Smell the Music

I called and dear Wendy over at COPD- Caregiving is NOT for Whimps! answered. Yesterday I mentioned that if there was a topic of interest you had, or any suggestions, let me know. Well, our friend Wendy said she wanted to know more about people who hear colors, smell touches, see music, etc., so here goes. This is a great topic!

The name of this condition is actually called Synesthesia. According to Dorland's Medical Dictionary, the definition is as follows:

synesthesia (sin″es-the´zhә) a secondary sensation accompanying an actual perception; the experiencing of a sensation in one place, due to stimulation applied to another place; also, the condition in which a stimulus of one sense is perceived as sensation of a different sense, as when a sound produces a sensation of color.

This is a really technical definition so I will sum it up with a bit of inspiration from Ratatouille. This is a condition in which people cross their senses. In Ratatouille, Remy describes the flavors of food like sounds, bass notes and jazz influences. This is how people with synesthesia experience everything. If someone touches them, there may be a color associated with it. A sound may smell like something.

While many of us can perceive things in this manner, we are actively drawing comparisons between known senses and experiences. A true synesthetic has this happen involuntarily. If you had synesthesia and I told you my name, you may instantly think orange. Next time you saw me you would think orange before thinking Mimi.

fig. 1 A visual representation of how a certain synesthetic may see numbers or hear words.

This even goes as far as visuals and tastes. Imagine looking at a palm tree and tasting marshmallows. That is how crossed the senses are. It is estimated that most of the people with this condition are women and studies have it anywhere between 1 in 200 and 1 in 100,000. Not a lot of information is out there, but scientists are being forced to realize that this is real and it is not just "crazy" people who have it.

There is an older article on LiveScience about it. In it, they discuss how different people perceive things with this condition. Surprisingly, there is a Neuroscience For Kids (really?) site that has a lot of information as well. This kids' site has an experiment you can do to determine if you or any of your friends have synesthesia. It is really neat! I think I may try it at my next party. The experiment is as follows:

1. Read a list of random numbers, days of the week, words, etc.
2. Have everyone write down what color they associate with these.
3. Collect and save answers and label "answers #1" or "trial A" or whatever.
4. 2-3 weeks later, read off the same numbers, words, etc in a different order.
5. Have everyone again write down what color they associate with it.
   
6. Compare answers from first trial to these. People who have the same answers for things regardless of the order are synesthetics. Cool, huh?

There are many books on synesthesia if you want to find out more. Synesthesia is slowly becoming less of a novel idea and more of an accepted fact. Like anything, the more we talk about it, the more we find out about it.



Again, if anyone has any questions or suggestions, feel free to email me: moya [dot] marizela {at} gmail [dot] com.