Thanks To Señor Loop’s Music, I Discovered I Have Epilepsy

This is one of the most complex pieces I’ll ever write. I don’t think there’s a normal way to explain my quest to find an answer to why Señor Loop’s music calms me and makes me feel great. Here, you’ll learn about my extremely complex and life-changing professional and personal processes to create, direct, produce, film, and edit “My Brain On Señor Loop,” my first documentary feature film where I discovered my epilepsy thanks to the Panamanian band.

So much has happened during the past seven months that I don’t know where to begin this story. I never thought I’d be sitting down here staring at my computer’s screen, trying to find the words to make sense of what happened during the creative process for my documentary “My Brain On Señor Loop.” It never crossed my mind that I'd be writing a personal story narrating one of my life’s major events of self-discovery while existing during one of my life's strangest and weirdest moments.

But, oh well. Such is life in the tropics, as we say here in Costa Rica.

There’s no normal way of explaining what happened on my quest to find an answer to why Señor Loop’s music calms me and makes me feel great. Everything began around mid-February of this year. I had this initial spark and curiosity about exploring music’s effects on my brain. I wanted to see what happened, and it meant traveling to the past, remembering my adolescence when my neurologist diagnosed me with an immature brain at the time.

That idea was floating around my mind for a while back in February, and then March came by. The Panamanian band Señor Loop – one of my favorite bands – was coming to San José, Costa Rica. They were going to perform live, and I wanted to interview them.

I pitched their artist profile, and it was approved. I interviewed their vocalist, Lilo Sánchez, over a video call, and I was so drawn to their story that I decided to write a two-part series about them. I wanted to create a multimedia journalistic masterpiece that dove deep into their extensive musical career.

Everything went great and, fortunately, I was invited by the band to attend their concert along with a plus one. I told Daniel Rudín, one of my best friends, to join me. We went to the VIP section of the concert, and I was having my “Almost Famous” moment while filming the band performing live. I was experiencing the feeling of “I’m making it.” This feels real. The hard work over the past years was finally paying off, and I was there filming the band for the short clips to include in the multimedia two-part series.

Yet, in that precise moment – Thursday, March 21^st – I did not know I’d be doing the documentary about Señor Loop. The idea was still in my mind, but it was not a concrete plan yet. PART I and PART II were published on March 16th and March 23rd. The series was a success, and on March 22^nd, I pitched the documentary with a clear idea in mind of what I wanted.

The pitch was approved, and I proposed the project to Poti García, Señor Loop’s manager. Thankfully, the band said yes to the documentary, and that’s when the intense investigation began.

I reached out to my neurologist from my adolescence, asking him if he wanted to participate in the project. Unfortunately, he was unable to join, and I then asked him if he had my medical record. To my surprise, he said he didn’t, and that implied reconstructing everything from scratch.

For some reason, my mother had taken extremely detailed notes during my adolescence when I was having seizures, fainting, and migraines. She essentially made a medical record of her own, documenting each doctor’s appointment and exam I had to take. The notes, along with the electroencephalograms (EEG), computed tomography scans (CAT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), were the base to explain my immature brain diagnosis.

I really never understood what having an immature brain meant, and if I was going to do this documentary, I needed an expert to explain this concept clearly. Since my neurologist couldn’t join the project, I asked my great-aunt for help. She’s a doctor and knows many other doctors who could help. She asked various of her neurologist friends for their insight and help, but there was a minor detail.

They were retired. They are also not subscribed to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica. That means they cannot speak publicly because they would be sanctioned for it. So, I needed to find a solution to my problem.

While I was trying to see who I could reach out to and as I spoke to my parents, my mother remembered that one of my father’s cousins has a son who’s a neurosurgeon. My father reached out to his cousin and then put me in contact with Dr. Gerardo Lang.

The search for a medical expert was finally over. It took me about two months to finally find Dr. Lang and speak with him to understand the effects of music on the brain from a medical and neurological perspective.

I also needed an expert on music’s effect on the brain from a psychological perspective. I initially thought of the neuroscientist and cognitive psychologist Dr. Daniel Levitin, who’s known for his extensive research on the topic and his collaboration with Sting in understanding the musician’s brain on music. Dr. Levitin’s executive assistant kindly replied, saying he could not be part of the project due to the preparation for the release of his new book.

Once again, my quest for experts in the field continued. I did some research to find other professionals and stumbled upon Renate Rohlfing. She’s a pianist, music therapist, and associate professor at Berklee College of Music. Her background is amazing, and it perfectly fits the narrative I was looking for.

