Synesthesia: Have You Ever Tasted Music?

“Some artists have a nervous hand at drawing, which gives their technique something of the sound peculiar to a violin…”
-Vincent Van Gogh

One of the times when the world’s fourth horseman, the pandemic, had not yet taken hold of us, a colorful book caught my eye while i was walking through the bookstore. It was telling the story of a girl with a disease called “synesthesia”. This condition, which is called a disease on medical basis, sounded more like a “miracle” rather than a disease. When I scrolled through the pages, I read that Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which information that should stimulate only one of the senses stimulates several senses. Well, I thought that the stimulation of several senses at the same time wouldn’t sound all that terrible. It would be great to hear my favorite vanilla scent with an orchestra playing in my mind. Yes, this neurological disease can be explained exactly by the example I have given.

    (Credit: “Composition VII” by Wassily Kandinsky, 1913. Wikimedia Commons)

We can usually guess the taste of a food we see before we taste it. For example, when we see a lemon, we can imagine its juicy, slightly sour, acidic taste, and often our teeth are dazzled. What if it’s a cube you see? Or a rectangle? Can you “taste” them only when you “see” them? Our answer will be no, because even thinking that an object has taste may sound crazy. Well, we can envision the source of a sound without looking at it, right? For example, we can imagine the source and instruments of a piece that we listen to with headphones. But have you ever had a fireworks display in your head while listening to music? Or did a favorite spice scent create a riot of color in your mind? Here it is happening to them. They are synesthesia patients…

(2018; Inspired by the powerful song Army by Ellie Goulding.)

 The word synesthesia is formed by the combination of the Greek words “synth” meaning together and “aisthesis” meaning perception, and it means empathy. When people who experience synesthesia hear the music, they can see colors and taste textures such as round or pointed. In other words, synesthetic people experience a unique blend of the two senses. This situation, defined by the transition of two senses or perceptions, creates many combinations of synesthesia. However, the most common types of synesthesia are perception of writing or music as color. Lettering-color synths see the letters, words or numbers in front of them in different colors. Likewise, music-color synesthetics see a riot of colors in front of their eyes while listening to music.

(World War I, Wasily Kandinsky)

According to the researches, no diagnostic mechanism for synesthesia other than individual reporting has been found. Any experience we’ve had since we were born feel “normal” to us. But, as is often the case with color blindness, over time we realize that we have different sensations compared to other people. According to what I have read, the reason why synesthesia is not widely known is that they do not realize that they have a different perception world . Than the majority of special people who experience this sensation, or when they do, they see it as an outlier and hide it from other people. It is argued how correctly to call this diverse and miraculous world of perception as disease.

Sources:

Synesthesia | Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/synesthesia#:~:text=Synesthesia%20is%20a%20neurological%20condition,activated%20at%20the%20same%20time.

Synesthesia. https://www.artbyjuliahamilton.com/synesthesia

Weissman, Joseph. 2009, September 17. https://fractalontology.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/soul/

Carpenter, S. (2001, March). Everyday fantasia: The world of synesthesia. Monitor on Psychology, 32(3). http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar01/synesthesia

Seçen, İdil.  Sinestezi Nedir?. https://www.iyikigormusum.com/sinestezi-nedir