Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which the perception of phenomena and symbols is supplemented by certain qualities, for example, sound, color, smell and others. People who exhibit this are called synesthetes. In other words, the phenomenon can be explained as follows: the perception of what is happening, in which one of the sense organs is affected, in parallel with its sensations causes others, which are inherent in a completely different sense organ. In this way, the brain complements our real perception.
It should be noted that synesthesia is not classified as a mental disorder. This is a kind of adaptation to the surrounding world. But it must be said that the term “synesthesia” is not an entirely accurate definition of this phenomenon: “ideasthesia” is more accurate.
There are different types of synesthesia, and the most common of them is grapheme-color synesthesia. This means that a person perceives letters and numbers differently: for him they are painted in certain colors. Spatial synesthesia is when numbers, years and months are located in space at a specific location.
To date, only some types of the phenomenon have been described by scientists.
Some scientists believe that synesthesia helps people in creative professions. Psychologists and neurologists also study this phenomenon because it is very interesting. In addition, the data will help to understand the process of cognition itself, as well as the perception of all people, not just synesthetes.
Etiology
To date, virtually nothing is known about the causes of synesthesia. Currently, scientists have just begun to conduct research on the development of this phenomenon in children.
Evidence has been obtained that this is not a phenomenon of cross-feelings, since it has the properties of ideasthesia. Therefore, scientists have put forward the assumption that such a condition develops in childhood, when the first contact with abstract concepts occurs. This assumption is called the semantic vacuum hypothesis, which is why grapheme-color and number forms are the most common. It is these abstract concepts that are the first in a child’s life.
Classification
In medicine, this phenomenon is divided into two forms:
- Projection. Those who project see different colors and all kinds of shapes while the stimulus is in effect. Such a person is called a projector.
- Associative. In this case, people feel the connection between the stimulus and the evoked sensation, and the person is called an associator.
The phenomenon occurs with chromesthesia (when sound is combined with light) - the projector hears a trumpet playing and sees an orange triangle located in space, and the associator imagines the orange color that makes the sound.
Some people with this phenomenon say that they did not even know that they were not like the majority. And others claim that they are the keepers of an important secret. The automatic manifestation of synesthesia is already something quite common for synesthetes. Such people say that their particular experiences are neutral, but can also be pleasant. Although some argue that this leads to sensory overload.
Despite the fact that some say that this phenomenon is a neurological disorder or disease, synesthetes themselves do not think so: for them it is like a hindrance. But there are also those who present this phenomenon as a special gift that they are afraid of losing. Most of them learned about their unusual opportunity in childhood. Some were able to apply it at work or in everyday life. There are examples when such people can remember large numbers, telephone numbers, and perform complex mathematical operations in their minds.
Despite the general knowledge about the phenomenon, the individual experience of synesthetes differs in many ways. This was noted in the early stages of research into the phenomenon. For example, some say that consonants are brighter in color than vowels. And others say completely the opposite. All the reports, notes and interviews that the synesthetes themselves did indicate a huge number of types of this phenomenon. There are also many different perceptions and ways of using this opportunity.
If a person perceives music in colors, this means that he has music-color synesthesia. Auditory synesthesia is defined by the fact that a person hears the sounds of moving objects.
Mirror touch synesthesia is when a synesthete perceives the feelings that a person experiences when touching an object. This is mirror synesthesia. Synesthesia is also common.
Scientists have repeatedly thought about the question of how to develop synesthesia, but this turned out to be impossible. This phenomenon can manifest itself through at least two senses. But there was one synesthete who combined all five senses at the same time.
Diagnostics
Despite the fact that this phenomenon is often called a neurological pathology, it is not included in the International Classification of Diseases. As mentioned earlier, many synesthetes consider this phenomenon to be neutral or pleasant, which is almost the same as absolute pitch. We can say that this is simply a different perception of the world around us.
Multiple tests are carried out to test color perception over a long period of time. Synesthetes can repeat approximately 90% of projections, even when more than one year has passed between tests. An ordinary person remembers no more than 40% of combinations. He will not be able to repeat them, even if he is warned about the test.
From the ancient Greek language the word “synesthesia” can be translated as “co-sensation”, “co-perception”.
This phenomenon is a neurological phenomenon in which when one sensory system is stimulated, another is automatically stimulated.
Who are synesthetes?
A person who is not subject to synesthesia is not able to fully understand the entire essence of this phenomenon. To find out how a synesthete feels the world around him, you need to try to imagine that sounds can have taste, and tactile sensations can be colored in different colors.
Synesthetes should not be confused with colorblind people or other categories of people who have a distorted perception of reality. 
The phenomenon is that a person simultaneously perceives with two or more senses something that others can perceive with only one.
Examples of synesthesia:
- when listening to music, spots of color flash before your mind's eye, or you feel the taste of a particular product in your mouth;
- Each or some letters of the alphabet are associated with one color or another; for many synesthetes, the letter “A” is colored red.
It is important to note that with this phenomenon one type of perception is not replaced by another. People with co-sensations see the same colors, hear the same sounds, etc. as everyone else, but they receive a little more information about the object.
Society has always been suspicious of “strange” people who are different from others. A person who is able to perceive the world differently may be considered mentally ill. However, synesthesia should be of interest, not horror or disgust.
Among the interesting facts about the phenomenon are the following.
The main thing is that synesthesia, from a psychological point of view, is not a disorder or disease. This is the same feature of the human body as hair or eye color. “Color hearing” was first described in 1812 by the German physician Sax.
Not only psychiatrists, but also people of art were interested in the phenomenon. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, a number of attempts were made to convey the confusion of feelings to those for whom these sensations were not available. In 1915, to perform the light part from A. Scriabin’s “Prometheus,” a special instrument was created that allowed one to simultaneously listen to music and see the colors associated with a particular sound.
There is no consensus on how many synesthetes live on the planet. Some researchers believe that 4% of the world's population is affected by the phenomenon. Someone gives a figure of 0.05%.
There is also an opinion that confusion of feelings is characteristic of everyone and is a natural part of human nature. Many people simply do not pay attention to the presence of unusual perceptions.
Where is the reason?
There is no general theory in modern science about why a person perceives something with more than one sense organ. In most cases, the phenomenon is studied fragmentarily, that is, in parts. Different researchers approach this phenomenon from different angles.
There is an assumption that co-perception is associated with the structural features of the brain of a person who is prone to it. The brain is divided into different areas.
Each area performs its own functions. It is likely that synaesthetes have significantly more connections between these areas than ordinary people. When one area is irritated, a second or even a third is inevitably irritated.
Other versions:
Varieties of the phenomenon
There are 2 forms of the phenomenon: associative and projection. Associators feel a strong connection between the sensation itself and the stimulus. Projectors experience synesthetic experiences at the moment of the stimulus. The types of phenomena are quite diverse.
They receive their names depending on the participants in the process. The synesthetic act usually involves 2 (in more rare cases 3) types of perception. Journalist Solomon Shereshevsky is one of the few who used all 5 senses.
Among the most common types of synesthesia are:
- Lexico-gastic. Taste associations arise from any images or words. Example: your favorite melody tastes like raspberry jam.
- Empathy of touch(mirror touch synesthesia). One of the rarest types. A person feels actions carried out in relation to another person. Example: a synesthete witnesses someone hitting someone on the cheek and feels the blow on his own cheek.
- Ordinal linguistic personification. A form of phenomenon in which any ordinal sequence (days of the week, months, numbers, letters, etc.) evokes associations with certain individuals.
- Acoustic-tactile. One of the most common types in which sound causes tactile sensations.
- Number line. A synesthete is able to involuntarily see a map of numbers when remembering them.
- Sequence localization. Represents the ability to observe a numerical sequence in the form of points in space.
- Kinesthetic-auditory. This is the ability to “hear” sounds in their absence. Example: watching from afar as someone knocks a stick on the ground and “hearing” a dull sound.
- Grapheme-color. This is the vision of numbers, letters and other graphemes in color.
- Phonopsia. Represents the joint perception of sounds and colors. One of the most common types.
Misophonia is a neurological disorder in which certain sounds trigger negative emotions. Scientists have not yet come to a conclusion about whether misophonia is a form of synesthesia. Those endowed with co-perception usually do not experience any emotion when “hearing” a color or “seeing” a sound.
I am a synesthete
Many people discover that they are synesthetes completely by accident. Previously, they did not pay attention to the fact that they see music in color or taste it.
A person, having learned that he is not like everyone else, asks himself the question: is this good or bad? In fact, this phenomenon has neither pros nor cons. The presence of co-perception does not affect any other functions of the body.
