Synesthesia is a neurological disorder or a gift from God.

Synesthesiais an amazing neurological phenomenon and an unusual mental syndrome, which, despite all its “abnormality,” is not a mental disorder. Nowadays, more and more people are discovering that they have synesthesia syndrome, so it has come to be understood as a special view of the world, as a new, expanded, supplemented way of perceiving reality, located at a level higher than the usual everyday consciousness.

What is synesthesia, a mental disorder or a harbinger of humanity’s transition to a new level of consciousness?

Synesthesia syndrome is observedfusion of sensationsof various types. When one sensory system is irritated, another is also irritated, which normally should not respond to this stimulus. For example, a synesthete, hearing a melody, can see geometric figures of various colors in front of him (sound is perceived not only through hearing, but also through vision).

Synesthesia ismixed perceptionwhen several different sensations are born in the mind at the same time.

The person has five senses, through which he perceives the world and the correspondingsensations:

• visual,
• auditory,
• taste,
• olfactory,
• tactile.

A synesthete usually has mixedtwoof five types of sensations. For this reason, it is customary to distinguish severaltypes of synesthesia:

1. The mixing of visual perception of letters, numbers, words (graphemes) with the perception of color is calledgrapheme-color synesthesia. This is one of the most common types of synesthesia, often combined with phenomenal memory, because the color associations that arise when perceiving a grapheme allow the synesthete to quickly and for a long time remember it.
2. Chromostesia, which is also called “color hearing,” is a mixture of color and sound, when, while hearing a sound, a person simultaneously sees some color. Many prominent composers and musicians have had chromostesia.
3. At kinesthetic-auditorySynesthesia: People hear certain sounds when they watch an object move. And these are not sounds that can be a consequence of movement, these are associative sounds.
4. Synaesthetes with taste synesthesiacan, during auditory and visual perception of an object, also feel its taste.
5. If a sound causes certain tactile sensations (touch), synesthesiaacoustic-tactile.
6. Sequence localizationcalled synesthesia, in which a person observes a numerical sequence in the form of points in space.
7. A very unusual and rare type of synesthesia -empathy of touch. A synesthete physically feels the same thing that another person who is next to him feels.

Science also knows many other amazing and amazing types of synesthesia, and their number is increasing every day.

There are examples when a person mixed not two, but three, four and even all of them at once.five types of sensations.

Such a person lived in the Russian Empire (later the USSR) and his name was Solomon Shereshevsky (1886-1958). This amazing man had a phenomenal memory, and it was this gift that introduced him to the outstanding Russian psychologist Alexander Luria (1902-1977). Luria's research showed that Shereshevsky's phenomenal memory was due to nothing more than synesthesia, which unites all five senses at once.

Synesthesia as a mental syndrome

Synesthesia began to be studied only in the second halfXIXcenturies, but this phenomenon was known in ancient times to Greek physicians and philosophers. “Synesthesia” is translated from ancient Greek as“co-sensation”, “co-perception”.

As a phenomenon, synesthesia syndrome was born, apparently, in prehistoric times. According to archaeologists, there were also synesthetes among primitive people. Scientists argue that cave people during ritual dances probably did not separate the perception of color and sound; for them these sensations were combined together.

The phenomenon of synesthesia has only been studiedfragmentary, the exact reasons for its occurrence have not yet been found. The problem of studying synesthesia syndrome is greatly complicated by the fact that synesthetes very oftendon't knowabout the unusualness of their perception, since they are accustomed to seeing the world one way and not another, and do not understand how they can perceive it differently. There are also people among synesthetes who prefer to keep the secret of their unusual perception and do not tell anyone about it.

But, based on those numerous experiences, observations and experiments that were carried out by scientists in the century before last, the last century and today, it is possible to make3 very important conclusions:

1. Mixed perception in synesthesia is not painful or even unpleasant, it is eitherpleasant or neutralby feeling. That is, synesthetes do not suffer from the manifestation of synesthesia syndrome. That is why the syndrome is not recognized as a disease. A synesthete simply knows more about this or that object than people with normal perception.
2. Synesthesia syndrome is not onlydoesn't interfere,but also very oftenhelpssynesthetes live more consciously, be creative and successful people in life. The inner world of synesthetes is usually much richer, and their consciousness is more developed than that of ordinary people.
3. Many synesthetes are peoplecreative,possessing extraordinary abilities and talents, geniuses. Creative synesthesia, examples of which are people associated with science, culture and art, is the clearest example of the fact that any deviation from the norm is not an obstacle, but, on the contrary, can become the key to success and self-realization.

