Synaesthesia

Synaesthesia (also spelled synæsthesia, synesthesia); from the Greek (syn-) “union,” and (aesthesis) “sensation,” has been used to describe various phenomena. A person who experiences synaesthesia is called a synaesthete. Normally the term synaesthesia is used to indicate a condition in which the stimulation of one sensory modality gives rise to an experience in another modality. In an auditory synaesthete, for example, an auditory experience may give rise to an experience in the visual modality.

Synaesthetes often experience correspondences between the shades of color, tones of sounds, and intensities of tastes that provoke alternate sensations. For instance, a synaesthete may see a more intense red as the pitch of a sound gets higher, or a smoother surface might make one taste a sweeter taste. These experiences are not metaphorical or merely associations; rather, they are involuntary and are consistent throughout life, although some young synaesthetes seem to lose their ability by or during adulthood. Depressants tend to increase the depth of the perception.

Synaesthesia can even occur when one of the senses no longer functions properly, e.g., a person who can see colors when words are spoken can still see the colors if he becomes blind in later life. This phenomenon is known as "martian colors." The term originated from a case of a synaesthete who was born partially color blind, but saw certain 'alien' colors in his synaesthetic perceptions that he never saw (was incapable of seeing) in the 'real world.'

The most common forms of synaesthesia involve color being assigned to letters, numbers, days of the week or (especially for musicians) musical keys.

Richard Cytowic wrote a pop-psych book about this condition entitled The Man Who Tasted Shapes.

Some researchers and theorists have suggested that synaesthesia may have played a part in early humans' development of writing and written literacies.

Clinical description
A genuine type of synaesthesia shows the following qualities:
 * it is consistent: one stimulus always evokes a specific perception
 * the perception occurs involuntarily
 * the perceptions are individual: every Synaesthete has their "own" colors and shapes
 * the perceptions do not need to be reversible: a 7 might evoke the color blue, but the color blue doesn't need to evoke a 7 to be synaesthetic.
 * the perceptions are permanent: they begin in infancy and don't change throughout life.

Researchers believe the phenomenon begins in infancy. Babies are said to perceive the world like a synaesthete, with mixed senses, because their brains are not completely developed. As the brain develops, the senses are separated from each other. For some people the separation does not take place and therefore they stay synaesthetes their whole life. Synaesthesia occurs eight times more often in women than in men. Often relatives of synaesthetes are synaesthetes as well. It is therefore likely that the phenomenon is either passed on on the X chromosome or is a sex influenced or a sex limited trait.

While synaesthesia occurs naturally in many individuals it is also a common effect of some hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD or mescaline. Synaesthesia as a drug effect played a role in the popular song "Lake Shore Drive" by Aliotta-Haynes-Jeremiah:
 * Sometimes you can smell the green
 * When your mind is feeling fine
 * ( &mdash;Aliotta, Haynes and Jeremiah)

Types of perception
There are many variations with regard to which sense excites which other sense. In synaesthesia's most common form (Grapheme-color synaesthesia), individual letters of the alphabet, as well as numbers, are "shaded" or "tinged" with a color. The alphabet color pattern is different for every individual. Many synaesthetes report that they were unaware their abilities were special or unusual until they realized other people didn't have them. Writer (and synaesthete) Patricia Lynne Duffy remembers the experience: "'One day,' I said to my father, 'I realized that to make an 'R' all I had to do was first write a 'P' and then draw a line down from  its loop.  And I was so surprised that I could turn a yellow letter  into an orange letter just by adding a line.'"

From another grapheme-color synesthete: "I often associate letters and numbers with colors. Every digit and every letter has a color associated with it in my head. Sometimes, when letters are written boldly on a piece of paper, they will briefly appear to be that color if I'm not focusing on it. Some examples: "S" is red, "H" is orange, "C" is yellow, "J" is yellow-green, "G" is green, "E" is blue, "X" is purple, "I" is pale yellow, "2" is tan, "1" is white. If I write SHCJGEX it registers as a rainbow when I read over it, as does ABCPDEF." (From a slashdot discussion)

From James Wannerton, a lexical-gustatory synaesthete: "Whenever I hear, read, or articulate (inner speech) words or word sounds, I experience an immediate and involuntary taste sensation on my tongue. These very specific taste associations never change and have remained the same for as long as I can remember". "

