by David Hajdu
It took us ten hours to get to New York, driving straight though all the way without a stop, except for dinner at the Howard Johnson’s in New Jersey. When we finally got to the hospital, it was the middle of the night, and you’d never know it. The streets were full of cars and all kinds of people—I mean all kinds of people. I looked around, and I realized we could get all the entertainment we wanted on the New York City streets. It didn’t matter if we had time to see a Broadway show while we were there.
The hospital Adry was in was called Saint Clare’s. I couldn’t tell you if it was founded by Saint Clare or named for her after she died or what, exactly. We were told it was close to the Juilliard School, thank goodness for Adry. When we got to her room, she was fast asleep, resting peacefully. We made our way up close to her in her bed, I gave her a kiss on the forehead, and Greg held her by the shoulders and shook her—“Adry! Wake up! What’s going on?”
A nurse ran in and quietly grabbed us and pulled us out into the hall. She was a nun—I should say, a combination nurse and nun. I was very impressed. She took us aside and gave us the whole rundown on Adry. She explained how Adry had been playing piano in a concert at the school—my daughter Adry, playing in a concert!—and went into some kind of state and collapsed. She said the school called an ambulance, and Adry was brought to the hospital unconscious, accompanied by a friend of hers, a boy.
Greg said, “A boy? Doesn’t sound like our Adry.” I gave him a smack on his arm, and we went to the waiting room and sat there for a few hours till it was morning and we were allowed to go back in Adry’s room and see her.
Gregory Geffel:
Like any good father, I recognized that I bore some responsibility for my daughter’s welfare until she turned twenty-one. I took that responsibility as seriously as possible, as you can tell by the fact I brought her mother in to New York City after work on the first day we learned about her hospitalization. My wife Carolyn had very little in the way of information about this. We weren’t privy to the details until we arrived at the hospital. We learned at that juncture that Adrianne was having a mental issue, and she was being examined for that. I was greatly relieved to learn this but hardly shocked. I had suspected all along that there was nothing wrong with her.
Donald Geffel:
I didn’t go to New York that time, or ever. I stayed and ran the whole business by myself—no problem.
[Geffel provides details on the operations of the business in his parents’ absence.]
Carolyn Geffel:
When we came back to Adry’s room, she was awake and sitting up, humming some kind of song to herself. Greg and I couldn’t help but laugh. That was our Adry, silly as ever! I gave her a big your-mamma-still-loves-you hug and sat on her bed with her to see how she was feeling, while Greg went to find the cafeteria to get himself some breakfast. We had a very nice talk—she told me about how she had been playing the piano one minute, and the next minute she was here, and I caught her up on all things Greg and I had been doing at home since she moved away. After a time, one of the doctors came in. I don’t know if he was a priest, also, or just a doctor. He said they were going to keep Adry in the hospital for a little while for further observation, and I was very, very happy to hear that. If all they were going to do was observe her, I knew she couldn’t be a very sick girl.
Greg and I thought we might as well stay in New York another day and went over to Juilliard to see about using one of the free rooms they had for overnight visits like when Adry and her friend Barb Lucher stayed over at the school. We had a terrible time getting any information about that and finally gave up. We made the drive home after lunch, with me in the navigator’s seat again.
Dr. Emil Vanderlinde (former director, Neurological Institute of New York):
I was brought in on this case by the head of neurology at Saint Clare’s Hospital at the point when it became apparent to the team at that facility that they were in way over their heads. The Neurological Institute of New York, which I was part of but not yet heading up, was directly affiliated with the Columbia University Medical Center, which had no relationship with Saint Clare’s. From time to time, nonetheless, I would be contacted by various institutions throughout the New York area on cases of special interest such as this.
Adrianne Geffel was the first patient to suffer from psychosynesthesia that I would encounter, and I am nearly certain hers was the first case to be documented in North America. This is not to suggest that no human being had ever shown symptoms of psychosynesthesia prior to Geffel. Retroactive analysis suggests that it may have been present to certain degrees in several historical figures of note, including the composer Charles Ives and the jazz musician John Coltrane. Multiple cases have been identified and treated successfully, or less successfully, in the years following Geffel. Still, her case is viewed as a landmark in the neurological literature.
