Last night, I had a bad dream. Seriously—it was terrible. I dreamt that I woke up in a world that was totally black-and-white. That’s right, I was colorblind. The sky was gray. And all the flowers looked like plain, old weeds drawn in pencil. Without color, everything seemed like a bad B-movie from the 1950s. My mind was trapped in a bizarre horror film where everything had poor, washed-out lighting. “Blah.”

Of course, I’m happily awake now. And life is back to its full spectrum of colorful bliss. But that dream got me thinking … what’s it really like to be colorblind? I’m sure it’s not that horrible—don’t get me wrong. It just seems like being colorblind would have its drawbacks.

For example, artists would have a pretty hard time without color. Sure, they could still paint portraits … or draw amazing landscapes. But with such a limited palette of grays, their art would have much less impact. Eventually, wouldn’t everything start to look the same?

And musicians wouldn’t have it any better. Why? Because, without Color Music, they’d be thrown back into the Middle Ages (… or for some people, back into the 20th century). Since they could see only black-and-white notation, color note patterns would remain hidden. Ouch.

Anyway, maybe I’m just spoiled. But I’m starting to think Color Music is more than a luxury … it’s a necessity. So hopefully, my dreams are full of sunlight and color tonight.