I was set on a trail this morning as I received an interesting email this morning from Lynne Braga who sent me three links on synesthesia which is a neurological condition in which two or more bodily senses are coupled. In other words someone with synesthesia may hear a colour or see a sound.
Here is part of definition found in Wikipededia
Synesthesia (also spelled synæsthesia or synaesthesia, plural synesthesiae or synaesthesiae)—from the Ancient Greek ??? (syn), meaning “with,” and ???????? (aisth?sis), meaning “sensation”‘—is a neurological condition in which two or more bodily senses are coupled. In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme ? color synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored, while in ordinal linguistic personification, numbers, days of the week and months of the year evoke personalities. In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, and/or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be “farther away” than 1990), or may have a three-dimensional view of a year as a map (clockwise or counterclockwise).
The Wikepedia entry is comprehensive with extensive links at the bottom of the page. So do explore it further. An interesting site that Lynne pointed me to, is the Synesthetic Experience hosted out of MIT. The site provides information, individual anecdotes, and interactive activities which simulate synesthesia.
I found this transcript of an interview on the ABC site which also explains the experience.
As an art teacher I have met two students who said they had synesthesia one saw letters as colours and the other saw sounds as coloured. Needless to say they were both creative people!
Anyway before I get too heavily side tracked here are the other two link Lynne sent me. The first is Art and Synesthesia and the second is an interesting project Synesthesia: Metaphors in Motion-Combining Poetry and Multimedia
My painting teacher could smell colors. She specifically mentioned blue and how she loved the smell of blue and the variances amongst the blues.
I believe it runs in families- at least that is what I’ve heard from my family members (not immediate family) that have it 🙂
I find the idea of Synesthesia fascinating. I had read a book about this, a doctor had discovered — accidentally — that an acquaintance had synesthesia, and did quite a long study on it.
And a novel I’m reading has a character who has synesthesia – a child who is a musical prodigy and sees the colors of the music.