There is no clear answer to the question of whether it is possible to develop unusual abilities in oneself. A person can simply associate an object with a certain sound. However, this will be a conditioned reflex.
Synesthesia is a spontaneous phenomenon that occurs involuntarily. In addition, the phenomenon is distinguished by selectivity and subjectivity. One person sees a sound as red, another perceives the same sound as purple.
The co-perception reaction may not occur to all words and sounds. The phenomenon is often caused by the use of alcohol and drugs. 
But temporary hallucinations resulting from the use of psychoactive substances do not make a person a synesthete.
Trying to get rid of your “weirdness” is not necessary. This is probably simply impossible. However, if synesthesia suddenly appears at a fairly mature age, a person should be wary and undergo a brain examination.
Acquired hearing of taste or color may indicate some other diseases or injuries. In such cases, it is necessary to get rid not of synesthesia, since it is only a consequence, but of what provoked the co-sensations.
Synesthesia test - can you taste the sound:
From the world of famous
There are many celebrities among people who have or have had co-perception. Mostly creative people are susceptible to this phenomenon: writers, artists, actors, musicians.
Synesthetes are Vladimir Nabokov, Wassily Kandinsky, Ida Maria, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. However, among these people there are also those who are far from art, for example, Nikola Tesla.
The fame and success of artists, musicians and scientists endowed with the phenomenon of co-sensations indicates that synesthesia is not something dangerous or interfering with a person’s daily life. The inner world of a synesthete is much richer than the inner world of ordinary people.
Each of us uses our senses every day - we admire bright flowers in a flowerbed, inhale the aroma of freshly baked bread, enjoy our favorite ice cream, listen to popular music, touch different things.
Often a person uses only a few senses to learn a new subject. For example, we can smell, see, touch, and even taste a pie. But not all of us think about what this flour product sounds like. Psychologists called this feature synesthesia.
Many creative people and scientists have tried to connect different human feelings into one whole. Aristotle discussed this in his works. The combination of the perception of music and colors was described in their works by Goethe and Leibniz.
Over time, scientists have learned that the unified perception of different colors and sounds is a true sign of synesthesia.
Synesthesia – what is it?
Scientists describe this phenomenon as a special perception of the surrounding world. People with this phenomenon can complement various events, symbols and states with sounds, colors, and tastes. These are associative qualities that are not perceived by the senses. This sensation is always mixed: a person can see the color of sounds, their shape and smell.Scientists identify 2 options for the manifestation of such perception:
- soft;
- intense.
But soft perception can be described as associative. When looking at a stimulus, a person remembers an abstract association. But on the physical level these sensations are absent. How does such perception differ from imagination? If a person has associated the number 9 with the color green throughout his entire life, then this will happen constantly.
The variety of synesthesia
In his biographical story, the famous synesthete Nabokov described his feelings associated with the perception of the letters of the alphabet. He compared the French and Russian alphabet. He represented each of the letters in a certain color, associating it with a certain product: chocolate, bread, porridge, noodles and even almond milk. These are examples of synesthesia described in the literature.
Today, synesthesia is being actively studied. Californian professor Sean Day realized that grapheme-color association, which combines the simultaneous sensation of letters, numbers and colors, is the most common type of co-sensation.
- Such synesthesia is typical for 62% of surveyed representatives with such features. A total of 930 participants participated in this survey.
- The second place is occupied by the coherent perception of colors and periods of time. There are only 21% of them.
- In third place were representatives who could see musical sounds in flowers. But this color perception of sound is typical for most people.
Why does this happen?
It is still a mystery to neurophysiologists why this feature occurs in some people. But there are many assumptions about this.So, there are the following reasons:
- associations from childhood;
- loss of the myelin sheath;
- cross-activation model.
Some scientists also believe that the myelin sheath is lost in the brain when exposed to a certain stimulus. It prevents the loss of nerve impulses and serves as a kind of barrier to nerve pathways. Neurons in this case begin to quickly interact with impulses. Ultimately, a person experiences the world around him in a mixed way.
A popular hypothesis for synesthesia today is the cross-activation model. It lies in the fact that a cross-reaction instantly occurs between neighboring areas of the brain. They are responsible for different human feelings. For example, the area of sound perception may become dependent on the area that is responsible for color perception.
In simple words, synesthesia, according to this theory, is a congenital human feature that is directly related to gene mutation. This phenomenon can be inherited by children. In principle, this fact is confirmed by Nabokov. A special perception of letters and numbers in color was inherent in his mother, in addition, his son also had this feature. But it should be mentioned that only the ability of double perception is inherited. Children and parents can associate the same sounds with different shades.
But some skeptics believe that a synesthete is a person who has metaphorical thinking and can always draw parallels between different events and things. In principle, every person has such a mindset.
After all, many of us associate sad events with dark colors, and happy ones with bright ones. For many, the sound of a trumpet seems dark and heavy. But such a theory does not explain all the features of this phenomenon. Indeed, to draw such parallels, there must be at least the slightest similarity between the objects being compared. After all, the perception of a synesthete cannot be explained. He may associate the word “sea” with the color red, and the word “sunset” with bright green. Although in reality it is impossible to draw such parallels based on human experience.
Is it possible to become a synesthete?
Synesthetist about color Synesthesia in psychology is an involuntary phenomenon. Many experts doubt that it is possible to develop the ability to see the color of sounds, as well as, conversely, to lose the ability to smell the months. It is almost impossible to become such a person in the middle of life. You can feel the sensations of a synesthete under the influence of psychedelics, but such feelings disappear when the effect of the drug wears off.
But medicine has described some cases of this ability occurring in different people. Their cause is a disruption of certain processes in parts of the brain. The most famous story happened in the USA with a man who was 45 years old at that time. He suffered a stroke in 2007. After 9 months, the man noticed that he reacted irritably to words printed in a certain color. The blue hue resembled the smell of raspberries. And the famous soundtrack from the Bond films brought the man into real ecstasy.
Feeling such changes in himself, the man immediately turned to doctors for help. An MRI scan was performed, the result of which helped to find the cause of these changes. The fact is that after the stroke the man’s brain was damaged. It independently tried to resume, forming chaotic connections between different neurons.
Color and taste hearing that appears at a certain age may indicate the presence of tumors, epilepsy, stroke, or traumatic brain injury. In this case, it is necessary to consult a doctor and eliminate the cause of the development of such sensations.
Advantage or punishment?
It would seem that such a life is full of emotions and bright events. For example, for euphoria, a man needed to listen to the soundtrack to the Bond film. And that's it, life is wonderful!But it is worth remembering that constant associative sensations are distracting and prevent you from concentrating at the right time. But this feature allows you to develop memory mechanisms.
Psychologist Julia Simner from Scotland conducted surveys of people, which included both ordinary people and synesthetes. She asked for the dates of known events, ranging from 1950 to 2008. Synesthetes were more accurate in their answers, because their memories were supported by additional associations.
It is known that some people can write correctly due to color synesthesia. A misspelled word may have the wrong color.
Many people wonder if they have such abilities. To do this, you can conduct a test for synesthesia. Although such people know from birth that they are special.
There are many tests on the Internet, after answering the questions you can get the result in a few minutes. But don't be discouraged if the test comes back negative. After all, there are very few synesthetes.
Famous synesthetes
This phenomenon is an undoubted advantage for creative people. Of course, not all writers, composers and artists who were interested in mixed perceptions were like that. It would seem that Kandinsky, Rimbaud, Scriabin were synesthetics. But Professor Day believes that all the creations of these great people were only the result of vigorous activity of fantasy.But Vladimir Nabokov and the artist Van Gogh, Duke Ellington were the real owners of this phenomenon. The world-famous Franz Liszt also had a special perception of the world. He once shocked the orchestra by asking the performers to play a little less pink.
Many will now remember the synesthete Kristina Karelina, who surprised not all viewers, but also the jury with her extraordinary abilities in the show “Amazing People.”
The success and worldwide fame of musicians, writers and artists who were endowed with co-sensations suggests that this feature does not interfere with normal human life. In addition, everyone understands that the inner world of such people is much brighter and richer compared to others.
- No one knows how many synesthetes live on the planet. Some scientists believe that about 4% people with this phenomenon.
- This feature of people is the same as the color of their eyes or hair.
- It is also interesting that already in 1812 it became known from the doctor Sax about “color hearing”.
Conclusion
Synesthesia allows a person to better experience the world around them. An ordinary object can become an inexhaustible source of pleasant sensations for them. Such people have great opportunities to develop their own creative abilities.Do you think it’s easy and simple to be a synesthete? Or, on the contrary, does it interfere with life? Would you like to have such superpowers?
Original taken from zherazborki How to see sound and hear smells?
