Syd Barrett Part IIII

In order to understand Syd Barrett’s so-called madness, we last but not least, need to have a fairly good understanding, of his visions - or his creative and innovative perceptions - and how he experienced them with his mind, and with other people.

His visions, were first and foremost visual, as before he became a musician and songwriter, he was an art student at university. These visions - or at least some of them - were assumed by others, that he assumed that others could see these visions, and experience them, in much the same way that he could experience and see them - visually - and in terms of different people, places, and conceptions of spatial meanings and time. He never made such an assumption though, although it’s easy in some ways to see, how and why some other people assumed this.

His visions, therefore developed into a form of autism, where he made his visions into symbols, and sign posts, to identify certain people, and places, which were either positive or negative for him, and conducive or not conducive to creativity.

His visions, were initially, communicated very well, with others, who were interested in his genuine work and creativity, but when his visions and their potential interaction, was unrequited, he then started to verbalise his visions socially, in a way that could not be understood by those around him.

His visions, where of shapes, and were like maps or various languages to him, and identifications of different types of love, power, and territory. The confusion between his visual mind, and his verbal faculties (and which is sometimes assumed to be a huge factor in hearing voices) - and his failure to integrate these socially - meant that he could only express his visions, in terms of identifications of present certain places, and events, which started off as timeless and overlapping, but which then became fixed and ordered, too much in his communication and awareness.