Such outstanding personalities as V. Nabokov, K. Balmont, M. Tsvetaeva, B. Pasternak, V. Kandinsky, A. Scriabin, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, F. Liszt, N. Tesla and others were synesthetes.

Synesthesia as a new type of perception

Synesthesia as a special, mixed perception of the world occurs not onlycongenital(transmitted genetically), but alsoacquired(including at a fairly mature age). It may also occurspontaneouslyas a side effect of substance abuse. Sometimes synesthesia issymptomserious brain disease (can occur after a stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain tumors and epilepsy).

But that's not all! One or another type of synesthesia can beform, learning to mix different sensations! Just as you can develop memory, thinking, speech and any other mental process, you can develop perception, making it phenomenal.

Synesthesia is an unusual mental syndrome that differs from others in that it occurs for some peopledesired! These days, there are even psychological trainings on how to develop synesthesia, which helps you see the world and understand life differently.

To be fair, it should be noted that not all scientists agree that synesthesia syndrome can be developed. Some, on the contrary, say that this phenomenon is so spontaneous and unpredictable that it can never be understood and it is completely impossible to learn to control it.

According to various estimates by scientists, the world today is inhabited by0.05% to 4.4%synesthetes and the number of such special people is increasing.

Perhaps synesthesia will soon become the norm and all humanity will begin to perceive the world differently, moving to a new level of consciousness?

Read about other unusual mental syndromes in the articles “” and “”.

Paintings by contemporary synesthete artist M. McCracken. The girl sees music in color and draws it.

Every person has certain mental deviations. No, this does not mean that everyone around is crazy. You can't be one hundred percent normal. Strange habits, tastes, interests - all this makes a person different from others. Now, in the modern world, “if you don’t have weirdness, you’re weird” is a very popular expression in popular culture.

Synesthesia is considered a very interesting phenomenon. This designation refers to a unique syndrome of enhanced perception. What synesthesia is, what this concept means, and what types of synesthesia exist will be discussed in this article.

At earlier stages of the development of society, the presence of a deviation could be perceived by others as extremely hostile. The pronounced oddities of an individual could be perceived by ordinary people as a danger to society. This led to the fact that any oddities - both positive and negative - were often hidden by their owners because of their desire not to pay for special mental abilities or strange mental deviations.

At the moment, the originality of an individual is no longer condemned by society. Specialists undertake to correct deviations, carefully examining their nature and symptoms. Strange habits and character traits are of particular interest to specialists in the field of psychology.

What is synesthesia - definition

The word “synesthesia” itself is of Greek origin and translated means “mixed perception.” According to generally accepted opinion, synesthesia is a truly unique syndrome, the essence of which is that Several sense organs can react to one stimulus at once. Those with this interesting syndrome may have associations with various images when listening to a certain melody due to the existing psychic ability to attune colors to sounds in their minds.

The antonym of the word “synesthesia” can be called the fairly well-known concept of “anesthesia” (lack of sensations). Synesthesia is a process of perception that involves irritation of a certain sensory organ, but at the same time there is the occurrence of a perception related to another sensory organ. To put it simply, this is the process of the emergence of various associations that can mix and synaesthetize. People prone to this phenomenon have the opportunity not only hear sounds, but also see them.

Synesthesia is the opposite of anesthesia, in which there is a lack of irritability as a reaction to external factors and events. Holders of this syndrome cannot demonstrate such abilities that are a consequence of the presence of synesthesia. Everyone knows that a person is able to use five different sensory organs, each of which is responsible for certain sensations:

• visual;
• olfactory;
• taste;
• auditory;
• tactile.

Psychologists are confident that synesthesia is a consequence of disruption of the brain hemispheres. That is why we can note an interesting ability of synesthetes, which consists in the presence of unique hand motor skills. In other words, people with this syndrome are equally good at using both their right and left hands. This is their versatility.

Recognition of synesthesia and its varieties

The term itself appeared relatively recently. But one should not assume that the phenomenon itself has only begun to appear now. Its existence has been known since ancient times. Primitive people did not separate colors and sounds when performing their special ritual dances. And at the end of the nineteenth century, the syndrome described in this article became quite popular in the cultural sphere.

People who were gifted were able to combine sounds and colors, as well as combine visual and taste sensations. Thus, artists could receive inspiration in simple situations, synthesizing the received impressions and sensations into subsequent creations.

