Between 5 and 15% of people have experienced some form of

synesthesia, according to the National Institutes of Health. The cross-wiring

in the brain causes a second stimuli not associated with the first — some
people visualize shapes when they hear sounds, for instance.

People with chromesthesia "see" color in sound. Lady Gaga, Pharrell and
Kanye West have all talked about having the condition. So
does artist Melissa McCracken, who creates paintings based on the colors
and scenes evoked by her favorite music, from Jimi Hendrix to the Spice
Girls.

"To be honest, I grew up not even thinking about it at all," McCracken

tells Here & Now's Robin Young." It just was something that was natural,
and [I] never second-guessed it, never even considered that someone might
not be experiencing it as well."

McCracken recalls a memory from when she was a teenager that shed light
on how she saw things differently than others: She had a navy blue phone,
and wanted to find a ringtone that would complement that color.

"I found this Michael Jackson song, and I turned to my friend and I was like,
'Oh, my gosh, this is perfect. It's an orange song. It matches my phone
perfectly.' And he jumped in and he said, 'What do you mean it matches?' "
McCracken says. "That was kind of the epiphany moment of, 'Oh, my gosh, I
might be experiencing things differently.' "

Interview Highlights
On how she experiences chromesthesia

"The best way that I can describe it is that it kind of sits where my memories
sit, but kind of floating in space a little bit. It doesn't inhibit my sight in any
way. But it's almost like a filter, kind of above my eyeline a little bit."
"Different songs I guess start with different canvases. Sometimes I would say
that my blank mind or the mind at the beginning of a song is more white or
cream or just kind of a cloudy-like space. Other times it feels like I'm in the
depths of space, and that it's a navy blue kind of celestial sort of
background. So that all is dependent on what song I'm listening to, but it
varies for sure."

On an in-progress painting inspired by the Spice Girls song "Wannabe"

"I don't know which came first, the colors or the song itself and my love for
the song. But it's a lot of pinks and purples and oranges, and they kind of
have smaller shapes to them. But it is more like a kaleidoscope effect, and
more little bits are happening in it that don't overpower the entire image."

On the difference between "graphing" synesthesia and "sequential"

synesthesia, and how they manifest

"The graphing synesthesia is letters and numbers that are translated into color,
and then the spatial sequential synesthesia is where you have anything that
comes in a sequential form, like numbers or months of the year or days of the
week, they sit in a designated point in space around your body. So I have
those forms as well as the chromesthesia.

"So if I'm making plans to meet someone, I might think of Monday kind of to
the far right top of my right eye, essentially. I think that it's a fairly common
form. My mom also has that form, and my dad does a little bit, too."

On whether she sees synesthesia as entirely positive

"I mean, I honestly love it. Being an artist, I love color anyway, so it is a nice
little added little surprise to my world, I guess. The only distraction is that I
think sometimes when I meet someone and I know that their name starts with
a blue color — that could be an A or an F or something like that, so that gives
me too many options for remembering what their name was. But yeah, it's
definitely mostly beneficial."