Dear Dr. Sacks,
This is a marvelous website!
I have long been an ardent fan of your mind. My son gave me your book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat when he was in medical school. Your book on Migraine helped me greatly in a condition that runs in my family and that I've had since I was eleven.
My older daughter took me to see you as you lectured in Toronto a number of years ago. What a highlight that was for me!
My son, who loved the intricacies of the mind, was very excited when he discovered that his then six year old daughter had synesthesia. Music and mathematics and patterning also run in my family. What my granddaughter had told her Daddy was that she saw colour when she looked at or engaged in singing. Of course, your book on Music has been read avidly by us and by many we know.
The other day, when my tinnitus was overwhelming, I suddenly thought of you... and then my son... and I wondered "what would Oliver Sacks say to the thought that tinnitus might be a form of synesthesia?" Hearing has been ruled out as a cause… so why not another aspect?
Yesterday, when I learned on our late news that Joni Mitchell is in intensive care in LA, perhaps because of Morgellons Disease, and that there are many doubters of the disease, I thought of you again. And I wondered "what would Oliver Sacks say to the tought that the colours seen by those with the disease, especially a woman whose whole life is music, might be another form of synesthesia?"
That's all... simply thoughts that I wanted to deposit in the best place I could think of... with no need to respond on your part. Just thoughts that life and the mind are far more complex than we can fully understand. After all, doesn't the brain mimic the universe, in Plato-speak?
Thank you, Dr. Sacks,
Ellyn Peirson
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
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