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Chatting to sister the other night, she came out with something that took me by surprise. It's odd that people can do that when you've known them for a while, but sometimes even the most familiar person tells you something of which you were previously unaware. Whilst chatting, she observed that she sees letters in different colours.
My, I said, that's unusual. What do you mean by that?
Further questioning showed that she meant what she said - she sees the letter U as blue and A as "a mid-tan rather like Thorntons toffee", for example, even when they're all printed the same colour. This was, I decided, out of the ordinary.
The experience of the brain mixing sensory experience from input is called synaesthesia. What happens is that input from one sensory pathway causes an inadvertant firing of another sensory pathway at the same time, so there are recorded examples of people doing things like 'tasting' music, or 'seeing' touch. The one time I've ever experienced anything like this was on painkillers whilst having dental work done - I found I was 'seeing' the pain as a succession of jagged, hatched lines. Some people get it all the time.
To my irritation (as I don't get it), Synaesthesia is often assocated with high levels of personal creativity, as percieving the world in this way appears to be helpful in putting together ideas and concepts in new ways. I suppose this shouldn't surprise me, as sister has a whopping great brain throbbing away between her ears and it appears she has a mild form called grapheme → colour synesthesia. Other alleged Synaesthetes include David Bowie, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Mondrian and even Mozart, who once reported the experience of listening to music as being like walking through a building - and if he wanted to write music it was just a case of adding a room here and a slap of paint there.
So, question of the day to you lot: What, if any, experience of this phenomenon do you have? If it turns out you're all massively creative synaesthetes, I may just have to go and top myself out of pure jealousy.
My, I said, that's unusual. What do you mean by that?
Further questioning showed that she meant what she said - she sees the letter U as blue and A as "a mid-tan rather like Thorntons toffee", for example, even when they're all printed the same colour. This was, I decided, out of the ordinary.
The experience of the brain mixing sensory experience from input is called synaesthesia. What happens is that input from one sensory pathway causes an inadvertant firing of another sensory pathway at the same time, so there are recorded examples of people doing things like 'tasting' music, or 'seeing' touch. The one time I've ever experienced anything like this was on painkillers whilst having dental work done - I found I was 'seeing' the pain as a succession of jagged, hatched lines. Some people get it all the time.
To my irritation (as I don't get it), Synaesthesia is often assocated with high levels of personal creativity, as percieving the world in this way appears to be helpful in putting together ideas and concepts in new ways. I suppose this shouldn't surprise me, as sister has a whopping great brain throbbing away between her ears and it appears she has a mild form called grapheme → colour synesthesia. Other alleged Synaesthetes include David Bowie, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Mondrian and even Mozart, who once reported the experience of listening to music as being like walking through a building - and if he wanted to write music it was just a case of adding a room here and a slap of paint there.
So, question of the day to you lot: What, if any, experience of this phenomenon do you have? If it turns out you're all massively creative synaesthetes, I may just have to go and top myself out of pure jealousy.