Imagine a world in which you see numbers and letters in different colors, in which music and voices swirl around you in a whirlpool of colorful shapes. Meet synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon in which two or more senses become fused together. It occurs in four percent of the population. A synesthete can not only hear someone's voice, but also see it, taste it, or feel it as a touch.
Different parts of the brain, performing different functions, in synesthetes have more “cross” neural connections. People who experience synesthesia, in addition to possessing enormous creative potential, have amazing abilities to remember and reproduce information. The peculiarity of their perception allows the brain to “mix” data received from several senses before analyzing them.
Synesthesia is not positioned as a disease or disorder, although it can have completely bizarre forms of perception that are not entirely understandable to the average person. Before we figure out whether it’s possible to artificially induce synesthesia in ourselves, let’s look at the forms.
There are several more or less studied forms of synesthesia:
Grapheme-color synesthesia.
Color associations for a separate grapheme (writing unit: letter or number) or for written words of a text.
With the help of such “additional perception”, it is obviously easier to notice the details of the text, perceive, remember and reproduce it.
Chromesthesia (or Phonopsia).
Color association to sounds. Sound gives rise to the sensation of color and it can “look” in different ways. Some synesthetes may perceive music as fireworks, others as the vibrating movement of colorful lines. Like colored waves from a sound source.
Some people, when hearing speech, “color” the words. And their color and shades are determined not only by the pitch of the sound, but also by emotions. Obviously, using this feature of perception it is easier to remember and reproduce musical works, because visual memory is also involved in the process, despite the fact that “color pictures of sound” are drawn by the imagination. It is easier to remember information perceived by ear: conversations, lectures, business communication. This is very useful in ordinary, everyday life.
Kinesthetic-auditory synesthesia.
Sound association to a visual stimulus. The ability to “hear” sound while seeing a moving object.
Synesthesia of number forms (localization of sequences) and “number lines”.
These are two types of synesthesia that are confused by ordinary people. Synaesthesia of sequence localization implies that a person, finding a numerical pattern in something, can see numerical sequences in the form of points in space. Such people can visually “observe” the numbers of hours, days of weeks, months, years around them. They line up in some reasonable sequence, and (for example) 2000 the year will visually seem further away, and 2016 closer. Such people have well-developed visual and spatial memory. They are well oriented, remember events that happened to them even a very long time ago. And they also think quite well, because they can also “project” sequences of numbers around themselves, for example, where 1 will be closer and 9 -further.
Synesthesia "Number Lines" it's a little different. People tend to represent quantitative information as a mental line along which numbers increase from left to right. This property of the psyche is called the “mental number line”. But the peculiarities of early education can change this structure of the “line” and in the future a person, thinking about numbers in his imagination, sees a certain subjective model (actually created by himself in the process of early education). Take a look at the number lines drawn by synesthetes:
The number line that appeared to Francis Galton at the slightest mention of counting and numbers. The numbers from 1 to 12 were in this number line, in Galton’s own view, an analogue of a dial and were always compared with a clock.
The number line was first described by Sir Francis Galton in his work The Visions of Sane Persons (1881).
And this is what the number line looks like for a person who also has grapheme-color synesthesia.
Illustration from the book "Wednesday Is Indigo Blue", 2009, Richard Cytovich and David Eagleman.
People with a special “number line” are very capable of counting and remember dates, numbers, and bills well. Everything related to numbers is easier for them, due to the fact that “visual” information is used in counting and memorization. Accordingly, “visual” memory is also included in the work.
Acoustic-tactile synesthesia.
Sensory association to sounds. Certain sounds can cause different tactile sensations in different parts of the body (touching, tingling).
Ordinal and linguistic personification.
Personification synesthesia usually occurs along with grapheme-color synesthesia. And it differs in that letters and numbers are tied not to color, but to images. Most often these are images of people and animals. "4 is a kind, but healthy and formidable lion, and 5 is a friendly black man, 9 is an incredibly sexy girl in red with long legs...". Thanks to vivid images, such people also remember information related to numbers well. But as expected, such people do not count better than synesthetes with an unusual “number line” and synesthetes with localizations of number sequences. Because for the latter, visualization is subordinated to a logical order, in which you can navigate when doing mathematical calculations. But a kind lion and a crazy beauty in red cannot give such an opportunity.
Misophonia.
Sound-emotional synesthesia. In this regard: we are all synesthetes, but it must be said that specifically Mythosonia is defined as a neurological disorder and is mentioned precisely in a negative aspect. This disorder implies that certain sounds evoke strong negative emotions in a person: fear, hatred, anger, etc. It’s not very cool to hear doors squeaking and want to shoot someone.
Empathy of touch.
Touch empathy is also mentioned as a disorder. Have you ever wondered why it is unpleasant for you to watch surgical operations, beatings..., punishments and torture? This happens because in our brain there are so-called “mirror neurons”, they allow us, seeing a situation, to “try on” it for ourselves. A person who suffers from empathy of touch feels the touches that he sees. He can watch you touch another person's hand and feel the touch on his own. Watching porn may be great, but in everyday life you probably wouldn’t like it. Such people cannot look at injections, cannot even see just cutting meat, it literally hurts them to see someone fall off a bicycle.. All these little things make life very difficult..
Lexical-gastic synesthesia, "Colorful sense of smell", and "Rustle of smells".
At lexical-gastic Synesthesia is stable taste associations from images, words, and sounds. Such people can listen to music to remember the taste of their favorite dish. Only 0.2% of the population has this form of synesthesia. A documentary film was made about her, Derek Tastes Earwax.
A color sense of smell represents color and emotional associations to smells. The smell can be presented visually, much like it is often shown in films, but only more vividly (having a pronounced color). And at the same time evoke different emotions.
Rustle of smells(olfactory-sound synesthesia) - sound association to smell. For people with this form of synesthesia, the smell may seem to “sound”.
Auric synesthesia.
Comparison of people and colors. People with auric synesthesia “color” other people according to their appearance, their mood, the emotions they evoke. This allows you to remember well personal and business meetings that took place even a very long time ago, and to remember the emotional “color” of those meetings. Allows you to position yourself well in relationships and helps build communication between people.
Is it possible to induce synesthesia artificially?
There is a lot of controversy about this. They begin with what has been revealed: the ability for synesthesia can be transmitted hereditarily, at the gene level. For a long time it was believed that some people have it and others do not. But changes in the cub's genome appear, among other things, under the influence of the parent's environment. Apparently both the parent and nature itself find this skill useful for survival. And the ability for this skill is transferred.
Synesthesia, in essence, is developed associative thinking. The brain is plastic, some connections in it were rebuilt from the moment you opened this article even before you finished reading this paragraph. In a material sense, this is an endless neural construction of a web, from your knowledge, thoughts, experience, reactions. They intersect with each other so that one causes the other. And in grapheme-color synesthetes, the initial connections were traced back to childhood, no matter how funny the simplicity of this phenomenon was; magnets on the refrigerator in the form of numbers and letters often became the initial connections. Among taste synesthetes, a connection was traced to inexpensive pasta in the shape of letters. In childhood, they ate this pasta and unconsciously connected the “letter-taste”, and the brain later seemed to push: there are other letters - they should also have a taste. Someone in childhood solved mathematical and logical problems like these:
Childhood is a time when brain plasticity is very high. And synesthetes, not on purpose, but unconsciously, cultivate associations in themselves from the very beginning. Everything that happens after, all new knowledge, and all new experience - already passes through the prism of these associations, nurturing and only reinforcing this unusual perception. It will be much more difficult for an adult to artificially cultivate synesthesia. He is already more intelligent and can subordinate associations to reasonable logic. So that it really helps him in life. But the fact is that for synesthetes, their associations are unconscious, they appear without mental or volitional effort. Cases in which artificial synesthesia was to the same degree developed have not yet been recorded.
The owners of the best artificial synesthesia are mnemonics (a sport whose meaning is the speed and volume of memorization). Mnemonics learn to connect textual or audio information coming to them with visual images, doing this even in detail, even in small things. For example, they can remember the order of a deck of cards in a minute by storing the information in a “mnemonic lock” (a mentally locked, familiar room). They imagine a dwarf juggling red cubes (jack of diamonds), and other images like a black BMW (seven of spades), or a ball of maggots (ten of hearts) that are along their path from one end of this room to the other. Joshua Fore, in the book “Einstein Walks on the Moon,” told how Ed Cook, one of the best mnemonics of our time, at the first meeting, mentally imagined Joshua making a joke, and this joke cuts Ed into 4 parts. Ed did this just to remember the name. Joshua Faure was in tune with "Joke" joke) and "four" (English) four). He said that he was doing this unconsciously - it had become a habit.