Another account: "I have synesthesia, and as a child I thought it was normal until I realized other people didn't see numbers and letters as colors. I believe synesthesia can link any kind of sensory input to abstract forms like letters and numbers, but in my case (and in most), it's simple colors. This makes it easy for me to remember trivial information like phone numbers, account numbers, historical dates, and pi (3.141592653589 is how far I remember without looking it up). Every string of numbers and letters forms a composite color based on those of its individual characters. I've studied Japanese for a few years and now find that Japanese syllable characters also have colors for me now. I imagine that with extreme synesthesia, a person might understand abstract notions like numbers and math in a completely different way. I remember once showing my sister two Smarties and telling her they were '3' and '6' instead of yellow and green. It took me a moment to realize why she didn't understand." (From a slashdot discussion)

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego documented the case of a man named Daniel Tammet who is strongly synaesthetic with regard to numbers, assigning them shapes, sizes, colors, textures, and sometimes movements or sounds. He was able to identify large prime numbers rapidly because he perceived them to have a different texture from composite numbers.

There are a lot of different types of Synaesthesia, of which the connection between grapheme and color is the mostly distributed type, followed by the connection between time units and color and musical sounds and color..

Studies of synaesthesia
It is estimated that 10% of people are synaesthetes, but only those perceiving their synaesthesia can recognize the inner colors. Synaesthetes have been studied by neurologist V. S. Ramachandran at the University of California, San Diego, who remarked that "processes similar to synaesthesia might also underlie our general capacity for metaphor and be critical to creativity." Ramachandran has said it is "not an accident" that the phenomenon is noted eight times more frequently in writers and artists than in the typical population, and is more common in creative people. Synaesthesia often runs in families. About one-third of synaesthetes report that another family member experiences similar phenomena.

Another leading psychologist, Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen, currently a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, is also undergoing research into the topic.



Synaesthesia in art
Synaesthesia is an often-used poetic device. In a familiar example, Andrew Marvell characterized the fruitful and serene atmosphere of the garden as
 * Annihilating all that's made
 * To a green thought in a green shade
 * ( &mdash;"The Garden")

Artist Shem Booth-Spain put forward the idea that synesthesia "provides a understanding of how perception is rooted to a sensory dominance in modern culture" and that synaesthesia is essentually a higher faculty that has been programmed out of human perception.

As digital entertainment becomes more developed, the possibility of synaesthesia through technology has begun to be considered. Several video games already use the term in their advertising, most notably the 2001 Dreamcast/PlayStation 2 game REZ (which does have some elements of synaesthesia in its gameplay, notably the interaction of controller vibration, music, player interaction and graphics).

People with synaesthetic experiences
Synaesthesia has influenced artists in many fields as well as other gifted individuals.


 * Aphex Twin, electronic music artist.
 * Syd Barrett, lead singer/songwriter of Pink Floyd.
 * Amy Beach, pianist, associated colors with keys, as well as possessing absolute pitch.
 * Ludwig van Beethoven, composer, considered B minor to be "the black key,".
 * Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, poet.
 * Richard Feynman, physicist, saw algebraic symbols of Bessel functions in color.
 * Stephen Hargreaves
 * Jimi Hendrix, guitarist, described chords and harmony in terms of color. For example, the chord E7#9 (often referred to by guitar players as the 'Hendrix chord') gave him a strong sense of the color purple. The chord is played under the words 'purple haze' in each verse of the song of that name.
 * Robyn Hitchcock, musician, associates "colours" with chords.
 * Adam Jones, guitarist, associates music and shapes, and often gains musical inspiration while sculpting.
 * Wassily Kandinsky, artist, was able to hear as well as see colors.
 * Manu Katché, drummer, sees images with music.
 * György Ligeti
 * Franz Liszt, composer, described timbres or sonorities to musicians in chromatic terms.
 * Olivier Messiaen described in his writings the colorations evoked by particular chords.
 * Vladimir Nabokov
 * Jennifer Paull, oboist, perceived sounds in a visual spectrum and found the sensation of the oboe particularly compelling.
 * Arthur Rimbaud poet (specifically his poem Voyelles).
 * Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer.
 * Franz Schubert viewed E minor as like "a maiden robed in white and with a rose-red bow on her breast."
 * Jean Sibelius, claimed in early childhood that G major was 'green' and could convert images he saw in nature directly into music.
 * Michael Torke, composer, perceives colors for various time units.
 * Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, claimed to hear music sometimes while designing buildings.
 * Judifer Yellich, artist, painted an entire series of abstract paintings known as 'The Wave & Particle Series', devoted completely to painting or "composing" music with colors and shapes.

"Only We Matter" has been noted to show a reference to color interpretation in people's mind which leads one to believe that synaesthesia is present.


 * John Mayer, popular singer/songwriter.

Synesthesia associations

 * American Synesthesia Association
 * Australian Synaesthesia Association
 * Belgian Synesthesia Association
 * UK Synaesthesia Association