In 2011 Icelandic author Daniel Tammet gave a TED Talk about perception and how it shapes our knowledge of the world. He elaborates on this point by describing his experiences with synesthesia, a condition I also have.
What is Synesthesia?
Synesthesia is defined as a “neurological phenomenon” in which two senses are irrationally, but consistently, coupled. Although this linkage can be just about any combination of the senses, the two most common are color-grapheme and color-auditory synesthesia. In the former, a synesthete perceives letters and numbers as being written in a certain color or pattern. In the latter, sounds illicit a visual cue, usually taking the form of colored light. The location of these phenomena vary. One synesthete may report them occurring in her actual visual field while another describes them as being more within the mind’s eye (Gross, n.d.).
My form is a fairly rare one. Whenever I listen to someone speak or sing words, I “feel” them somewhere in my head or have the urge to produce their movement. Honestly, the best description I can give isn’t even a description but a demonstration. Kinetic typography is a type of animation that puts words into motion like in these videos… So imagine that but “felt.” I can only “see” them if I focus hard enough.
Surprisingly, synesthesia is a very real condition with a defined biological cause. For instance, fMRIs demonstrate a difference in synesthetic and non-synesthetic brains: when exposed to a triggering stimulus, a synesthete’s brain will activate in areas correlated to their coupled senses (Rossengarten, n.d.). Dr. Richard Cytowic (2013) claims this to be the result of “hyper connecting neurons” between the two areas. Interestingly, there appears to be a genetic component to the condition since many synesthetes report having similarly affected relatives. Makes me wonder if any of my relatives have it.
Still, synesthesia is not considered a disorder since it does not adversely affect the individual to any great degree. In fact, it’s common for a synesthete to not realize until later in life his perception of the world is any different. (I didn’t know most people didn’t have personalities assigned to some numbers–related to synesthesia– until a few years ago.)
This returns to ideas brought up by Tammet. Perception is a completely individualized endeavor; therefore, we all have different ways of seeing situations and acquiring knowledge from them. According to Cytowic, this works as a great advantage for a synesthete’s creativity since he would be able to extract very unique metaphors from her surroundings–evident in Tammet’s video, where he demonstrates his way of viewing multiplication and is able to abstractly connect the word “hare” to something fragile in a Keats’ poem. I found this so cool. Never in my life had I considered the potential for inventing new methods of learning via synesthesia since I’m so used to my type just getting in the way. (Upon further reflection, this is actually how I piece together sentences: by using my synesthesia to feel out how things ought to sound or to make some weird, convoluted lyrical twists.)
Speaking of… What’s It Like Living With Synesthesia?
Living with synesthesia is extremely frustrating to articulate because it’s nearly an existential experience, but it’s honestly not that big of a deal. If you’ve always traveled through the world a certain way, that’s just how it is. You kind of get used to it, you know? It can even be a sort of nifty party trick. I, for example, have fun telling people what their voices “feel” like. If I had anything negative to say, it’d be that it gets annoying to write when the words I want to type don’t quite line up with how I think they should be moving. Punctuation, especially, is idiotic. I should be able to use them wherever, whenever, or never, just because that’s how it sounds like it should feel. Conjunctions besides “and” are also so… choppy.
My case is pretty moderate though. It exists in my mind’s eye and is really more of a weird bodily sensation than anything else; however, a lot of synesthetes like Youtuber Ariel have more extreme forms. In her video“Living With Synesthesia”, she describes her life with color-grapheme and spatial sequence synesthesia, revealing that the latter especially causes anxiety because it causes a hyperawareness of her location. For instance, while on vacation, she was constantly reminded where she was–not very fun if you’re just trying to relax. Additionally, since she sees the weekdays on a map in front of her, and they have personalities/colors of their own, some days are just automatically predisposed to being “bad.” I found this one most horrific though: since her color-grapheme synesthesia only has an index up to about 30, she’s terrified of ever aging past that. It’s a void. Pretty freaky.
References and Validity
- Validity: This is a personal account and therefore is likely to be as accurate as possible. I doubt she’d have a reason lie.
- Validity: After researching Cytowic, he appears to be a valid research scientist/medical doctor who really pushed for synesthesia to be examined with new neurologic techniques. In addition, TED does a pretty good job of presenting good facts in general.
- Validity: This was my original source, but I got so interested in the prom that I found the others. It’s a generalized overview of synesthesia in the form of an FAQ put together by Dr. Veronica Gross, head Boston University’s synesthesia research team. I feel like it’s valid considering it’s basically the backbone of an acclaimed college’s research project.
Rossengarten, R. (n.d.). FMRI Scans: Synesthesia is Real. Retrieved March 31, 2016, from http://neurologues.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/fmri-scans-synesthesia-is-real/
- Validity: If you look further into the website, you discover that the author of these posts are college students. I think it’s actually an assignment a lot like this one. However, I decided to trust it because a) most students can summarize a report pretty well, and b) the facts provided here were also mentioned by Gross.