It has not yet been possible to develop synesthesia of number sequences, but it is not at all a fact that this is impossible. Chefs from different countries, after many years of work, felt the association of the “taste” of the image, also experienced sommeliers found a pattern in taste and color, and could artificially evoke sensations of taste simply by seeing a wine in order to compare it with another. Many truly experienced musicians associated sound with colors and...temperature. They tried to write works that musically “described,” for example, simply the weather outside the window and tried to convey its beauty. These words can be read with disdain - any artist can present his compositions this way. But among professional musicians there are a lot of real synesthetes. There are even examples where composers themselves described this phenomenon, at a time when even such a term as synesthesia did not yet exist.
Developing synesthesia means restructuring your perception. To draw a parallel with the efforts that would have to be applied for such a “perestroika” - here is the story.
In London, a taxi driver must obtain a special license to start working. They study for 3-5 years. During this time, they drive through the streets exploring the sights. At the end of the training, they need to know 25,000 (!!) streets, be able to create optimal routes, and talk about more than 1,000 (!!) attractions. Studies were conducted of their brain function at the beginning and end of training. When asking a beginning student what a particular landmark was famous for, scientists observed how one area of the brain turned on, which recalled certain facts. When they were already licensed taxi drivers and asked similar questions, scientists saw how several areas of the brain turned on at once. The zones that were responsible for cartographic and spatial memory were included. First of all, they remembered where it was. An image from visual memory was drawn, tactile sensations were drawn. After all, they visited this or that attraction several times, and at different times of the year. And clear images forced taxi drivers to remember the history of the attraction in detail. Despite their huge number (more than a thousand). Their brain connections changed by 7% over the learning period (3-5 years).
Within the framework of today's understanding, it is possible to develop synesthesia, but it will take a very long time of persistent and focused work.
What is synesthesia?
Synesthesia is a special way of sensory experience when perceiving certain concepts (for example, days of the week, months), names, symbols (letters, speech sounds, musical notes), human-ordered phenomena of reality (music, dishes), one’s own states (emotions, pain) and other similar groups of phenomena (“categories”).
Synesthetic perception is expressed in the fact that the listed groups of phenomena involuntarily acquire in the subjective world of a person a kind of parallel quality in the form additional, simpler sensations or persistent “elementary” impressions - for example, color, smell, sounds, tastes, qualities of a textured surface, transparency, volume and shape, location in space and other qualities that are not obtained through the senses, but exist only in the form reactions. Such additional qualities may either arise as isolated sensory impressions or even manifest physically. In the latter case, for example, colors can form colored lines or spots, smells can form into the smells of something recognizable. Visually or physically, a synesthete can sense the location of three-dimensional figures, as if feeling touches on a textured surface, etc. Thus, the name of the day of the week (“Friday”) can be intricately colored in a golden-greenish color or, say, located slightly to the right in the conditional visual field, in which other days of the week can also have their own location.
Previously, synesthesia was characterized as intersensory communication or “cross-modal transfer.” However, this is only partly true. This understanding does not accurately describe the phenomenon itself and does not indicate its reason. First of all, synesthesia, although in most cases, does not always involve different senses. For example, when coloring letters, both the signs on paper and their synesthetic color belong only to vision. On the other hand, systematic selectivity synesthetic reactions (for example, only “to letters”, but not to punctuation marks and other printed symbols, or only “to music”, and not to all noises and sounds) indicates that synesthesia is based more on the so-called “ primary categorization" - preconscious grouping of phenomena at the level of perception.
Moreover: all phenomena that can cause synesthesia are the results of a person’s practical or mental activity. These are, as a rule, symbols, concepts, sign systems, titles, names. Even such seemingly natural manifestations as pain, emotions, the perception of people (which some synesthetes can perceive in the form of color spots or “auras”) are certain ways of grouping or classification, albeit unconscious, but still dependent on personal experience , that is, from living with other people - from the environment and culture, as well as from the meaning, which influences the selectivity of synesthetic reactions.
To simplify, we can say that involuntary synesthesia is an individual neurocognitive strategy: a special way of cognition that manifests itself at a certain, very early point in life in the form of an unusually close connection between thinking and the feeling system (cognitive-sensory projection). Because of this, synesthesia requires adequate methods of research that would go beyond the “stimulus-response” framework and would include, among other things, the idea of the complex, individual dynamics of human mental activity, highlighting synesthetized stimuli by endowing them with a special meaning.
How does synesthesia manifest?
People who are distinguished by such an unusual way of perception are called “synaesthetes” or “synaesthetics” (I prefer the first, less “hospital” term). For each synesthete, the phenomenon of synesthesia can develop very individually and can have both single and multiple manifestations. In the latter case, the synesthete is called “multiple” or “multidimensional” - when synesthesia occurs not for one, but for several groups (categories) of symbols or phenomena.
There is “projective type” synesthesia, in which the synesthete actually sees or feels colors, smells and other additional qualities as if on top of the objects of the world perceived by the senses. In contrast to this type, the “associating” type is distinguished, in which the synesthete subjectively experiences additional qualities in the form of involuntary knowledge or in the form of a reaction at the level of persistent impressions, which are not physically expressed - that is, in the form of projections. True, such a division is very arbitrary - intermediate variants of synesthetic perception can often be found.
For example, what color is the cold water valve? You will probably answer: “Blue.” After all, this knowledge is formed by your experience: a cold tap is most often indicated by blue. But in fact, the color of the tap and the temperature are not identical and do not depend on each other in any way. A synesthete also has the feeling that certain objects, symbols, sounds have some qualities that are not associated with them in the sensations and experiences of other people. But unlike your blue faucet, a synesthete cannot remember exactly what formed the connections between his sensations.
The formula “stimulus-response” is traditionally adopted in naming the types of manifestations of synesthesia. That is, if you hear that someone has “grapheme-color” synesthesia, it means that he or she sees or feels images of letters or numbers in color. If you yourself perceive music in the form of naturally and involuntarily manifested color spots, stripes, waves, then you are a “musical-color” synesthete.
The term “color hearing,” although preserved to this day, is still not entirely accurate: it can mean a color reaction to both music and speech, and until a certain time it was generally synonymous with synesthesia in all its manifestations without exception - probably , for the sole reason that other types of synesthesia have been little studied or completely unknown.
There are other classifications of types of synesthesia. For example, it seems logical to me to divide the manifestations of synesthesia into more basic, sensory ones (for example, speech sounds or emotions) and more conceptual, “abstract” ones (for example, days of the week or numbers). This division, in my opinion, focuses the researcher's attention on the mechanisms around the immediate cause of the phenomenon of synesthesia itself: on the primary, preconscious categorization.
Synesthesia is experienced involuntarily- that is, against the will of the synesthete. However, most synesthetes can create synesthetic sensations in themselves by recalling those concepts or phenomena that usually give rise to synesthesia in them. It is impossible to do this without recalling characteristic concepts or phenomena.
Most often people have synesthesia for as long as they can remember: from early childhood. Most likely, the development of synesthesia is beyond the time threshold of so-called infant amnesia. True, some synesthetes claim that they can directly point to the moment in their lives when they first experienced synesthetic sensations. I do not exclude this possibility. However, I assume that it is not the very first synesthetic sensations that are remembered, but, most likely, those that made a greater impression than usual. Another, more complex explanation could be the phenomenon of transfer, in which, for example, a synesthete child who perceives individual speech sounds in color, when learning to read, begins to “see” written letters in color - after all, each of them already has a “color” for him. » sound. It is this moment that is remembered as the beginning of synesthesia, without essentially being one.
So, if your sensations are characterized by the above descriptions, that is, they are involuntary, constant, appear in the form of “elementary” qualities (bursts of color, volume, texture, etc.) and you cannot trace how and when they you have, then most likely you are the owner of congenital synesthesia.
Why does synesthesia occur? A little about theories
Scientists are always very careful when drawing conclusions about complex phenomena such as the human brain in general and involuntary synesthesia in particular. Today, synesthesia is studied “in parts,” fragmentarily. Someone, having chosen one specific manifestation, tries to understand it in more detail. Someone is studying the nature of attention and memory in a synesthete. Some study the anatomy of the brain and the dynamics of neural activity. Someone - the possible tendency of synesthetes to figurative thinking... The situation is further complicated by the fact that in Western neuroscience there is now no common theoretical basis - that is, such a pragmatic picture of the functions of the brain and their physiological basis that would be shared by most researchers.
