We all know what our senses are and how we use them every day, but what if you could hear colors and taste sounds? This connection between senses is called Synesthesia, and some people have this complex condition inside their minds.
Synesthesia is a mental condition where a sense triggers another sense, and it’s a different experience for all the people who have it. And it isn’t just about colors or sounds, it also involves shapes, numbers, textures, temperatures, scents, and many more things.
When I was around 6 years old, I became aware of this connection between my senses and started to explore it. At first, it was really simple. I would see colors when hearing or reading a name or a word, or I would identify a color with every sound I would hear. For example, when I hear something heavy falling on a concrete floor, in my mind, a very dark blue color, almost black, appears. Or when I would think about the name Jessica, I would see a very bright orange/yellow.
Growing up, it got a lot more complicated because it became more than just colors or sounds. Around 14 years old, I started to also see shapes, numbers, textures, and many other things like scents or temperatures associated with names, words, emotions, and even music. For example, when I think about the word “office”, I see a horizontal light blue rectangle, a cold temperature around 10 degrees Celsius, and I can smell a light scent of warm dust. So, as you can see, it got really specific and insane, up to the point where every person, word, emotion, or song that I know has a specific combination of things in my mind. Even this article has specific colors to me, and I’ve represented them with the pictures that you can see between the paragraphs.
The thing is that I thought that everybody had this condition in their mind until, when I was 19 years old, I saw an interview online about an artist talking about all of this, and in that moment I discovered that not many people have that, indeed only 2% of the world has Synesthesia. And honestly, I am really glad to have it, because I think that it improves creativity, especially in the music environment.
The best part of Synesthesia, in my opinion, is when you try to combine it with music. Every song to me has a different color (or combination of colors), shape, scent, temperature, etc.. which makes the listening experience much deeper and immersive. Apart from listening to music, it also affects me when I try to write or play a song. Indeed, there have been many times where I stopped playing something just because it would give me a color that I didn’t like.
Even a lot of professional artists who have this condition are using it to improve their art. For example, many singers might use it to choose specific lights or visuals for some songs during their concerts so that their audience can have a better and more interesting experience.
Synesthesia has both positive and negative aspects to it. On the one hand, the triggering of so many senses at once sends an abundance of information to your brain, and in some rare cases, if you are unable to manage it well, synesthesia can disrupt your concentration and cause exhaustion. On the other hand, synesthesia can cause a person to be very creative and different, and this is the feature of synesthesia that I enjoy the most.
~David D’Urso
David D’Urso is a writer living in Italy who suffered deeply from depression. He is interested in music and has a deep passion for writing and mental health.