I have written rather extensively on this subject, as you surely know. Indeed, it was my work on Geffel’s case of psychosynesthesia that led to my being awarded the Vicary Prize in Neuroscience in 1986. I subsequently earmarked a portion of the monetary benefit to underwrite a reward for information on Geffel’s whereabouts, which is still in effect.
I believe I can explain psychosynesthesia for you in lay terms. Allow me to try.
It has long been known that in normal brains there is a strong connection between the auditory system and the limbic system. The input from the auditory system stimulates the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe. In so-called normal people, there’s a strong connection between the auditory cortex and parts of the limbic system such as the amygdala and the hypothalamus. This is why many people often have strong emotional reactions to music. Music elicits activity in the amygdala and stirs emotions such as joy or sadness or even anxiety. In addition, there are connections that go both ways—not only from the auditory cortex to the amygdala, but also from the amygdala back to the auditory cortex. With psychosynesthesia, there is an exceptionally strong connection from the amygdala and the hippocampus back to the auditory cortex, so that when the patients are experiencing strong emotions, they receive input back to the auditory cortex. Patients experience this as hearing music in their minds.
When I first examined Adrianne Geffel, it was clear that there was a powerful connection between the limbic system and the auditory system, but we didn’t fully understand exactly how those connections were made and exactly what parts of the limbic system were involved. Since then, through neuroscience research with animal models and through magnetic resonance imaging studies, we have identified which parts of the brain are actually involved in this circuit. So, for example, we now know that there’s a thalamus-amygdala-colliculus feedback circuit that makes connections and triggers responses when listening to music. Also, we know that the superficial amygdala is more sensitive to pleasant or joyful music, and the lateral basal amygdala is more sensitive to sad music.
In a sense, what the psychosynesthesia patient experiences are auditory hallucinations, in that the patient is hearing music that others around them do not hear. It’s similar to the way that other auditory hallucinations occur. Auditory hallucinations—particularly musical hallucinations—can, for example, accompany alcohol withdrawal at times. In Adrianne Geffel, there was not an episodic event that occurred during particular disturbances. The hallucinations were virtually continuous. She heard music almost all the time. It was the flavor of the music that changed, along with the intensity, in direct relation to her emotional state. Over the course of her life, she learned to live with the fact that she was almost always hearing music and, in fact, found a way to release what she was experiencing by playing the music on the piano.
Since she was hearing music in her head, when she would hear other music from an outside source, it would produce a dissonance, because the music was not compatible. There was no consonance to music she was experiencing independently and the music from the external input. That activates the amygdala to trigger anxiety and fear reac
tions. Also, since she is almost continuously experiencing music, there is a strong connection to the hypothalamus, and the hypothalamus can trigger release of hormones and also affects regulation of the parasympathetic nervous system and affects the regulation of the heart rate. The result would have a pronounced amplification of her emotions. For example, if she were feeling distressed and were hearing distressing music, this would have a feedback effect to make her more distressed. This could affect her physiology through the release of hormones, increased EMP and ephrins in the body, and so forth.
You can find a more detailed explanation and analysis of psychosynesthesia as a neurological condition and Adrianne Geffel’s case in particular in my book She Heard Music but There Was No Instrument There: How America’s Top Neurologist Changed Adrianne Geffel’s Life. If you’d like a copy, I can help arrange for you to order one through my office.
Ann Athema (conceptual artist):
Geffel was sublime. Honestly, the sublimest. We did quite a lot together. Strange to think we met in the hospital, but I guess it makes some kind of sense—wouldn’t you say? We were the two arty ones. That’s how they pegged us. Actually, though, I wasn’t making art anymore. I gave it up, and that’s why I was there. And that’s how I met Geffel.