Neurophysiology, neurochemistry, bioelectrical activity, cognitive styles, and individual functions of perception are often considered in forced isolation from the holistic picture of the brain (admittedly, it is not yet as clear as we would like). Of course, this makes research easier. But as a result, a huge amount of statistical and individual data has accumulated on synesthesia, which is extremely scattered.
Yes, original classifications and comparisons appeared, and certain strict patterns emerged. For example, we already know that synesthetes have a special nature of attention - as if “preconscious” - to those phenomena that cause synesthesia in them. Synesthetes have a slightly different brain anatomy and a radically different activation of the brain to synaesthetic “stimuli.” It is also known that Synesthesia can be genetic, that is, inherited. And much, much more.
Nevertheless - and maybe that’s why! - there is no general theory of synesthesia (a scientifically proven, universal idea about it) yet.
However, there are consistent, consistent hypothetical descriptions, which in science are called “models.”
At different stages of research in foreign neuroscience since the 1980s (and in Soviet/Russian neurophysiology since the 1950s), different versions of the explanation of possible synesthetic mechanisms have been put forward. One of them was that in a synesthete in a certain area of the brain, the processes of neurons called “axons” - nerve pathways - lose (or do not develop enough) the myelin sheath. Due to the thinning layer of myelin “insulation”, neurons begin to inadvertently exchange electrical excitations, causing phantom synesthetic images of colors, smells, etc. Another popular explanation, which is still valid, is that in the brains of synesthetes, from early childhood, certain “neural bridges” are preserved that facilitate connections between the senses (this is the so-called “rudiments of synaptic pruning” hypothesis). Presumably, such connections are fully developed in infants, who perceive the world as a chaotic picture in which colors, sounds, touches and “signals” from other senses are mixed and merged.
However, both of these hypotheses - incomplete myelination and rudimentary pruning - have not gained universal support in scientific circles. Most likely, due to the fact that they do not fully correspond to our ideas about the psychological characteristics of synesthetic experience.
The thing is - and I said this before - that synesthetic experiences are very selective. For example, if a synesthete “sees” music or letters, or “hears” certain movements, then other sounds or signs on paper, as well as movements of a different nature, do not cause synesthesia in him. Can an infant “retain” neural connections to letters or music if he must first see them and learn to recognize them? The situation is similar with incomplete myelination: even if there is a local “network break” of neurons, can we explain the selective transmission of neuronal charge in it without explaining the properties of the entire network? In other words: could a gap "recognize" music or letters, or even be "aware" of the days of the week? Naive assumption!
To get rid of such contradictions, another proposal was put forward about the neural basis of synesthetic connections - using a particular example of grapheme-color synesthesia (coloring numbers or letters). So far, this explanation is the most common version of the neurobiological model of synesthesia. According to it, between two adjacent areas of the cerebral cortex, “responsible” for color and letters (or numbers), occurs cross-activation (“cross-activation”). In this case, the “color zone” is functionally subordinate to the work of the “alphanumeric” area - either through the preserved “infantile bridges”, or on the basis of incorrect or absent suppression of the work of the “color zone” (due to the release of special chemical agents-neurotransmitters, with the help of which neurons “communicate” with each other over “short and long distances”).
The main feature of this understanding of the mechanisms of synesthesia is the localization of the function, that is, the location of the observed function in a specific area of the brain. In this case, synesthesia occurs due to the fact that the zone for recognizing letters or numbers in the cerebral cortex is presumably connected with the zone for distinguishing colors, and the communication area itself is located somewhere in the middle: in the fusiform gyrus.
Note also that, according to the cross-activation model, synesthesia is an innate sensory phenomenon caused by mutation of certain genes. It is this mutation that causes the unusual joint activity of these brain regions. As evidence, the researchers note that, firstly, in the brain of grapheme-color synesthetes, in the communication zone, the volume of white matter (that is, the number of axons) is increased. Secondly, in specially designed tests, a synesthete searches for certain letters or numbers much faster than a non-synesthete. Thirdly, functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reveals high metabolic activity in this area.
The big flaw in this understanding of synesthesia is that it ignores at least three facts.
First, we must keep in mind that, as I have already said, synesthetic sensations are strictly selective. Secondly, many types of synesthesia must involve areas located at great distances from each other. And thirdly, this model does not take into account the special symbolic role of stimuli that cause synesthesia - such as music, letters, names and other complex phenomena of human culture. These complex phenomena become possible due to the simultaneous work of many brain structures, and not of individual areas exclusively in the cerebral cortex.
As an attempt to develop an alternative model and reduce theoretical gaps in the theory of cross-activations, I proposed integrative neurophenomenological paradigm for the study of synesthesia.
This approach in the broadest sense includes a consistent comprehensive study of both environmental influences and possible genetic predisposition, both cognitive (mental) and sensory characteristics, both subjective experience and objective manifestations of the phenomenon of synesthesia. The result was a model called Oscillatory Resonance Correspondence, or OPC. According to this model, synesthesia is an involuntary sensory manifestation of a specific neurocognitive strategy.
Very simply, such a strategy can be described as an excessive or excessive reaction to stimuli of a certain kind. The peculiarity of these stimuli is that their “processing” requires the simultaneous combination of two skills: individual selection from a certain group (for example, recognition of a specific letter as such) and inclusion in a meaningful sequence (words, sentences, etc.). The application of skills in using systems of conventional signs (language, music, etc.) is always individual and situational, that is, they are fundamentally open in nature. It is this “openness” that gives rise to a synesthete’s special attitude towards them - a kind of tense expectation that a sequence (of sounds, letters, names, days of the week) can contain new and new elements and meanings.
It should be noted here that we are talking about a child who does not know in advance how many days there are in the week or letters in the alphabet and what their combination may mean in each subsequent use. This expectation gives rise to excessive reaction.
The brain structures (basal ganglia), through which the dual skill of “recognition-inclusion” is realized, are anatomically linked to another structure - the thalamus, which gives experiences a sensory quality. Therefore, the thalamus takes this excess reaction upon itself - and the entire brain system interprets this as an additional sensation that corresponds to certain “signals” emanating from the outside from the sense organs. This happens not through linear synaptic discharges of individual neurons, but through the aggregate resonant capture - as if by a “common wave” - of some large clusters of neurons distributed over many areas of the brain by other neuronal groups.
Let's explain it even simpler. We can say that those brain structures that are responsible for recognizing elements (letters, numbers, touches, sounds) and incorporating them into a single whole - that is, a category - become so “overexcited” that they transmit tension back “deep” to the brain, where there are structures responsible for the perception of more elementary qualities, such as color, taste, smell, etc. Thus, in the perception of, for example, a letter, more structures are included than is really necessary - and an unusual connection of the letter with color, taste or a sense of volume arises. As a “sensual echo” of the most complex symbolic thinking.
Each element of this model still requires careful confirmation. But now we can say that none of its provisions contradicts the observed facts about synesthesia and general ideas about the functioning of the brain. Moreover: the hypothetical foundations of the neurodynamics of synesthesia (referred to as the “synaesthetic factor”, according to A. Luria), identified in the ORS model, include most of the types of synesthetic experiences known today. And the general characteristics of stimuli highlighted in it eliminate the rough understanding of the interaction of heredity and environment in the development of neural activity as the basis of the corresponding cognitive skills.
Synesthesia: normal or pathological?
Synesthesia, although extremely unusual, is quite common. According to some researchers, the maximum number of synesthetes is 4 percent. This means that out of a hundred people among us, four - one in twenty-five - may have synesthesia in one form or another. I myself consider these statistics to be a little overestimated due to the fact that the method and place of its collection were not chosen quite adequately (the museum of the largest city). A figure of 0.05% seems more realistic. However, the figures, even with such a sample, do not at all speak in favor of the sweeping and stereotypical conclusion of medical enthusiasts. In addition, I am sure that synesthesia has nothing to do with the costs of medical insurance, reporting to district clinics or sick leave.
Of course, we want everyone around us to think and feel the same. Like all “normal” people. Therefore, even in large publications, sometimes there are small outbreaks of psychological discrimination in the form of variations of the phrase “suffer from synesthesia syndrome.” But since such passages are in no way substantiated and a large number of facts indicate the opposite, this is written out of nothing more than ignorance.
The answer to the question about pathology can be given from at least two positions: from the point of view of scientific conclusions and on the basis of common sense. In the case of synesthesia, these perspectives are almost identical.
Synesthesia may be a symptom of a neurological disorder, but it is not a pathology in itself. Compare this with mathematical abilities and numeracy skills: their presence, absence, or exaggerated manifestations can, along with other signs, serve as signals of special development. But their highly uneven distribution among people of different professions and mentalities is not a reason to diagnose all mathematicians. I would like to emphasize that synesthesia is not included in the list of illnesses listed in the latest edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) or in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) - unlike claustrophobia, exacerbation of appendicitis, stomach ulcers or banal depression.
