Do you see colors, shapes, and movements while listening to music? Do you associate every letter with different colors and personalities? Do you see the days of the week like a halo around your head? Well, if yes, let me welcome you to the world of synesthesia.
What is synesthesia?
Synesthesia is a neurological condition of one’s brain connecting two different senses. The word synesthesia comes from the combination of two Ancient Greek words: “syn” (together) and “esthesia” (sensation). A synesthetes brain can link the five senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, sound) with each other. For instance, you can see shapes when you smell certain scents, see movement and colors when you’re listening to music, or feel being touched when you see someone else being touched.
How rare is it?
Surprisingly, 4% of the population experience this phenomenon, which means you are very likely to know someone who has this condition!
Can your associations stop or change?
Synesthesia is both involuntary and consistent. If a synesthete perceives a particular color when hearing a specific sound, this association remains fixed for life. For example, someone who tastes pancakes when they hear "weekend" will always experience that pairing.
Is it genetic?
Scientists think it might have a genetic component as it can run in generations. But certainly, the particular associations don’t. A mother can experience the number “3” in green while the daughter experiences it in yellow.
How is it to be a synesthete?
The experiences that synesthetes have are totally normal to them. Thus, they usually find out their unique ability later on in life when other people tell them they don’t experience the world in the same way.
Types of Synesthesia:
Chromesthesia is one of the most common forms of synesthesia.
It is the situation where you see colors, shapes, or certain movements while you’re listening to a melody or a beat. A person with this type of synesthesia might experience heavy percussion and bass sounds as dark-brown colors on a black background, as every beat creates a new circle inside the other circle, just like the wave movement of the water when a rock is dropped in. Weird, right?
Grapheme–color synesthesia is another common type of synesthesia.
It is the situation where you see letters and numbers in different colors.
In the right picture, you can see the experience of a person with grapheme-color synesthesia when they look at the image on the left.
Lexical–gustatory synesthesia is a rare yet cool type of synesthesia, meaning you can experience certain tastes when you hear certain words. For example, the word surf can taste like “blueberry muffins” while the word “violin” might taste like salt.
*** Associations are usually not meaningful as you can see in the example
Ordinal linguistic personification is one of the weirdest ones. The situation here is that ordered sequences such as ordinal numbers, week-day names, months, and even alphabetical letters are associated with personalities or genders. A synesthete may experience the number 6 as an athletic fearless woman while February is a depressed teenager.
Spatial sequence synesthesia occurs when you see months, dates, or time in the space around you. The days of the week might be like a hula hoop around your body or a halo around your head. This type of synesthesia is famous for providing extraordinary memory skills.
Is Synesthesia a Gift or a Challenge?
Synesthesia isn’t a disorder or a disease. While it can sometimes cause sensory overload or difficulty in concentrating, it’s often a source of creative inspiration. Many synesthetes use their unique abilities to excel in art, music, literature, mathematics, and science.
Famous Synesthetes
Numerous renowned individuals have embraced their synesthesia to produce remarkable works:
Billie Eilish: Grapheme-color, chromesthesia | Musician
Vladimir Nabokov: Grapheme-color | Novelist
Richard Feynman: Grapheme-color | Mathematician
Beyoncé: Chromesthesia | Musician
Kanye West: Chromesthesia | Musician
Nikola Tesla: Chromesthesia | Inventor
Franz Liszt: Chromesthesia | Musician
Hans Zimmer: Chromesthesia | Musician
Lady Gaga: Chromesthesia | Musician
David Hockney: Chromesthesia | Painter
Even though you might not have these experiences, synesthesia highlights the unique and diverse ways our brains can perceive and experience the world, showing the incredible beauty and magic of the human mind.