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The World of Synaesthesia

This isn’t really related to therapy, other than it concerns the mind. I include information about it here both because I think it is fascinating, and because I have a personal interest in it. Because of this, I’d like to raise awareness of its existence.

Synaesthesia is a neurological phenomenon that refers to a consistent and involuntary fusion of two or more different senses. People who have it will experience the same sensory connections throughout their lives. For example, seven will always be green, its precise shade unchanging through the years. Many synesthetes (estimates range from them making up between 1in a million and 1 in 25,000 of the population) have a visual association with words, letters, numbers and colours. Every letter will have its own colour which means that, when placed in sequence to form a word, these letters could form a palette of colours from the letters. (This would certainly be true for the numbers in a phone number.) However, despite the colour of letters, words often have their own distinct colour – sometimes becoming the colour of the dominant first letter, sometimes being completely different. An example of this would be Monday being pink, despite its first letter not being (for example).

Another form of synaesthesia is Coloured Hearing. As its name implies, here sounds are fused with colours. So a car alarm may be experienced as flashing large, white, equilateral triangles. The sound of a whistle may be experienced as a long, needle-thin golden tube edged in crimson. Music, as you may imagine, creates a whole visual soundscape of changing colours and shapes. Some synesthetes experience set colours and shapes for each note on the scale, others for each instrument regardless of note. One synestheste (referred to in one of the following articles) experiences a sensation at different points of her body in response to hearing different instruments – such as a guitar sound producing a tickling at her ankles.

Additionally, when listening to spoken language, a synesthete may also be simultaneously responding to both the coloured letters in the words and the timbre of the speaker’s voice.

Smell may also be experienced in colours and shapes. Often, when the two shapes are similar then the synesthete has difficulty distinguishing the source of the smell. An example of this would be the smell of rose perfume and the smell of perspiration. To one synesthete, both are experienced as a crowd of grey dots that rise into long, vertically-directed lines. The colours and shapes are more figural for her than the actual smell, and the smell of rose in perfumed products (such as toiletries) smells as foul to her as stale sweat. Some have an association with taste which seems to be similar to that of smell – involving colours and shapes. Richard Cytowic has written at length about this particular strand in The Man who Tasted Shapes.
Pain is often experienced through a range of synesthetic combinations.

It is primarily due to Richard Cytowic’s interest and publications that this condition (some like to call it a gift) has once more come into the neurological limelight. There’s a common childhood memory reported by most synesthetes – the moment of being ridiculed when first mentioning the associations that they thought everybody else had too. So an innocent statement such as, “It’s not fair on “going”, is it – it’s just so grey next to the others” could produce responses of panic, derision, scorn, fear and just being categorised as plain weird. As these responses tended to come from close, everyday, contacts such as teachers, family and friends, most report that they never mentioned it again. What’s great about Cytowic’s work is that, apart from it being i

ncredibly interesting, it has allowed several thousand people to be able to communicate a vital and essential part of who they are to the rest of the world.

So where does synaesthesia happen? This is a common question asked by non-synesthetes and it's hard for them to imagine how it's experienced. You’ll find more information in the following links about how synesthesia has been studied using brain-imaging, and about where precisely in the brain it occurs. But, in terms of how it is experienced first-hand, the clearest way I can communicate it in words (at least in terms of visual associations) is to draw a comparison with Ceefax – when it is on the text-over-television-programme-playing mode. So the synesthete experiences the coloured shapes at the same time as being in the world. The shapes don’t block out what’s really there – they are not hallucinations – but accompany it in a different part of the brain. It is as if there is another seam to experience that is being played out while living – an additional layer; an extra stave on the score.

Synaesthesia (The American spelling, btw, is synesthesia) is a highly complex phenomenon and it's possible to read about it at varying levels of complication and depth. In case you're interested in finding out more, I have included links to writing that I think communicates more about it in a readable fashion.

This first piece of writing is a transcript of a radio interview with Cytowic and a synesthete. It's straightforward, easy to read and, to my mind, a good place to start. Interview with Richard Cytowic

The following interview gives more anecdotal detail in terms of people’s actual experience of synesthesia. It’s interesting, vivid, and a very pleasant read. Interview with Neuropsychologist John Bradshaw

This is a conversation between Norman Swan and Peter Grossenbacher. Norman is making some effort to understand the phenomenon and asks the questions that non-synesthetes tend to ask Conversation with Peter Grossenbacher

The following is a very interesting article by Vilayunar Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard. Here they share their extensive research into synaesthesia, including the experiments they undertaken and references to brain imaging. Although referring to the neurobiology of synaesthesia, it is written in a warm, everyday style and gives their current theoretical thinking around the phenomenon. Ramachandran on Synaesthesia

In the following article Richard Cytowic reviews the current knowledge in the field. This is an extensive and detailed article which might appeal to the more academic visitor. Synesthesia:Phenomenology & Neuropsychology

If you have synaesthesia yourself and are interested in taking part in research, then please go to Research on Synaesthesia.

Sarah Fallon, 2006.