There is no evidence in history that the writer Vladimir Nabokov, physicist Richard Feynman, composers Franz Liszt, Jean Sibelius and Olivier Messiaen complained of unusual sensations or sought medical help for them. Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who enriched his science, and at the same time the entire world community, with the concepts of “autism” and “schizophrenia,” had grapheme-color synesthesia. However, he never put the features of his own perception - which he himself called secondary sensations - on a par with the main objects of his research.
The prevalence of synesthetic reactions, their diversity and the associated individual manifestations of such cognitive abilities as memory, imagery, sensation and imagination give every reason to call synesthesia an insufficiently studied inclination that manifests itself at a very early age. A deep and systematic study of this inclination will help shed light on our understanding of the connection between abstract thinking and the sensory sphere.
How and who studies synesthesia?
Synesthesia in the world is studied by about a hundred psychologists and neurophysiologists and countless specialists in linguistics, design, literary criticism, art criticism, as well as scientists in other fields. Everyone chooses his own perspective and scope of the phenomenon and, using the methods inherent in his science or direction, tries to understand the result of synesthetic impressions, the way of designing a work of art, the sensual imagery of a writer or poet, the perception of combinations of color, lighting and volume, and similar phenomena. This may or may not relate at all to what is called “synesthesia” in psychology.
Of course, the confusion from such blind borrowing of terms and “cross-pollination” of sciences and practices only intensifies. Synesthesia is often understood as various kinds of free intersensory analogies. However, this kind of experience is very complex because it depends on personal factors (thinking style, previous experience, leading feeling, etc.), on the current situation and the acceptability of decisions, the image of the world, on the physical state of the person at that very unique moment of creating the image or metaphors. But the main thing: this kind of metaphors, by their very essence, are based on spontaneous and free knowledge of the world, the creation of new connections and relationships at each moment in time, and their results are embodied in different (!) images each time. How much intersensory metaphorical comparisons are similar to the constancy and involuntariness of physically specific synesthetic reactions should be the topic of more than one work by those who take the liberty to directly compare or, conversely, refute the similarities between these phenomena. I hope that some of them are doing just that now.
In particular, psychologists and scientists in cognitive sciences, as when working with other phenomena of human cognitive activity, study synesthesia in several ways: both psychological and instrumental. As one would expect, they use observation and interview methods, questionnaires and various, general and individually constructed, tests, the main of which are tests for consistency and constancy, serial search (a picture with fives and twos, for example), the Stroop test with individual ( incompatible colors, letters or sounds, and other research methods related to the peculiarities of the manifestation of memory, attention, sensory sphere, imagery, etc.
The main goal in the study of synesthesia is to search for the mechanisms of the human nervous system that underlie the synesthetic features of perception. To do this, scientists must first split one large goal into several immediate tasks and subtasks. For example, learn to determine whether a person really has synesthesia based on external signs that appear during psychological testing. By comparing the results of a synesthete and a non-synesthete on a particular task, the researcher must learn to make objective conclusions. Ideally, even regardless of the self-report of the test taker.
This research helps determine next steps faster and more accurately. And since physiological study equipment is often expensive or for some reason unavailable, this stage may be the first and only one.
However, one should not think that psychological and neurophysiological tests are universal and omnipotent. It is likely that a test specifically for your manifestation of synesthesia has not yet been created, or the peculiarities of your perception are not captured by existing methods of confirmation. It all depends on how correctly you describe your type of synesthesia and how accurately the researcher selects or creates an individual test for you.
As an example of the use of neuroimaging tools (obtaining an image of the structure and functioning of the brain in the form of images or a special way of recording electromagnetic waves), one can name almost all data acquisition technologies available today. Starting in the mid-1980s with positron emission tomography and computed tomography (Richard Saitovic), researchers moved on to more modern methods such as magnetoencephalography (MEG) and brain diffusion tractography (DBT). Of course, they used and still use electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Each of these means has its own limitations and capabilities. EEG and MEG provide good recording of brain reactions over time, but are inferior to MRI in clarity and accessibility in the form of a photographic three-dimensional image. Therefore, if possible, in studies of synesthesia, the means of obtaining data are combined for reliability, and the discoveries made with their help are compared and used to clarify and put forward new hypotheses.
It must be borne in mind that our scientific knowledge about the phenomenon of synesthesia is based on generalizations and for this reason alone is severely limited. It should rather be considered a form of collective experience, rather than an invasion of privacy, the formula of which can hardly be calculated and placed in a frame. With the desire to know more (or less) about ourselves, we create the content of our lives. Someone else's experience is only a distant analogy. It is necessary to note once again: synesthesia is a complex phenomenon, relating to a number of issues about subjectivity and consciousness in their fundamentally constant development. It will probably be trite to repeat that the very presence of such questions is both the result of previous decisions and the motive for the next stages of self-knowledge. My point here is that this kind of uncertainty is not a cause for despair, mystification, or conflict. In the openness of such questions we find the condition for life's creativity, individuality and unpredetermined choice. A dose of uncertainty makes the situation real and filled with emotions.
Research into synesthesia will inevitably lead to new discoveries. But they will also lead us to new boundaries and “mysteries” in the sphere of the sensual and symbolic, in which everyone will again be able to find their own comfortably attractive constancy and their own creative uncertainty.
How can you tell if you have synesthesia?
There are many varieties of synesthesia documented by researchers: something like 70. According to my observations, each variety may have several more subtypes of manifestation, since fellow scientists, for convenience or out of ignorance, do not use clear enough basis for classifications. However, if you have a more or less common form of synesthesia, then there is probably already a special test for it, even more than one (see above about ways to study synesthesia). However, we continue to discover new varieties and new basis for grouping their manifestations. Thus, sound synesthesia for movement and color synesthesia for swimming styles were recently discovered (!!). However, if we understand synesthesia not as an intersensory connection, but as a connection between thinking and feelings based on preconscious classification, then these discoveries are a continuation of this logic of research.
A person often discovers the synaesthetic features of his perception by accident. Having long considered synesthesia to be a common experience for all people, he suddenly, in a conversation, while watching a TV show or other media materials, concludes about his originality. At the same time, one should not confuse the originality of personality as such and our subjective world in particular with the involuntary nature of synesthetic reactions. After all, synesthesia is not an association: the synesthete often does not know what is behind each connection, and these connections have a completely special character. For example, a synesthete, whose names are painted in a certain color regardless of the letter composition (the name Alexander is brown, and Alexey is white, etc.), has completely new and even exotic names for our culture, such as Gottlieb or Bertrand, will acquire a certain color, unpredictable even for the synesthete himself. What, tell me, is the association here? With what exactly and for what reason?
Therefore, by synesthesia - in order to identify it and isolate it from a number of other phenomena - we understand not just a sensory connection, but an excessive one, one that seems to duplicate sensory activity and has a very strict systematicity, regularity and involuntariness. Synesthesia remains virtually unchanged over time. Synaesthetic sensations occur even if you are not paying attention to them. As a rule, they are very ordered, that is, they selectively manifest themselves in some special groups of sounds, letters, concepts, names. To understand yourself more clearly, you can compare your feelings with the feelings of your acquaintances and friends, delve into the available literature and, of course, take a survey ( questionnaire posted on our website).
What is the significance of synesthesia?
My close and friendly communication with more than a dozen synesthetes revealed to me an amazing fact: the meaning of synesthesia for the synesthete himself can vary from complete indifference to it to exalted admiration for it. All this depends on personal characteristics, worldview and experience. That's probably how it should be. The less a phenomenon is studied, the more personal interpretations its understanding is saturated with.
Synesthesia may be the main property of perception around which the inner world of a synesthete, his creativity and relationships with other people unfold. Sometimes the opposite happens: synesthesia can be avoided, hidden and cause complexes, feelings of inferiority or doubts about one’s “adequacy”. In both cases, it is important to have educational materials, joint communication, the ability to understand one’s unique properties, not only and not so much synaesthetic, but also those that manifest themselves in the comparison of all personal qualities, seeing oneself holistically, in development, in relation with others. Then synesthesia does not acquire the flair of a mysterious gift, does not become an annoying ballast or a worthless curiosity, but appears as an individual feature of perception, a significant skill and trait that can develop harmoniously.
The phenomenon of synesthesia is also important for culture and art. This is a very developed topic, and I can only superficially retell its most general points, without claiming to have a complete understanding.