But synesthesia was popular not only among artists. She was actively interested in doctors who really saw the importance of researching this unique syndrome. Modern medicine has divided synesthetic impulses into several types:

Study of synesthesia by psychologists

Medicine has been and is studying such a phenomenon as synesthesia. Experts clearly define individuals who are able to connect images or objects through several senses at once. It was mentioned above that synesthetes include creative individuals. But this is an optional point. Artists and musicians may not always be synesthetes, but among these people there are sometimes real unique ones.

Synesthesia sometimes gives some of its owners phenomenal memory. Proof of this interesting point was obtained by specialists after conducting a series of experiments, which were able to demonstrate that in some cases synesthetes actually have this quality.

For example, consider a study in which the subject was a woman. She was shown matrices, each of which contained 50 digits. She reviewed the proposed data and then copied it onto a piece of paper. Two days later, the same test was repeated. The results were similar. According to psychologists, the woman was able to demonstrate such results due to the fact that when contemplating the numbers, corresponding associations appeared in her head.

Synesthesia in psychiatry

This term began to be used in psychiatry back in the century before last. For a more thorough study of this phenomenon, specialists in the field of psychiatry examined poets, composers, artists and writers. After the studies, psychiatrists concluded that no mental abnormalities were found, which allowed them to claim that synesthesia is not a disease.

Famous synesthetes

For fun, you can provide information about which of the famous and popular personalities was a synesthete.

It should be noted that Synesthesia can be inherited. A striking example of this is Nabokov's son - his direct descendant. It is generally accepted that Nabokov and his wife were synesthetes. Their son also subsequently adopted this phenomenon.

Also, in addition to the above personalities, one can name quite a few writers who were also representatives of such unusual people. Among these were those who did not miss the opportunity to mention such a phenomenon in their works - Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine. Among the domestic writers we can highlight Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, Balmont and others. World-famous composers can also serve as examples - Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov. They were also synesthetes. A unique case is the case with Daniel Tammet. This synesthete became famous for his incredible ability to quickly count huge numbers, as well as speak eleven languages.

From the ancient Greek language the word “synesthesia” can be translated as “co-sensation”, “co-perception”.

This phenomenon is a neurological phenomenon in which when one sensory system is stimulated, another is automatically stimulated.

Who are synesthetes?

A person who is not subject to synesthesia is not able to fully understand the entire essence of this phenomenon. To find out how a synesthete feels the world around him, you need to try to imagine that sounds can have taste, and tactile sensations can be colored in different colors.

Synesthetes should not be confused with colorblind people or other categories of people who have a distorted perception of reality.

The phenomenon is that a person simultaneously perceives with two or more senses something that others can perceive with only one.

Examples of synesthesia:

• when listening to music, spots of color flash before your mind's eye, or you feel the taste of a particular product in your mouth;
• Each or some letters of the alphabet are associated with one color or another; for many synesthetes, the letter “A” is colored red.

It is important to note that with this phenomenon one type of perception is not replaced by another. People with co-sensations see the same colors, hear the same sounds, etc. as everyone else, but they receive a little more information about the object.

Society has always been suspicious of “strange” people who are different from others. A person who is able to perceive the world differently may be considered mentally ill. However, synesthesia should be of interest, not horror or disgust.

Among the interesting facts about the phenomenon are the following.

The main thing is that synesthesia, from a psychological point of view, is not a disorder or disease. This is the same feature of the human body as hair or eye color. “Color hearing” was first described in 1812 by the German physician Sax.

Not only psychiatrists, but also people of art were interested in the phenomenon. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, a number of attempts were made to convey the confusion of feelings to those for whom these sensations were not available. In 1915, to perform the light part from A. Scriabin’s “Prometheus,” a special instrument was created that allowed one to simultaneously listen to music and see the colors associated with a particular sound.

There is no consensus on how many synesthetes live on the planet. Some researchers believe that 4% of the world's population is affected by the phenomenon. Someone gives a figure of 0.05%.

There is also an opinion that confusion of feelings is characteristic of everyone and is a natural part of human nature. Many people simply do not pay attention to the presence of unusual perceptions.

Where is the reason?

There is no general theory in modern science about why a person perceives something with more than one sense organ. In most cases, the phenomenon is studied fragmentarily, that is, in parts. Different researchers approach this phenomenon from different angles.

There is an assumption that co-perception is associated with the structural features of the brain of a person who is prone to it. The brain is divided into different areas.