I reached out to her and successfully got an excited response from her expressing her interest in joining the project. I had a preliminary interview with her explaining everything about the documentary, and she suggested analyzing my brain and my life experience from a perspective involving music therapy.

Her idea astounded me because it meant the story would be more personal, but it also implied a more retrospective process on my behalf. I needed to write several journals, timelines, and notes for her to understand where I was coming from.

I went down memory lane to provide Renate with a set of personal documents. I recalled the times when I was dealing with the very strong emotions that triggered my seizures. I interviewed my piano professor to map out the relationship between my creative musical composition process and my brain’s reaction to it. I wrote about the enormous amount of death and loss I’ve experienced throughout the course of my life.

I sought out the strong impact of music on my daily life and how it’s always been present, whether it is listening to it, creating it, or playing an instrument. I went through thousands of pages from my journals I wrote as a child, teenager, and adult. I even looked for my essays from my Spanish class in high school and noticed that my investigation abilities come from that time.

I also ran into my sketchbooks from my advanced art classes during high school. I found in them the extensive research I’d do to create my art based on studies of colors, artists, techniques, and styles. I was obsessed with the brain during that time of my life, and my art revolved around it. I created different artworks about the brain and found my old research about music in the brain.

That made me realize I’ve been doing my job since I was around fifteen years old, but it only became a professional pursuit until I was eighteen. Through that introspective research of my art from 2012 to 2014, it was clear that my brain art was going to play a major role in the documentary.

That’s why I chose my pieces “Tattoo vol. 1,” a linocut plate, and “Brain in a Microwave,” a paper pulp and chicken wire sculpture placed on top of a microwave’s motor inside a black cardboard “tunnel.” These artworks were the perfect pieces to portray my brain physically as a main character in the documentary.

Along with the incorporation of my art, I wrote more journals about my relationship with music, my professional life, and what I feel whenever I listen to Señor Loop’s music. Once again, with Señor Loop’s notes, I went down memory lane. I recalled the time when I first interviewed them: September 2017 at the Hotel Presidente in downtown San José, Costa Rica.

For some odd reason, a moment during that conversation has stayed with me ever since. I remember Lilo saying something along the lines of having no expectations whatsoever about anyone or anything. It was in reference to the creative process for music, but that stuck with me at that moment, and I adopted it as a life mantra.

Have no expectations. Go with the flow. Let life surprise you. Embrace the unexpected.

And I’ve been doing that ever since. I’ve applied it in every aspect of my life. Since that interview, their music has been with me for different times in my life. It reminds me of when I was working and doing my undergrad simultaneously in Costa Rica. It reminds me of my time as a journalist at The Tico Times in Costa Rica. It also reminds me of my times in Madison, Wisconsin during my master’s at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The journals for Renate took me back to Madison, aka the North Pole, and transported me to a time where Señor Loop was part of my finely curated music repertoire that created a sense of tropical warmth while feeling the cold to my bones in Wisconsin. I vividly remember staring out my apartment’s window, watching the snow falling, and listening to their song “Bajando La Montaña.”

Their descriptive lyrics narrating the humid tropical sound of Panama transported me to the tropical warmth of Costa Rica and created a lot of imagery in my mind. It also generated the sense of calm and tranquility I sought to find an answer to with this documentary.

Most of my initial research was done at this point in the documentary's process. It was around mid-May and June, and I had both experts in their particular fields: Dr. Lang and Renate Rohlfing. Each one of them had strong arguments for music’s effects on the brain from neurological and psychological perspectives.

July was right around the corner, and the fun times were about to begin. It was time to start filming. The first interviews were conducted, and I started with Dr. Lang. After I’d given him my mother’s notes and exams from the past, he had the information and knowledge about my immature brain from my adolescence. He clearly explained my brain, emotions in the brain, anti-seizure medicine, and the magic of music.

We discussed the idea of doing an EEG to understand why I feel relaxed and calm when listening to Señor Loop’s music. He stated his hypothesis of what he thought we would see during the exam. We wanted to see my brain’s electrical activity with the band’s music, and the path was set for success to carry out the experiment.

After his interview, I spoke with Lilo and Iñaki Iriberri – Señor Loop’s co-founders – to better understand their views about the band’s musical process and the magic behind their creations. The mystical and philosophical views of their music. Something that went further beyond just simply creating music.

