The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 23, 2026, 2:09 p.m.
Identical twins Helen Besgrove , a marketing executive, and Kirsty Neal , a GP, share their different experiences perceiving the world 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.