Synesthesia
Note: there is also an industrial music band called Synæsthesia.
Synaesthesia (also spelled synesthesia) is the neurological mixing of the senses. A synaesthete may, for example, hear colors, see sounds, and taste tactile sensations. While this may happen in a person who has autism, it is by no means exclusive to autistics. Synaesthesia is a common effect of some hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD or mescaline.
Synaesthetes often experience correspondences between the shades of color, tone of sounds, and intensity of taste that provokes an alternate sensation. For instance, a synaesthete may see a more intense red as the pitch of a sound gets higher, or a smoother surface might make one taste a sweeter taste. These experiences are involuntary, are not metaphorical, are not merely associations, and are consistent throughout life, although some young synaesthetes seem to lose their ability by or during adulthood. Depressant drugs tend to increase the depth of the perception.
The most common form of synaesthesia is seeing sound.
Richard Cytowic wrote a pop-psych book about this condition entitled The Man Who Tasted Shapes.
Synaesthesia in art
Synaesthesia is a legitimate poetic device. In a familiar example, Andrew Marvell characterized the fruitful and serene atmosphere of the garden as
- Annihilating all that's made
- To a green thought in a green shade"
- ( —"The Garden")
Likewise, Nick Carraway, the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, writes of the "yellow cocktail music" that plays at Gatsby's parties.
Synaesthesia has influenced many artists in various fields, including poets Charles-Pierre Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud, and an ersatz synaesthesia has sometimes been overused since as a shortcut to "modernity." Composer Alexander Scriabin, in his orchestral work, Prometheus: The Poem of Fire (1910), included a part for a "clavier à lumières". This instrument was played like the piano, but produced colored light instead of sound. Synaesthesia as a drug effect played a role in the popular song "Lake Shore Drive" by circle of fifths, indicating that it was a thought out system that was also influenced by his theosophic readings, and based on Sir Isaac Newton's Optics. Many other artists have used fabricated synesthetic systems, such as the Italian futurists Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Wassily Kandinsky.
Amy Beach was a synesthete, seeing different colors for different keys, as well as possessing absolute pitch. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was reputed to be a synesthete. Olivier Messiaen was a true synesthete; he discussed his condition to a great extent in his writings, going so far as to describe in detail the exact colorations evoked by particular chords. Contemporary postminimal composer Michael Torke is a synesthete, who perceives colors for various time units. French drummer Manu Katché and world renowned oboist Jennifer Paull are both synesthetes, Katche seeing various images with music, and Paull seeing an expanded unexplainable spectrum to various sounds, the sensation of the oboe compelling her to take it up.
In his autobiography, Vladimir Nabokov described his own synaesthetic experiences. The American physicist Richard Feynman admitted to seeing the algebraic symbols of Bessel functions in colour.
As digital entertainment becomes more developed, the possibility of synaesthesia through technology has begun to be considered. Several video games already use the term in their advertising, most notably the 2001 Dreamcast/Playstation 2 game REZ (which does have some elements of synaesthesia in its gameplay, notably the interaction of controller vibration, music, player interaction and graphics).