These two interviews were entertaining and tied the overall narrative very well. Lilo and Iñaki were very drawn to finding the answers behind the magic of their music that creates a deeper connection with their fans. They shared that some of their fans wrote messages stating their music saved them from suicide, and that generated a deeper curiosity in me. I wanted to understand what that thing in their music was. What created such a deep connection with their fans was that their music had the capacity of saving someone’s life.

I knew there was something in it, but I could not clearly pinpoint what it was. I was still midway through my investigative quest to find those answers.

After those interviews, I kept collaborating with Dr. Lang to set up an appointment for the EEG. At this point, everything went downhill.

The drama began.

The EEG was a complete failure thanks to irresponsible and unprofessional people who should have taken me and my project seriously. That’s the story of my life in Costa Rica. I’m never taken seriously because I’m a woman and I’m young. The exam was terribly executed thanks to incompetence, so the results were altered.

I was told my brain was a normal brain for someone of my age. There were no paroxysms, nothing happened with or without the music, and the report stated it was an EEG done in vigil and somnolence. I was initially told it was an EEG in vigil.

I had no answers. The results made no sense. They didn’t match Dr. Lang’s hypothesis, and I could not draw a conclusion from the experiment. Something was off, but I trusted my instincts. I reached out to Dr. Lang, explained what happened, and suggested the possibility of repeating the exam.

By this point, my trust issues were at an all-time high.

My documentary was on fire, and not in a positive way. I thought six months of work and research were going to waste. Tears of frustration streamed down my cheeks. Everything was on fire, and I needed to solve my documentary’s problems before it was too late.

These incompetent people’s “silly joke” delayed the release of my documentary by 1.5 months. It meant I had to film the b-roll and EEG all over again because the previous material did not comply with my high professional standards.

Dr. Lang thankfully came to the rescue and suggested working with Dr. Freddy Henríquez, a Costa Rican neurologist. While he was speaking to Dr. Henríquez, I conducted several interviews to have a new camera assistant join me in documenting the new EEG. In that process, I found Carolina Mora, a Costa Rican director of photography, and asked one of my best friends, Jordi Louzao, for help filming the new b-roll.

I met with Carolina on the day of the EEGs, and we then met Fabián Fernández, the technician in charge of carrying out the exams. He explained everything very clearly and conducted the EEG with music first. I laid on the hospital bed, got the electrodes placed on my scalp, and Fabián checked if they were positioned correctly.

Once everything was ready, I played my playlist, “My Brain On Señor Loop,” on a speaker. It was a carefully curated playlist with their songs that spoke the most to me. Their song “Lo Que Hay” was the first one to play. It was an excellent beginning for the exam, given its mellow rhythms, melodies, beats, and profound vulnerability. Right after that came “Juana María,” and nothing intense was going on at that moment, but when “Bajando La Montaña” played, everything changed. It was weird and a strange coincidence that that song was sounding just when the strobe lights started flashing. The lights were no issue, but then came the part I dreaded the most: the hyperventilation.

I had a very vivid memory from one of my EEGs in my adolescence in which the hyperventilation left me feeling awful. That’s why I was not looking forward to it.

As predicted, I felt horrible during the hyperventilation. It was an ironic scene; I was having a horrible time hyperventilating, but I was happy because “Bajando La Montaña” was playing. It’s one of my favorite songs, so I thought it was part of their magic. There was no way this could be happening on purpose.

And then, “Guarumo” started playing. I was still hyperventilating, and I felt tingling in my arms and hands. The hyperventilation was never-ending, eternal, but “Guarumo” kept playing.

I could listen to Lilo singing “deja que la música te lleve,” which was quite ironic at the moment. The music was not taking me to any place because I was having a horrible time. My arms and hands still tingled. I was cold because of the air conditioner. I also had an extreme urge to pee and I felt spasms in my cheeks. I’m still not sure if the spasms were due to the cold or because of the hyperventilation, but it felt awful.

The good thing was that it was almost over. “Algo Ritmo” was the last song to play during that first EEG. I was told to relax and wait slightly to get off the bed. Then, Carolina and I had our break. We went downstairs to the cafeteria and bought some beverages while we watched surfer Brisa Hennessy on television. She was making history for Costa Rica during the 2024 Paris Olympics’ surfing semifinals in Tahiti.

We got way too distracted by the television, and suddenly, Fabián appeared, telling us it was time to go back for the second EEG. This one was without the music. I got back on the bed, had the electrodes placed in my scalp, and we’d repeat everything all over again. I felt a bit more relaxed. The flashing strobe lights were repeated.