Each area performs its own functions. It is likely that synaesthetes have significantly more connections between these areas than ordinary people. When one area is irritated, a second or even a third is inevitably irritated.

Other versions:

Varieties of the phenomenon

There are 2 forms of the phenomenon: associative and projection. Associators feel a strong connection between the sensation itself and the stimulus. Projectors experience synesthetic experiences at the moment of the stimulus. The types of phenomena are quite diverse.

They receive their names depending on the participants in the process. A synesthetic act usually involves 2 (more in rare cases 3) type of perception. Journalist Solomon Shereshevsky is one of the few who used all 5 senses.

Among the most common types of synesthesia are:

1. Lexico-gastic. Taste associations arise from any images or words. Example: your favorite melody tastes like raspberry jam.
2. Empathy of touch(mirror touch synesthesia). One of the rarest types. A person feels actions carried out in relation to another person. Example: a synesthete witnesses someone hitting someone on the cheek and feels the blow on his own cheek.
3. Ordinal linguistic personification. A form of phenomenon in which any ordinal sequence (days of the week, months, numbers, letters, etc.) evokes associations with certain individuals.
4. Acoustic-tactile. One of the most common types in which sound causes tactile sensations.
5. Number line. A synesthete is able to involuntarily see a map of numbers when remembering them.
6. Sequence localization. Represents the ability to observe a numerical sequence in the form of points in space.
7. Kinesthetic-auditory. This is the ability to “hear” sounds in their absence. Example: watching from afar as someone knocks a stick on the ground and “hearing” a dull sound.
8. Grapheme-color. This is the vision of numbers, letters and other graphemes in color.
9. Phonopsia. Represents the joint perception of sounds and colors. One of the most common types.

Misophonia is a neurological disorder in which certain sounds evoke negative emotions. Scientists have not yet come to a conclusion about whether misophonia is a form of synesthesia. Those endowed with co-perception usually do not experience any emotion when “hearing” a color or “seeing” a sound.

I am a synesthete

Many people discover that they are synesthetes completely by accident. Previously, they did not pay attention to the fact that they see music in color or taste it.

A person, having learned that he is not like everyone else, asks himself the question: is this good or bad? In fact, this phenomenon has neither pros nor cons. The presence of co-perception does not affect any other functions of the body.

There is no clear answer to the question of whether it is possible to develop unusual abilities in oneself. A person can simply associate an object with a certain sound. However, this will be a conditioned reflex.

Synesthesia is a spontaneous phenomenon that occurs involuntarily. In addition, the phenomenon is distinguished by selectivity and subjectivity. One person sees a sound as red, another perceives the same sound as purple.

The co-perception reaction may not occur to all words and sounds. The phenomenon is often caused by alcohol and drug use. But temporary hallucinations resulting from the use of psychoactive substances do not make a person a synesthete.

Trying to get rid of your “weirdness” is not necessary. This is probably simply impossible. However, if synesthesia suddenly occurs at a fairly mature age, a person should be wary and undergo a brain examination.

Acquired hearing of taste or color may indicate some other diseases or injuries. In such cases, it is necessary to get rid not of synesthesia, since it is only a consequence, but of what provoked the co-sensations.

Synesthesia test - can you taste the sound:

From the world of famous

There are many celebrities among people who have or have had co-perception. Mostly creative people are susceptible to this phenomenon: writers, artists, actors, musicians.

Synesthetes are Vladimir Nabokov, Wassily Kandinsky, Ida Maria, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. However, among these people there are also those who are far from art, for example, Nikola Tesla.

The fame and success of artists, musicians and scientists endowed with the phenomenon of co-sensations indicates that synesthesia is not something dangerous or interfering with a person’s daily life. The inner world of a synesthete is much richer than the inner world of ordinary people.

Material prepared

Artyom Luchko

Many of us have personally met people who sense colors where there are none, associate names with tastes, or visualize music. Or at least they know that they exist. For many years, scientists did not take these quirks of consciousness seriously, accepting these phenomena as the product of an overactive imagination or even a mental disorder.

In recent years, synesthesia (albeit reluctantly) has been gradually accepted by science as a real phenomenon with a real neurological basis. Some researchers even believe that studying it may provide clues about how the brain is organized and how our perception works. We decided to figure out what synesthesia is by talking with the scientific curator of the Russian Synesthetic Society, and also talked with synesthetes themselves to learn more about what it is like to have such an unusual perception.

What is synesthesia?

