About 4 percent of the people on Earth experience a mysterious phenomenon called synaesthesia.
The word 'synaesthesia' has Greek roots. Greek word 'συναισθησία' translates to - perceive together. People who have this ability are called synaesthetes.
But, what is synaesthesia ? It is an ability to experience one of our senses through another; a phenomenon in which one sense triggers another to stimulate an additional sensory response. It is when we hear a sound and automatically see a colour; or, when we read a certain word, and a specific hue enters our mind's eye. We might have more than one response. One of the most common responses is to see letters, numbers, or sounds as colours.
I can 'hear' colours and 'see' sounds, and one of my former piano students, now my colleague, can do that too. Although the same tone is not always exactly the same colour to me. It changes intensity. For example I 'see' C as red, but sometimes it is light red, like a water colour, and sometimes it is bright red like acrylic or oil paint, depends on which instrument is playing it. It changes its 'heaviness'.
My former student can 'see' the whole word in a particular colour, like people's names for example. She might hear the name 'Elizabeth' and automatically see purple. She might forget Elizabeth's name but will always remember the colour associated with it.
The response happens right away. We can’t help it. This is true even with new experiences. For example, when I hear a new piece of music, I may see it in colours without any effort. It just happens.
I can see a musical scale in a particular colour, or musical phrase, or even the whole piano piece (changing its hue all the time).
But, what causes synaesthesia ? The condition has long puzzled scientists.
Studying synaesthesia shows that the brains of people with synaesthesia are more connected across different regions than the brains of people whose senses are not cross-linked. Scans of people who say they 'hear' colours show they have a bigger brain response when they hear a sound. The images also show synaesthetes have more connections between the parts of the brain that control their senses.
The question, however, is what causes this different brain wiring.
Continuous and in depth studying synaesthesia could essentially provide a window into how human brains in general create sensory representations of the outside world.
Five composers known to have had synaesthesia: Alexander Scriabin, Jean Sibelius, Olivier Messiaen, György Ligeti and Franz Liszt.
Reference: LiveScience
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