First of all, synesthesia as a method of creativity or, more precisely, as a worldview is very common in the works of romanticism and symbolism. It provides the basis for the formal methods of abstractionism and turns out to be the effect for which the technical solutions of some modern multimedia works are designed. Probably, turning to intersensory connections returns the fullness of sensations to the work, freeing it from the boring one-dimensionality and “knurled” practice of self-expression that appears in a genre or movement due to repetitions at previous stages of the development of art.
Any work claims to build an integral world - that is, to one degree or another, it is synaesthetic. Therefore, in my opinion, it is important to understand the very reason for the artist’s declaration of his works as synaesthetic or intersensory. For the romantics, this could be a programmatic step, marking a break with the stiffness of the era of classicism and manifested itself in a wave of experiments with sensuality against the backdrop of protests against the rationalism that dominated the knowledge of the world. In turn, if not for Kandinsky’s synaesthetic manifestos, abstractionism would have quickly exhausted the means available to vision and canvas. In this case, synesthesia contributed to the establishment of completely new connections between subjective experience and its display - updated symbolism of abstract forms and colors. What is important for multimedia artists is the claim to the fullness of the virtual space they create and the attempt to escape by including senses other than vision from a pixelated world without shadows and gravity.
Another important meaning of synesthesia in culture - and in this case I am talking about the phenomenon of involuntary synesthesia - is the experience of mystical revelation. Most likely, the first reports of synesthesia were perceived in this way. If you think about the fact that some manifestations of synesthesia are similar to the description of “auras” and “emission of energies”, that before the mass spread of writing the overwhelming number of books were of a religious nature, and music accompanied mainly religious events or was a relative rarity, then synesthesia could be perceived as physical confirmation of the existence of another world and the proximity of some people to sacred sources and actions, that is, to the knowledge of something inaccessible to others.
In the framework of scientific research into the human psyche, the significance of synesthesia, in my opinion, has not yet been properly appreciated either in foreign or Russian psychology. The fact is that researchers often pay attention to the more visible, manifesting side of synesthesia: the coloring of music, the visualization of a sequence of number series or units of time. Of course, these manifestations are very important, but not only as a fact, but also as a possibility of the human mind - random or natural. However, it is even more important to try to understand the condition and basis of its occurrence in the context of a holistic, systemic understanding of the human nervous system.
In my opinion (I will greatly simplify my position here), the study of synesthesia can shed light not only on specific questions about the characteristics of memory, attention or perception of a person, but also, taking into account, on the one hand, the symbolic nature of synesthesia, and on the other, its unity with the unconscious mechanisms of the psyche, to contribute to our understanding of such strictly human manifestations as symbolization, abstract thinking, the connection between thinking and sensations, and their natural interaction. That is, the study of synesthesia can, in essence, reveal some aspects of the balance between freedom and determinism, which allows us to get rid of environmental dependence, but nevertheless keeps a person in adaptive tension and does not allow us to completely break away from pressing reality.
Synaesthetic mechanisms make symbols, signs and abstract concepts individually significant and at the same time physically real and universal, as if immersed in physiology and thereby acquiring self-sufficiency. The maximum program in the study of synesthesia, in my opinion, should be precisely this definition and identification of the synesthetic foundations of human consciousness.
Is synesthesia creativity?
The answer to this question depends more on what you define as creativity than on the phenomenon of synesthesia itself. Most often, creativity is called something original, new and, most importantly, useful. These are very subjective assessments, just like creativity itself. If a synesthete simply expresses his feelings on canvas or in music without rethinking or tension, the value of this, of course, is questionable. This formal approach is valuable for enriching the medium of art or design and is often dominant in conservative periods. There are also opposite examples, when synesthesia plays the role of a conductor of new meanings.
Vladimir Nabokov, according to some researchers, starting from his own involuntary synesthesia, literally filled his works with new organics, original connections of feelings, and created a semblance of sensory montage. The same example of the conversion of involuntary synesthesia into creative synesthesia was the work of bell player Konstantin Saradzhev: he perceived more than one and a half thousand shades of colors in one octave and used this heightened sensation to study bell ringing and create bell symphonies.
Among contemporary synesthete artists who use their involuntary synesthesia in an original way, we can recall Marcia Smailak(there is material about it on our website). Her impressionistic photographs capture moments saturated with a synesthetic impression—sound. It is no less fascinating to read Marcia’s texts, in which she, in a semi-meditative form, conveys to us moments of the metamorphosis of her experience.
However, involuntary synesthesia can - with some reservations - be considered a creative phenomenon from a more specific point of view. The fact is that synesthesia, although it appears spontaneously and without the consent of the synesthete himself at a very early age, can serve as a special strategy, an original way of highlighting some phenomena of the external world: letters, music, people's names, etc. We can simply say that synesthesia is the sensory creativity of a synesthete child, which turns out to be very useful for him. All three qualities of the creative act are present here. The only warning can be that the constant use of a certain find without introducing novelty and creating meaning erases the luster and power of impressions from it. So, whether creativity is synesthesia or not is for you to judge for yourself. In any case, in order not to devalue either synesthesia or the creative act, a sign of complete equality should not be easily placed between them.
How can you use synesthesia?
In a thousand different ways. Due to the fact that synesthesia promotes the perception of complex and systemic concepts as if in terms of simpler sensations (remember: we remember subway lines more easily by their color than by their name and place on the diagram), the most natural and urgent ways would be, perhaps, more easy memorization of telephone numbers and names of people (in grapheme-color synesthetes), melodies and keys (in people with a colored ear for music), dates of events (in synesthesia with colored or localized sequences). People who perceive written words in color much more easily detect spelling inaccuracies in them - by incorrect coloring, which gives an error. But this is only the result of abilities, and how, where and with what personal meaningfulness to use it is up to the synesthete himself.
Many synesthetes are attracted to creativity that is somehow related to their form of synesthesia: music, painting, and even culinary arts. Close attention to color, imaginative thinking, acute perception of music (sometimes combined with absolute pitch), memory for shape and texture often lead synesthetes to take up photography, painting, design, and music. However, no matter how you perceive your synesthesia: as an accident, a curiosity or a gift - in order to become the basis of creative action, it will always need development, rethinking and new forms of application.
Among the professions chosen by synesthetes, psychology also occupies a significant place, and in foreign countries the role of a neurophysiologist researcher and a synesthete test subject is also often combined in one person. Lawrence Marks, one of the most experienced neurophysiologists who has devoted more than 40 years to the study of synesthesia, without being a synesthete himself, in an interview for our website, expressed the idea that such a combination may have both pros and cons.
Since our research is by no means at the initial stage, we would like to hope that the negative aspects - subjective interpretation, excessive evaluativeness or excessive generalization - are left behind. But this does not mean that there are enough synaesthete scientists in psychology or neurophysiology. In my opinion, there should be much more of them. Who, if not them, should follow the call of Socrates in the field of knowledge of synesthesia?
Are we all “synaesthetes”?
All people have memory, but this does not give grounds to call us all “mnemonists.” The term exists to distinguish people with a special quality of perception. There is no more elitism in this than in the profession of a mathematician, who uses the characteristics and abilities of his mind for certain cognitive and creative purposes.
Terminological confusion, however, sometimes goes even further and leads to a confusion of two phenomena: involuntary synesthesia and intersensory figurative thinking, the connection of which, although subjectively it seems obvious, has not yet been proven objectively and analytically. The flip side of this simplification is passionate attempts to classify famous personalities from the spheres of art and science as synaesthetes. Whether Wassily Kandinsky, Olivier Messiaen and Richard Feynman had or did not have synesthesia is the topic of a separate article. However, (different) answers to this question will not bring us any closer to understanding the very essence of the phenomenon: after all, among synesthetes there are people who devote their lives not only and not so much to creativity, and among the most outstanding artists, composers or physicists there were still not many synesthetes .
However, each of us has experienced what might be called a “synaesthetic insight”: a brief, fleeting experience in which an image or situation that captures our attention causes us to experience a new, inexplicable experience. For example, after watching a sad and gloomy movie, you can really feel a depressing physical state, and after watching comedies, you can feel real lightness and relaxedness.
The fact is that, probably, the meaning of the film turned out to be so significant for us that it caused not only an emotional reaction, but also literally captured us physically, so to speak, “overwhelmed” our feelings. This is probably what creative people experience when they are immersed in questions about the meaning of a particular situation and, being involved in it literally with their whole being, experience it so emotionally that it evokes in them new sensations for which they select an original image. What kind of image it will be - visual, physical, auditory, etc., in other words, what sphere of sensations the “sensory projection” will fill - depends equally on the characteristics and preferences of the poet or artist himself, and on those accepted in his cultural environment ways of experiencing and expressing: the smells of the morning - in a playful melody, a declaration of love - in dance, the sounds of music - in color. The poet’s situation in this case is extremely similar to the situation of a synaesthete child trying to comprehend meanings that are still unclear to him using the innate capabilities of the body available to him.