We met in the art room. [Athema refers to the space designated for Creative Therapy at the Neurological Institute of New York.] I was there first, and Geffel arrived there later. She was transferred from another facility [Saint Clare’s Hospital]. I’m a few years older than she. I was out of school by that time. I went to Cooper Union and then, right out of school, I was chosen to be in a group show. Fantastic, and then I looked at what everybody was doing, and I honestly couldn’t see any point in painting anymore. Everybody was doing everything. There was nothing left for me to do. So I gave it up. I just stopped painting. I really didn’t see any reason to do it anymore. To tell you the truth, I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. I didn’t go outside. I didn’t eat. One day, my parents came into town to visit. They went to my apartment down on Ludlow Street, and I suppose I didn’t answer the buzzer. They got the super to let them in, and they brought me to NYU hospital, and from there I was sent up to the institute. A little while after that, Geffel arrived.
Somebody must have said, “She’s an artist” or “She acts like an artist,” so they kept bringing me to the art room and setting up a canvas on an easel in front of me. I’d just look at it for a while and never touch the paint brushes. At one point, someone came along and asked me how I was doing, and I said, “I’ve completed that artwork. Could you bring me another canvas?” I never picked up a brush. They came back with a fresh canvas, and I put the first one on the floor and propped the new one up on the easel. I glanced at it but never touched it, and someone came around again and looked at the two blank canvases and asked me how I felt about what I was doing.
I said, “I have two works finished now. I’m quite pleased with them both.” I pointed to the blank canvas on the floor, and I said, “That one is a portrait of God—not as conceived in the image of man, but a precise, literal depiction.”
I turned to the canvas on the easel and said, “And this is a more personal work, a composite portrait of every woman I have descended from, since the dawn of humanity. I think they’re both rather vivid, don’t you? I’d like to continue my art, if you’d be so kind as to bring me more canvases.” A little while later, someone came out with half a dozen new canvases and laid them down in a pile next to the unopened paints.
The next day, same thing. Before long, I had a nice stack of blank canvases that I announced to be completed artworks. They’d ask me, “And what have you done today?” And I’d say, “Oh—so much! Look—that one shows the known universe, in actual size. And the other one is the unknown universe.” They all thought I was serious. It was hysterical.
There was a piano in the corner, and Geffel would be there playing her heart away. She was extraordinary. Not that easy for me to follow, but extraordinary.
One day, she walked over to me to see what I had been doing. I said, “Would you care to see my artwork?” and I went through my whole pile of blank canvases, which was pretty high by now. I picked up each one very slowly and carefully and held it up for her to see. I said, “This, as you can see, is a pack of timber wolves enacting the murder of Hypatia in ballet, adorned in period costume. I think you’ll like the next one in particular. This is your music, embodied as ice sculpture, melted, evaporated, crystallized, and dissipated in the air that feeds the breath of sparrows and mice.”
When I was finished, I looked at her straight-faced. Geffel studied the canvases and said, “I love these. This is the most ridiculous art I’ve ever seen, and the most wonderful.” I burst out laughing, and Geffel gave me a funny little smile. But she kept looking at the canvases.
Biran Zervakis:
I could barely grasp that my dear, precious Adry was alone, without me, in the sterile environs of a hospital. I was at her side after she passed out, of course. I accompanied the emergency team that brought her to the hospital, and visited her the very next day that I was free. The poor girl was so disoriented she looked surprised to see me. And yet, for all she was going through, she was still interested in me. I walked into her room and took a seat in the chair by her bed. Adry peered over at me, and she said, “What’s your story?”
I talked to her for some time as she rested with her eyes closed, I’m fairly sure, though I couldn’t see her face from the way she was lying. Not wanting to tax her, I left after a couple of hours, when a helpful security guard guided me to the exit.
