During this first month (June 2021) of the weekly 4 Topics Plus newsletters, I’m laying some introductory groundwork here. Until next month, it’s mostly all about me, me, me, as I share my background and qualifications for discussing one of four main topics - Writing, Art, Music, and Faith. The big “Plus” added to these four topics is a wildcard subject, most often posted when there’s a fifth Wednesday in a given month - like today! And so, today’s Off-Topic topic is Synesthesia - the peculiar world of “cross-sensory perception.” (Warning: Some readers may find this post smells like nail polish remover, is too chartreuse, or has the texture of a well-worn shag carpet.)
Tina Turner once told a recording studio’s bass player to make his instrument sound “more purple.”1 Singer-songwriter, Charli XCX, said, “When I’m in the studio, I’ll tell someone to make it sound more purple,” then quickly added, “they’ll have no idea what I mean.”
And, in all likelihood, Tina and Charli would have no idea what each other might mean when speaking of music’s perceived colors. To Tina, purple might mean an electronic distortion effect. To Charli, purple might mean a higher pitch. Such is the illogic and the non-universal nature of Synesthesia - an otherwise amazing phenomenon that I call Cross-Sensory Perception.
For synesthetes like Tina and Charli (and myself), one sensation can automatically and involuntarily trigger another non-related sensation in the brain. For example, a certain food flavor might mentally bring about the added perception of a color, or a visual picture, or a musical note, or a shape, or even an emotion. I love to hear Anita Baker sing. The fact that her voice has the same beautiful color and sheen of a hazelnut shell is an enjoyable, added bonus for me - one that most people don’t seem to experience!
Synesthesia is said to be found in less than five percent of the population, and it comes in many different varieties. For some people, spans of time - like days or weeks - have a certain shape or spatial sequence to them. For others, a change in the weather can result in exotic, synthesized blends of emotion. One of the most common varieties is Grapheme-color synesthesia - the type where letters and numbers are associated with specific colors. Like most forms, grapheme-color synesthesia occurs frequently in childhood with a tendency to fade away with time, and such has been the case with me. At one point in my young life, I could have confidently told you the color of every letter in the alphabet. Nowadays, I can only remember the colors for R, S, and T.
Besides knowing the different colors (and genders, and personalities, and IQ levels!) for letters and numerals, my earliest synesthesia memory is from about four years of age. My mother had made a traditional British steak and kidney pie for dinner one evening - my first experience with that savory dish. While it’s not uncommon for a four-year-old to dislike an unfamiliar food, the reason for my dislike was anything but common. “It tastes like gray crayons,” I said to my parents. They thought this observation was hilarious, and rightly so.
Later that evening, attempting to get a better understanding of my comment, my mother asked, “Crayons don’t really have different flavors, do they?” I pondered the question for a minute or two. Having actually sampled most of the crayons at some point, I knew, intellectually, that they all had the same waxy taste to them.
But somehow, certain crayon colors had flavors associated with them, and the less-than-enjoyable flavor of a gray crayon was similar to that of a steak and kidney pie. I went back to the Crayola crayon box and stuck a gray crayon in my mouth just to make sure. After a short moment, I had to admit that the gray crayon’s associated flavor was all in my head. I then understood, as well as a four-year-old can understand such things, that the gray crayon flavor was a mental perception, and not one that was tied to the tongue’s flavorful reality. I also understood that this perception was not a reality that others could consistently experience or relate to.
Some synesthetes report that they were unaware their experiences were unusual until they realized other people did not have them …
Wikipedia
Around that same age, I received a high-quality toy kaleidoscope from my grandparents. As I rotated the frontal piece and pointed its lens at my bedroom window for better light, I remember thinking, just bring me food and water and I can sit here doing this for the rest of my life! The brilliant color patterns produced by the kaleidoscope would generate wave after wave of spectacular emotion combinations inside my little brain. Tiny blue Christmas tree lights, held up close to my eye, still have that kind of euphoric, electrifying effect on me.
Sometimes more than one extra sensation is triggered with synesthesia. It has been quite normal for me to have three different sensory perceptions chained together, one after the other. Since childhood, whenever I’ve used an old-fashioned pair of dull safety scissors to cut through heavy cardboard, the 1) discomfort it brings to my hand always produces 2) a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth which has 3) a golden-orange color associated with it.
From the perspective of a second-grader, American life had lots of scary changes going on in the later 1960s. My friend Doug came to school one day all agitated over a magazine article he had just heard about. The topic was LSD’s disturbing increase in popularity at the time. “There’s this guy who tried LSD,” Doug said with alarm, “and he’s yelling, ‘Red, Blue, Green - I can hear all the colors!’” And as Doug frantically told me this story, I sat there waiting for the scary part! To me, there was nothing unusual about colors and sounds being linked together.
And indeed, comparisons have been drawn between the effects of LSD and the everyday experiences of synesthetes. I can’t speak from personal experience, but much of what I’ve read about LSD’s effects seem to match my synesthesia. The difference with synesthesia is: It’s totally legal; it’s free of charge; it’s readily available; it can usually be ignored or “shut off” in an instant; and, it leaves no detectable chemical traces in the body that might result in unemployment or jail time! In my view, synesthetes are the last people who should ever need or want mind-altering recreational drugs. Taking drugs would be like throwing a bucket of gasoline onto a roaring campfire.
(Check out this helpful, explanatory video above, and then see all the entertaining synesthete comments that follow!)
Thanks to internet search engines, about fourteen years ago I discovered that synesthesia was a thing, and that it had a name, and that it has been scientifically studied in modern times since the late 1800s. Before that personal discovery moment, synesthesia was just an oddity that I recognized within myself. By oddity, I mean that the vast majority of people around me didn’t seem to be having those same types of experiences and perspectives.
As a result of this societal difference, I found myself subconsciously attracted to people who seemed to share various types of cross-sensory perception. As I look back, I can see now that I was inclined to date young women whose lives were similarly tied to mysterious sounds and visions, shapes and colors of synesthesia.
Time moves on, however. Kids grow up and life’s serious responsibilities begin to crowd out those kinds of illogical, non-reality-based phenomena. Much of my childhood’s synesthesia experience has been forgotten and lost, but I’m happy about how much of it I have been able to retain after all these years.
Some report [synesthesia] as a gift – an additional "hidden" sense – something they would not want to miss.
Wikipedia
From 2006 to 2010, there was an American TV series called Heroes. I never watched more than an episode or two, but became even less interested when they introduced a new hero whose “superpower” was synesthesia. I can tell you with firm authority that synesthesia brings about as much superpower benefit to society as getting one’s foot stuck in a galvanized metal bucket.
But from an individual, personal standpoint, I’ll say that synesthesia has been a marvelous blessing in my own life. I can’t imagine the world without all the extra beauty and wonder that synesthesia has added to it.
Guy Pratt, My Bass and Other Animals, 2009, Orion Publishing.