Having synaesthesia is a lot like being a twin – we don’t know any different

Helen and Kirsty Besgrove are identical twins with synaethesia, a rare neurological phenomenon, which for them involves experiencing a range of visual elements such as colour and textures in their "minds' eye" as a result of being exposed to something usually unrelated, such as letters, numbers or words. Photograph: Rémi Chauvin/The Guardian

Helen Besgrove: My twin sister, Kirsty, and I have a very similar experience of synaesthesia in that our experiences of sounds, tastes, smells, words, noises and motion is very visual. Whether it’s a name, a personality, a sound or a smell – everything has a colour and a texture in our mind’s eye.

What’s interesting is that the colours and the textures Kirsty and I see can be very different. When I drink a glass of chardonnay, I get these swirls of custardy oil but Kirsty might describe the same wine as fuzzy or blobby. It’s the same with people’s personalities, which we both see as a coloured and textured aura around that person. My best friend Jenn’s personality is poo brown, which she hates. For Kirsty, Jenn’s personality is yellow and blue with a brown stripe in the middle.