In the most general perspective, synesthesia is understood as an unusual sensory experience that occurs in response to the perception or thought of a certain systemic phenomenon of reality. An example of synesthesia is the perception of music, human speech or letters in color(the so-called “color hearing” is an old term that, as it turned out after the discovery of about a hundred more species, meant only a particular manifestation of synesthesia).

However, unlike “man-made,” artistic or technical comparisons, for example, music and color (color music, visualizers, etc.), through which their creators meaningfully and systematically try to express a certain idea or implement a technical function, synesthesia manifests itself against the will of a person (called synesthete) on a subjective level and at the time of first appearance in very early childhood has no conscious meaning. The unusualness of synesthetic perception lies precisely in the fact that it is an involuntary, additional, statistically unusual reaction. In conversations with synaesthetes, it is usually not possible to trace where and why synaesthetic experiences have this particular content and not another. Moreover, using certain methods, a psychologist, right in a laboratory situation, can cause new synesthetic reactions in a synesthete, which in quality (for example, a new color) are completely unpredictable for either the experimenter or the subject. (In my experiments, synesthetes who perceive the colors of the days of the week showed the color of a fictitious day of the week.)

All these facts lead to the unequivocal conclusion that synesthesia is not sensory associations, but a direct result of brain activity itself. In addition, synesthesia, as I have already outlined above, is characterized by consistency those phenomena that are perceived synesthetically. Usually these are phenomena of reality, reflecting human activity and expressed in groups or categories (“notes”, “phonemes”, “letters”, “numbers”, etc.). As you can see, through these “categories” (or “semiotic systems”) a person adapts to the world and recreates old or creates new meanings.

Where do the roots of this phenomenon come from?

Synesthesia is a phenomenon whose causes can be varied. Based on the reasons, we divide synesthesia into types: intoxication, traumatic, hypnagogic and hypnopompic (at the moment of transition from wakefulness to sleep and back), deprivation synesthesia, synesthesia in an altered state of consciousness (AS-synesthesia), etc. The similarity in the experience of types of synesthesia is not indicates the uniformity of the causes that cause them. For example, natural developmental synesthesia (congenital synesthesia), the subject of my research, is presumably the result of the interaction of genetic inheritance and peculiar environmental influences.

In the vast majority of cases, synesthesia is an independent and self-sufficient phenomenon. For example, the Soviet psychophysiologist S.V. Kravkov characterized synesthesia as a group of special types of coordination of sensory organs, which are expressed in a sharp form in a relatively limited circle of subjects. They manifest themselves in sensations and ideas, which for a given modality are “foreign and relate in their quality to other sensory systems.” He also noted the involuntariness and “obsessive nature”, diversity and probable hereditary origin of synesthesia, especially emphasizing that “all such phenomena are by no means generated by the imagination of individuals and do not serve as an indicator of any psychopathicity” (Kravkov, 1948). Persons whose perception is distinguished by synesthetic features (and according to statistics there are about 4%) in their other manifestations do not differ from you and me, except that, as the results of my research and the research of my foreign colleagues show, synesthetes can demonstrate a greater propensity for creative activity and are more productive in those activities that are associated with “stimuli” that cause synesthesia in them.

The prevalence of synesthesia is 4.4%, and the most common type is the feeling of days of the week in color

Synesthesia is studied by different specialists in many ways. Hence the variety of identified “roots of the phenomenon.” For example, the results of molecular genetic, genealogical and twin methods indicate a high probability that natural developmental synesthesia is a hereditary phenomenon. However, among other objections, there are those that music, the names of the days of the week and other phenomena that can cause synesthesia are complex culturally determined concepts, and it would be absurd to assume their direct genetic inheritance. As a consequence, when explaining the genesis of synesthesia we must take into account the importance of the environmental component and educational.

In my opinion, what is inherited is not a specific reaction to a specific stimulus, but what can be called a general synesthetic factor, which takes shape under the influence of environment and training. That is, it is probably inherited Synesthetic Coefficient(SinK) is a numerical expression of the degree of possession of this factor in each individual case. I am currently working on a way to identify SynC. This will contribute to the unification of different types of synesthesia into research “clusters” according to the degree of manifestation of synesthesia and connection - roughly speaking, the “amount” of synesthesia that a particular synesthete has, with the degree of his inclination to creativity, the nature of his memory, abstract thinking, imagination etc.