The hyperventilation came again, and I had a horrible time with it. I despised the hyperventilation so much, and by the end of it, my hands and arms were tingling. Yet, at that time, I felt something different. When I opened my eyes, I felt like I was seeing color patches everywhere.

Once again, I was told to wait to get out of the bed. Once I could get off, we took photos of my amazingly beautiful hairdo after two EEGs. Then, we left, and it was marvelous. I had plenty of footage from the exams, and the editing journey would soon begin. I was told to wait 72 hours for my results.

Seventy-two hours passed by, and I had no results. I reached out to Fabián asking about it, and he said Dr. Henríquez wanted to give me the results personally the following week. I thought something was odd, but I continued on my editing journey. Time went by fast during that week.

The conclusions to my experiment were right around the corner and that same week I interviewed Renate for her insight from a music therapy perspective. Her interview was on Thursday, August 15th. In less than 30 minutes, she explained my life really well. I felt like crying when she gave her detailed analysis about music’s role in my life. It basically gives my life purpose and a way to deal with my intense feelings and emotions. She said that my constant work of speaking with artists brought stability in my life.

This just reaffirms the fact I’ve always known: my job’s never been just a job. It contributes to my mental and emotional well-being. It’s my passions intertwined, and it’s a positive contribution to make the world a better place.

That interview was quite intense because of the personal revelations. It was a day before the big life-changing appointment with Dr. Henríquez.

I’ll never forget that day. I arrived early and sat down in the waiting room until they called me. I was called in. I set my camera on the tripod and gave the doctor the microphone. We tested the sound and began the interview.

He started speaking about epilepsy. He said something along the lines of how great it was to have someone tell a story about epilepsy. I was confused. I did not understand why he was saying that. I did not understand why he was talking to me about epilepsy if I don’t have epilepsy. I had an immature brain in my adolescence, and it was gone with time.

I was wildly confused, but then he clearly told me I have epilepsy. A type of epilepsy called juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.

He said it’s probably due to a genetic defect. My brain is wired differently. I have abnormal brain waves throughout my brain that get rhythmic and the hyperventilation is what provokes the seizures.

I kept listening to his words and was utterly confused. I really didn’t react too much at the moment because I was also told I didn’t need medication. My last seizure was about ten years ago and I was taken off the medication back then. So, Dr. Henríquez said to keep doing whatever I’ve been doing during these past years. His theory for music’s overall role in my brain is that it probably reduced the risk of seizures and avoided many events of hyperventilation provoked by intense emotions.

So, technically, music saved my brain. And my life.

Ahhhh, shit.

Weird times approached. I left the hospital with a strange and odd sensation. The following days a wave of emotions crashed into my face. Confusion. Sadness. Anger. Rage. Surprise. Amazement. Shock. Happiness, to a certain extent, because of the incredibly unpredictable story I had in my hands while heavily struggling with the diagnosis.

I now had to disclose the diagnosis to my family, friends, the magazine, and Señor Loop while dealing with the idea of communicating this publicly because it was an essential part of the documentary. Throughout that process, I got a varied selection of responses. Good and bad. I was also editing the documentary and listening to the diagnosis recorded on camera every day did not help much with processing my emotions.

I was sad and angry because I felt I’d been lied to in my adolescence. I should’ve been told at that time that I had epilepsy, not an immature brain. Stating I had an immature brain that had gone away made it seem less serious. It was not a lifelong disease living in my brain and conditioning me to how I have to live life.

The anger got bad. I thought it was very irresponsible to not have been told after I was taken off my meds – about ten years ago – that this was still a condition in my brain. Something dangerous could’ve happened during that time and thankfully it didn’t, but I was angry. Raging angry.

I was also sad because this changed everything. It changed my perspective on life and I’m more mindful who I have around me because having epilepsy also means dealing with stigma. That part really made me uncomfortable because I’m an extremely private and reserved person. I rarely do personal stories as a journalist and I obviously would’ve preferred dealing with this privately, but life gave me this.

Life gave me the unexpected and it generated the self-imposed responsibility of taking accountability to the best of my abilities. I was granted the possibility of changing the narrative around epilepsy by bringing a story that sets a precedent that might help other people with the neurological disorder, as no experiment has been done like this in Costa Rica, according to Dr. Henríquez.