On the other hand - from the education and upbringing system both abroad and in our country - calls to “develop synesthetic abilities” began to be heard when educational theorists began to discover with horror that the bodies of the majority of the children they raised began to anatomically repeat the shape of a chair and desks, and the intellect - a school board with formulas in a column. However, what was a great initiative gradually turned into another template and “paragraph in a manual.” In this context, the so-called “development of synesthesia” often comes down to the imposition of certain means of expression, very predictable for our culture (music and drawing), with the obligatory search for visual connections between them. At the same time, as a rule, the goal is not to teach the child fluency in the entire palette, the plasticity of sensuality, the logic of movement and the range of thinking - from touching the beating heart of a friend to the taste of snow and the feeling of weightlessness - everything that makes up the intellectual potential in his personally significant spontaneous manifestation and in the broad, unlimited sense of this concept.
Is it worth talking about synesthesia as an educational task in this case? I think it’s worth it - unless, of course, this is another formal-theoretical attempt on the creative development of a child, in which intellectual and sensory boundaries, it seems to me, should not be imposed from the outside, but should be found or created by the child independently with the sensitive and very careful help of an adult.
Who was a famous synesthete?
Until a certain point in the past - and this once again demonstrates the close mutual connection between science and everyday understanding - as long as there were no strictly fixed terms in the language and interest in the sphere of perception was more diffuse than it is today, it is difficult to talk about biographical and autobiographical works , including a description of the experiences of intersensory associations. Nevertheless, for example, based on the results of my own, very cursory acquaintance with the articles and memoirs of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, as well as judging by the analysis of the composer’s works carried out by psychologist P. Popov and published by him in the journal “Psychological Review” (No. 1, 1917), one can draw a cautious conclusion: Nikolai Andreevich really had a “color hearing” for the pitch of the notes being played .
The opposite example of hasty enrollment in the ranks of synesthetes is the myth about the synesthetic abilities of Wassily Kandinsky and Alexander Scriabin. Much has already been said about the work of the author of “Prometheus” by the scientific and creative team of Prof. B.M. Galeev, whose works I would highly recommend that interested readers turn to. My research, mainly reading primary sources: “On the Spiritual in Art” and “Point and Line on a Plane” - led me to similar conclusions about the absence of “involuntary” explicit synesthesia in the founder of abstract painting, V. Kandinsky. The wealth of transitions between various “pure” images belonging to different spheres of sensuality to which Kandinsky refers, their intricate, intellectual load speaks more of the artist’s never-ending sensory-symbolic fantasy than of the presence of constant correspondences, known today under the term “synesthesia.” . An even more compelling argument against misconceptions about Kandinsky as a synesthete: in one of his works, the artist directly says that he is familiar with the case of involuntary synesthesia, but we will not find in Kandinsky any recognition or even hints that he has such a feature of perception. himself.
The physicist Richard Feynman and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the writer Vladimir Nabokov, the composers Franz Liszt, Gyorgy Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Jean Sibelius, the theorist and musician Konstantin Saradzhev, and the jazz player Duke Ellington most likely had involuntary synesthesia. Some performers of the modern pop scene clearly have it (Billy Joel, Tori Amos, Lady Gaga). Of course, one can confidently speak about the presence of synesthesia only after a series of tests. However, the very fact that we have some systematic descriptions that coincide with our understanding of synesthesia at the moment makes synesthetic features not just a biographical fact or the result of the imagination of these composers and performers, but an integral, albeit to varying extent, part of their work, a role which requires further comprehensive research.
Is it possible to get rid of synesthesia?
Synesthesia is an involuntary reaction that is practically impossible to change at will and willpower. In some forms of manifestation, synaesthetic reactions can be modified depending on whether attention is paid to them, on the general emotional state, on the expectation or surprise of the synaesthetic stimulus.
Very rarely, a synesthete may experience some “sensory overload.” In such cases, as in similar situations encountered in non-synaesthetes when they are tired of painfully bright lights or unbearably loud music, intrusive noises or tiring postures, the natural solution is to avoid excessive exposure to provoking stimuli. But even after such situations, the conversation about “getting rid of synesthesia” in most cases comes only hypothetically, out of curiosity or playing with possible options for a different existence and a different form of perception.
Let me emphasize again: the development of synesthesia is closely related to age and apparently begins in very early childhood. It is even possible that some forms - “to music” or “to speech sounds” or “to emotions” - may appear before birth, even in the womb.
The disappearance of synesthesia is also not such a rare phenomenon. Most often this occurs during the transition period and is presumably associated with global changes in the functions of the body and, in particular, the nervous system. It is well known that the temporary disappearance of synesthesia can cause long-term and intense stress. In addition, synesthetic reactions may fade or weaken somewhat with age, but it is still difficult to trace any patterns here.
In synesthetes, whose main activity - work, creativity, study - covers the sphere of experiences that cause synesthesia, according to my observations, partial disappearance of reactions occurs less frequently than, for example, a general dulling of sensations. If a synesthete, due to the type of activity and the nature of personal interests, does not pay attention to synesthesia for a long time or does not encounter provoking stimuli at all, then some of them may forever lose their synesthetic properties for him. For example, in this way, some consonants may drop out of the group of letters that cause synesthesia.
From the history of synesthesia research, I know of two cases in which special magnetic stimulation (TMS) of certain areas of the brain in synesthetes was able to temporarily disrupt synesthetic reactions, and one experiment in which researchers caused reactions similar to synesthetic ones in non-synaesthete subjects. However, with all the described dynamics of the development and disappearance of synesthesia, there was not a single case when researchers managed to disrupt synesthesia for a long time or suppress it forever.
What is “artificially induced” synesthesia (synesthesia and meditation, hypnosis, drugs, physical activity)?
In the scientific and pseudo-scientific literature one can find many works and everyday evidence of the experience of states similar to early involuntary synesthesia. The adoption of certain psychotropics, meditation, hypnosis, hypnagogic states (transition to sleep), physical activity and external influences can lead to a change in the general intellectual perception of the world in altered states of consciousness (ASC), as a result of which sensory integration is also transformed. The question of the similarity between permanent involuntary synesthesia and synesthesia generated by external factors or ASCs should remain open due to at least three questions.
Firstly, to what extent is the selective reaction of involuntary synesthesia, highlighting, for example, only numbers or exclusively days of the week or names, similar in subjective experience to ISS synesthesia, in which the boundaries of all sense organs and sensory systems are “mixed” and shifted? Secondly, isn’t the very constancy of involuntary synaesthetic reactions and their narrow selectivity (in contrast to the general nature of ASC-synesthesia) the main, determining factor of early synaesthesia? Thirdly, what do synesthetes themselves, who have had experience using psychotropic substances or have practiced meditation or hypnosis, testify to when comparing their constant reactions with temporarily provoked sensations?
At present, we can only say that there are several quantitative differences between permanent synesthesia and ASC-synesthesia: the level of integration, the duration and intensity of the involvement of subjective experience, etc. It is these differences that are most likely decisive. The specific, selective nature of permanent synesthesia and the global but temporary nature of ASC synesthesia have different systemic bases in the functioning of the brain.
Is it possible to learn synesthesia?
I would like to hope that, having become familiar with such an extensive and detailed description of synesthesia, the reader will be able to independently answer not only this question, but also many others that remain outside the scope of our article. I will only add that attempts to imitate the development of synesthetic reactions by strengthening associations have been made in scientific practice more than once since the beginning of the last century, but none have led to any confirmed positive results.
Failures in understanding, discordant interpretations and the inability to imitate manifestations of synesthesia have more than once caused quite predictable and - alas! - banal accusations of falsification and far-fetchedness led to unfounded conclusions about the mediumistic abilities of synesthetes, or, on the contrary, gave reason to attribute the status of a pathological illusion to synesthesia. And despite the fact that evidence has now been obtained about the psychological and physiological reality of the phenomenon of synesthesia and it is even possible to point out its general cognitive nature, the answers to many questions still remain at the level of hypotheses and intuitive ideas. These ideas require experimental testing and even, perhaps, new coordinated interdisciplinary research methods and tools.
Such openness, unresolvedness and, from time to time, heated debate indicates that synesthesia is a unique phenomenon that challenges traditional ideas, for example, about the division of the human mental sphere into thinking, perception and sensation. You can be sure that the significance of the content of the answer to the question “What is synesthesia?” will turn out to be much greater than what was included in its original formulation.
Anton Sidorov-Dorso specifically for the site site