In addition, objective methods have proven that the brain of a synesthete is structurally arranged somewhat differently, both at the macro and micro levels. Functionally, the brain of a synaesthete, at least at the moment of synaesthetic perception, also differs from the activity of the brain of a non-synaesthete and from the work of the brain of the same synaesthete, but at the moment of perception of non-synaesthetic stimuli. In general, we can say that we are dealing with a whole complex of structural and functional differences, and not some “spot” changes, as was believed ten years ago. It is worth assuming that this complex difference is the essence of the manifestation of superplasticity of the synesthete’s brain. From synesthete to synesthete, such superplasticity is realized very individually and depends, most likely, on the inherited Synaesthetic Coefficient.

How many synesthetes are there in the world?

A study of synesthesia by a team led by Julia Simner in the UK using self-reports from a random demographic sample shows that the prevalence of synesthesia is 4.4% and that the most common type is the perception of the days of the week in colors. The same study found that synesthesia shows an even distribution among men and women (which I personally highly doubt), and the most studied type - "colored" letters - occurs in 1% of the population. In my many years of experience, these numbers are either slightly inflated, or certain cultures have a higher percentage of synesthetes. I have not conducted such studies on a general sample in Russia, but in terms of different types of synesthesia among Russian-speaking synesthetes, the first and second places in prevalence are grapheme-color and musical-color synesthesia, respectively. The overwhelming majority of surveyed Russian synesthetes are women - 94%.

What is it like to be a synesthete?

As a psychologist, I can only cite some research results, which, being statistical generalizations, cannot always be transferred to the specific case of a particular synesthete. A comparison of facts reveals some distinctive properties of their cognitive sphere. Synesthetes are selective about stimuli that cause synesthesia in them, that is, they are more sensitive to them. They have more intense perception in general, especially in the sensory area in which their synesthetic reactions relate. To simplify, we can say that their consciousness is more saturated with sensory qualities. In part (and more specifically in relation to the stimulus or response), synesthetes have more advanced memory mechanisms: this is the so-called “mnemonic support”. When studying a foreign language, a grapheme-color synaesthete will perceive the letters of the new alphabet in unique colors (the case of V.V. Nabokov) - this is how the transfer of categorization to the material of new knowledge is manifested. Synaesthetes also often show a certain tendency to self-express their subjective experience through appropriate artistic means.

There is some confusion in the question of whether synaesthetes actually sense additional qualities, since synaesthetic perception is not necessarily expressed in a physical feeling, but can be a certain kind of persistent knowledge or association, a persistent impression or an accompanying figurative form.

Angelina Kofmann

“I see letters and numbers, some words in color. Although I mostly taste the words. I distinguish smells and sounds (voices, songs, some individual musical instruments) by color. In some cases, I can also tell what word, smell, letter is by touch and shape.

When I just found out that this ability is called that, and began to look for similar people on the Internet, I came across a VKontakte group, where they discussed who sees and feels what and how. I learned that the days of the week also differ in color, but at first I didn’t understand. And then somehow I listened to myself, and it turned out that I also saw them by color. So are the seasons and months.

The name Peter for me is red, and its other form - Petya - is soft orange. Almost all the songs of one of my favorite bands, Coldplay, are blue-gray and fog-like. The most delicious words are key, completed. The English language is gray in color, French is pink, and German is red-orange. Sometimes people have very unpleasant voices that I don't like to hear. Or they use words that don't taste right to me. Unfortunately, I have not yet found a use for my synesthesia. I’m just glad that my world is so colorful and multifaceted.

Strangers most often say that this is nonsense. That these are associations, and nothing more. And those who believe, the first thing they ask is what color/flavor their name is. My mother is a synesthete. And a few more acquaintances, but not many. In general, I think there are more of them, they just don’t know about it. Some people learned about this from me, but before, like me, they just lived with it and didn’t think about it.”

Maxim Proshutinsky

“Based on the results of an incomplete study, as I understand it, I have phoneme-color, tactile-phoneme and not yet defined synesthesia. I see the colors of words, letters, numbers that are familiar to me by ear and sight. Also, at the same time, feelings arise that I phantom feel in my brain (as part of my body). And the same tactile sensations arise when realizing something, for example, the season of a memory, or when feeling a person, or when experiencing an emotional state, and many other things. With age, these feelings have faded significantly, but I still feel them, but not so cloyingly and intrusively.