This is the prototype of the perfect story any journalist would love to have in their hands because of its unpredictability and raw documentation of life. It’s the type of story I’d study and analyze during my master’s. The type of story you see projected on the big screen with a tremendous narrative structure in the form of a feature film.

My rage, anger, sadness, and overwhelming emotions needed to transform into resilience. I needed to come through with the biggest, most personal, and weirdest story of my career. The story that’ll define my career. The story in which, thanks to Señor Loop’s music I discovered I have epilepsy.

The story in which it became clear that music, along with intense exercising habits, saved my brain. Music in all its forms and the intense amount of yoga, pilates, and strength training I did over the past years. And maybe the past two years of attending an MMA academy and doing functional training strongly contributed to this.

Somehow, my brain self-regulated itself. I wouldn’t have discovered any of this if it weren’t for this experiment with Señor Loop. I found out about this disease – one of the most common neurological diseases in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) – at the same instance you first consumed the documentary.

Even if I went through this intense emotional rollercoaster in which I lost weight and got horrible migraines due to stress, I had a groundbreaking reflexive moment. This all means that throughout my life, I’ve been defying the odds of what a person with epilepsy is “not supposed to do,” according to society. I’ve defied the stereotypes because, in the past ten years, I’ve been achieving greatness and making my dreams come true.

I began my journalism career when I was eighteen. I did my undergrad while working at The Tico Times and became an assistant editor there when I was only 21 years old. I graduated with honors during my undergrad, and then, I got into one of the world’s best journalism schools to obtain my master’s degree while also working. I was one of the few Latinas in the academic and professional spaces I’ve navigated through in the United States. I won state awards for my multimedia journalism during historic moments of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I experienced a horrible and extensive job-hunting journey full of rejection due to the discrimination for being Latina before finding my place at ArtRKL. Yet, the constant rejection and discrimination did not stop me from achieving greatness. Last year, I had the great fortune of telling the stories of some of the world’s current best artists with the magazine.

And now, I have a triple minority identity: woman, Latina, and epileptic. No one can tell me I can’t make my dreams come true based on my identities because yo hago lo que me da la gana (I do whatever I want). Discrimination did not stop me, and neither will my epilepsy. A disease doesn’t define me. I’m an integral human being characterized by many other traits besides my condition.

And I wouldn’t have reached this life-changing and groundbreaking point in my life if it weren’t for ArtRKL, Señor Loop, the experts and professionals who helped me throughout the process, and my friends.

I’m extremely grateful to Rebecca, the magazine, and Sygnity Wellness for providing a platform and supporting the story since day one. We’re making history. With Señor Loop, oh boy. What a wild ride. Thank you for joining the weirdest and most unpredictable life-changing self-discovery story of my career. This documentary was meant to happen with you: open-minded people who were extremely excited since day one to join the experiment. It’s not every day I get to tell such a wildly ambitious and unexpected story about one of my favorite bands.

To Dr. Lang, Renate, Dr. Henríquez, and Fabián, thank you so much for taking your time to explain my complex brain and my weird life story. Thanks to your insight and input we’re making history in Costa Rica, Central America, and Latin America. To Carolina and Jordi, thank you for helping me turn off the fire and provide impeccable visuals. To Hailey Lachman and Anthony Rodriguez, thank you for creating such cool and fun animations.

To my friends, mis reales, you know who you are. Thank you for being there throughout the process and supporting me. Without you, I wouldn’t have made it through. To all the artists I’ve interviewed throughout my career: thank you so much for contributing to my mental, spiritual, and physical well-being. Your conversations and marvelous masterpieces have literally kept me alive and healthy.

And to Señor Loop’s fans: thank you very much for the outpouring of support and wholesome comments. I struggled heavily with the idea of making this story public, but your positive response made the whole ride worthwhile.

And now, I don’t know what’s coming next. The feeling of uncertainty is more alive than ever. The soft uncertainty or “La Suave Incertidumbre,” my piece I composed a few years ago for piano, expresses my current feelings of uncertainty without words in the best manner possible.

I feel more alive than ever. Twenty twenty-four is the year that Señor Loop changed my life. I discovered my epilepsy thanks to them, and now I know music saved my brain. I’m not the same person I was before doing this project.

Life is just weird now. Yet, I can embrace the unexpected, follow my bliss, and go with the flow no matter what life throws at me. 

©ArtRKL™️ LLC 2021-2024. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ArtRKL™️ and its underscore design indicate trademarks of ArtRKL™️ LLC and its subsidiaries.