When I returned to school, I filled in all our classmates and the teachers on Adry’s status. I told them not to worry, I would be checking on her and reporting back regularly. I made the acquaintance of quite a few students I hadn’t had the occasion to meet before. One of the most fruitful of these new connections was with Sue Takashima, who followed in her father’s lead and went to work for the Sony Corporation, in the field of recorded music, after graduation. When I introduced myself to Sue and we started talking about Adry, she told me her father also happened to have an interest in Adry, because he had alerted someone at Sony to the way Adry loved to listen to cassettes with headphones, and they were developing a product based on the concept. I found this fascinating.
Barbara Lucher:
I’m not going to talk about this. I wasn’t there. I couldn’t be there. I didn’t even know she was in the fucking hospital. Nobody told me.
Ask me something else. Ask me why her parents didn’t have the common courtesy to pick up the god-damn fucking telephone and tell their daughter’s best friend that she was in the fucking hospital. I have a thought or two about that. Ask me why my witch aunt Connie took her car from me just when I really could have used it, if only somebody had the decency to alert me to the fact that Adry was in the hospital and might have liked a visit from me. Ask me that.
[Lucher is asked those questions.]
Fuck you, Mr. Clever Man. Fuck you.
[Lucher is asked why she thinks Adrianne Geffel’s parents failed to inform her of Adrianne Geffel’s hospitalization.]
Have you ever been in love, Mr. Clever Man? Do you think it showed? Could other people tell? Did they all jump up and down and cheer you on? Maybe they did, for you and your lucky love. Maybe you can tell me all about that. I’m not very familiar with that.
Dr. Emil Vanderlinde:
Adrianne Geffel was under observation at the Neurological Institute for ten days. We had no treatment protocol for psychosynesthesia at the time. We did all we could do, and provided her with what could be described as an approximation of musical therapy. We gave her access to a piano to play.
Music therapy was still a young field at the time of Adrianne Geffel’s diagnosis. It was as much a form of recreation or a break from treatment as it was an instrument of treatment itself. In the Geffel case, however, music played a central role in the disorder and a commensurate role in its trea
tment. During the time she was under our care at the institute, Adrianne made considerable progress through the playing of music. We had the benefit of input from an educator at New York University, Professor Ruth LeMat, who had been working with the patient informally. Through Professor LeMat, we were able to successfully achieve a level of intellectual understanding, distinct from a subjective appreciation, of the music Adrianne Geffel produced in the act of channelling the auditory hallucinations she experienced. Professor LeMat gave us every reason to accept that Adrianne’s music was good. We could see directly that making it was good for her.
Since the character of the music had a direct correlation to her emotional state at the time she was creating it, the music provided unfiltered evidence of the progress of her care. I can show you what I mean. I had my staff pull my file on this. I thought you would find it interesting. [Vanderlinde calls for an assistant, and the assistant hands him a folder containing a medical log, which Vanderlinde flips through until he finds a page with a Post-it note attached.] Here—May 21:
Patient brought to rec center. Gravitated quickly to piano. Music unusual, abrasive. Unclear if she is purposely playing badly—aggression to care-givers?—or is incompetent. Latter unlikely—Juilliard student. Possible Lincoln Center donor family—check this. Drove other patients from room. Complaints from staff.
In the margins there, I have a little note, too:
See about buying electric organ—volume control?
Four days later, May 25:
Patient acclimating to new environment. Appears less agitated, some music played less hostile. Almost enjoyable.
And four days after that, May 29:
Prepare to discharge. Normal functionality at most times. Arrange for follow-up, ongoing study of P-S [psychosynesthesia]. Important case—share findings. Book deal?
Ann Athema:
Geffel didn’t get a lot of visitors—a woman who was her teacher, she told me, and that Biran person came by every couple of days and talked at her while she played the piano. Her family was from the Midwest or somewhere distant and didn’t visit. I had a sister and a couple of friends from Cooper Union who came to see me, and a guy, Jeffy, who I had been seeing now and then, came quite a bit. Geffel kept playing the piano, and I kept not painting. And we’d talk. If somebody came to visit me, Geffel would sit with us. Sometimes, I’d get her to play something for us. She’d say, “Alright, Koshka—you asked for it.”