is one other case in which synaesthesia and creativity surge after brain injury. In that case, a woman who had a stroke suddenly wanted to draw, and her neuropathic pain changed according to the colors she used. In addition, there have been reports in the past of a man who acquired synesthesia after a head injury and began to draw fractal figures.

A man who changed the way he sees the world and became able to hand-paint fractals - GIGAZINE

It is not clear how creativity and synaesthesia are born and linked neurologically, but the report found that both the case of a man who had an accident and the case of a woman who had a stroke were linked It has been suggested that new neural connections constructed in