When realizing my ex-girlfriend, I felt an obsessive tactile smell in the brain in the back of my head, as if I entered a bakery and there was a cloying smell of sweetened flour. I feel myself differently at different periods of my life. At the age of 8, for example, there was something like an aftertaste of halva in the back of the brain... but a very distant comparison, I can’t think of a closer one. 13 years old - cinnamon with sugar, a little peppery and pleasantly sharp on the sides of the brain (like a needle). 18 years old - like the feeling of being drunk with water after a strong thirst, at the bottom of the brain, but also a distant comparison... Now - 19 years old - the smell of aloe at the bottom of the brain. Many words that are completely different in meaning, but slightly similar in sound, are felt almost the same, because of this, sometimes I confuse them: for example, table and bark, glass and dog, count and throne.

Synesthesia helps me in life by organizing my memory. It’s also very convenient to think about something, remember the tangibility of the thought, and then it will definitely not be forgotten. Doesn't help much at work. A little. I’m an editing director, and if you imagine the sequence of takes and shots as a puzzle that I’m putting together, I can say that I feel every piece of the puzzle, and this makes it a little easier for me to put it together.”

Olga Balla

“I constantly feel (that is, I feel as a “background” of the perception of everything in general) colors and some “physical” characteristics (humidity/dryness, heat/cold, height/lowness, roughness/smoothness, shine/dullness...) of letters, speech sounds and numbers For a very long time (up to 12 years) I was sure that this was the norm and common to everyone. But even now it’s hard for me to imagine how people don’t feel this: what, when they read a text or see a series of numbers, do they have a black and white picture in front of their inner eyes or nothing at all?! I live in this all the time! I remember once saying “sweetish blue”, and the interlocutor did not understand what we were talking about (but we were talking about the letter “h”, we remembered the person’s name, I said, “there’s something sweetish blue, there must be a letter “h””). Probably, if you look from the outside, this may seem unusual - a combination of taste, color and letter, a direct connection from color and taste to the letter. But for me it’s normal!

Synesthesia greatly helps to remember and remember names, numbers, phone numbers, dates - all this is remembered as color spots. On the other hand, it is difficult to establish internal relationships with something that has a disharmonious, “inconvenient” internal color picture (and therefore, it is more difficult to remember). Well remembered, say, 47 - blue-dark-dark green, but bad 48: blue - sticky-dark cherry. I caught myself internally resisting the perception of people whose name color I don’t like or is disharmonious (for example, the name Evgeniy is the painfully indistinct color of oatmeal. But I understand that Evgeniy is not to blame.

My perception doesn’t intersect with work in any way, no more than with everything else (I’m actually a journalist and I write texts).”

Types of synesthesia

Some varieties do not have names, so scientists sometimes have to improvise, creating them for their publications and reports on the fly. For example, I had to select “beautiful” terms for color synesthesia for emotions, gustatory synesthesia for pain and the perception of human faces (types), and it turned out something like “affective-color” and “algo-gastic”. For the third type, expressed in the form of textured “auras,” I proposed the combination “auric synesthesia.” But what do we call grapheme synesthesia with phonemic patterns, which consist in the fact that, for example, the letters E and E, which are similar in spelling, produce different colors, but U and Yu, different in writing, but similar in phonemic composition, give shades of the same color - remains a question for me.

Some of the most common
types of synesthesia

Music-color synesthesia - perception of music in the form of naturally and involuntarily manifested color spots, stripes, waves

Grapheme-color synesthesia - the appearance of color associations with the outlines of letters or numbers

Phoneme-color synesthesia - connection between the sound of human speech and different colors

Phoneme-gustatory synesthesia - the appearance of taste associations from the sound of individual words

The synesthesia researcher must also use his or her imagination when identifying subtypes of synesthetic manifestations. Let's take the so-called musical synesthesia. You can use this name in everyday stories about your synesthesia, but in research terminology this is not enough. The fact is that there are almost a dozen subtypes of musical synesthesia. This is the perception in various shades or other qualities of different pitched sounds (notes), and the original perception of modes, timbres of instruments, authorial and stylistic varieties of music, its genres, individual compositions, etc. Each musical synesthete has a certain aspect that is perceived in a synesthetic way. The same can be said about the concept of number (with synesthesia for numbers), noises and sounds, emotions, types, etc. For the experimenter, the accuracy of the analysis of the subtype being studied is important, since each of them is based on different cognitive mechanisms.

What stimulates synesthesia?

Synesthesia does not manifest itself constantly, but selectively. How often depends on the system of stimuli that causes it. It is clear that if music evokes synesthetic sensations in you, then by moving to a quiet place and setting yourself a ringtone in the form of a dolphin whistle or a monkey hooting, there is every chance that you will never experience synesthesia again. In other cases, with other varieties, trigger stimuli cannot be avoided, since they belong to any manifestation of one or another sensory modality, for example, synesthesia can be provoked by any taste or any noise. Note that my experiment with the fictitious eighth day of the week, which eventually began to evoke color in the subjects, indirectly indicates that It is not the physical stimulus as such that is synesthetized, but the idea of ​​it, the meaning attributed to a certain physical event. Therefore, perhaps our hermit synaesthete will miss music so much that he will hear it in a dolphin whistle.

Curious manifestations of synesthesia

For me, all manifestations of synesthesia are equally interesting and mysterious, and the mechanisms of its occurrence and generation, both in function and content, are hidden from the synesthete himself. Unlike associations, metaphors and other cognitive strategies, the final content of which reflects experience and learning, synesthesia is an internally generated process (endogenous genesis).

Synesthesia occurs in very early childhood, when the meanings of the content of reactions have not yet been formed and acquire a postfactum interpretation. Even the most uncomplicated type of synesthesia at first glance is some reflection of the hidden, complex work of the brain.

Of course, I have encountered many unusual manifestations of this phenomenon, but this unusualness of the content of synaesthetic stimuli and reactions, such as, for example, the color of the movements of one’s own body, the sound of visually perceived movement, the color and texture of orgasm, although it adds piquancy and additional intrigue, with scientific point of view is important as a possible starting point for serious research.

Does synesthesia help or hinder life?

In most cases, the presence of synesthesia is not a hindrance. How can a phenomenon that you can live your whole life with without knowing that you had it be a hindrance? Offhand, you won’t be able to tell a person who has synesthesia from a person who doesn’t. As I already said, without knowing about this phenomenon, a synesthete cannot distinguish himself from a non-synesthete. Do you know how many moles you have on your head under your hair? In most cases, synesthesia is an absolutely neutral phenomenon: it exists, and that’s it. It often seems that the researchers themselves are more delighted with this phenomenon than its owners. It is worth admitting, however, that in one case out of a hundred, synesthetic reactions actually cause surmountable interference for the processes of perception, attention and memory. These cases (let's call them cases with an excessively high Synaesthetic Coefficient) for obvious reasons more often become known, but despite this, they are much fewer than cases of a positive and even enthusiastic attitude towards one's own synaesthetic characteristics.

For some reason, the utilitarian meaning of synesthesia is always placed as the basis for assessing the phenomenon itself. Let's figure it out. There are manifestations of synesthesia, and there are properties and qualities associated with it. Manifestations are just the tip of the iceberg of possibilities. According to my observations and research results, for example, grapheme-color synesthetes are mostly endowed with “humanitarian” brains, synesthetes with auric synesthesia are excellent physiognomists and everyday psychologists (not necessarily philanthropic, by the way), and in a synesthete with taste sensations, it is probably sweet the chef is dozing, etc. Using synesthesia as a phone book, password reminder, ringtone visualizer or spell-checker, a person with synesthesia risks getting stuck in superficial utilitarianism and never getting to the core of creative possibilities.

Michael Haverkamp

Some synesthetes find practical use for their unusual abilities, and some companies recruit such people to perform unusual work. For example, at Ford there is such a position as a synaesthete expert. His job is to touch, smell and listen to cars. We contacted Michael Haverkamp, ​​and he told us about the features of his profession.

“Basically, my perception is the same as everyone else’s. However, my feelings are connected in a special way. As an example: when I hear sounds or listen to music, I see color and shape in front of me.

I have always been interested in technology, music and art. While studying to become an electrical engineer, I studied communications technology and acoustics. An important part of acoustics is the transmission of sound waves through the human ear and neural signal processing. The psychology of hearing plays an important role. When I worked as an automotive acoustics engineer, I was involved in, among other things, studying vehicle vibration, brake noise, sound emissions, and improving vehicle sound quality. During this time, it became clear to me that the effect of sound on human perception cannot be fully understood without taking into account data from other senses. It is very important to know what images appear in a person’s head when listening to music. If you hear someone touching a surface, what will it feel like, what will it look like?

After developing the methodology for the multi-sensory optimization approach for vehicle components, I now have a full-time position as a specialist in cross-sensory harmonization of the perception of vehicle quality. In addition to optimization work, I wrote a book that describes my understanding of all feelings and sensations (Synesthetic Design. A Handbook for a Multisensory Approach. Birkhäuser, 2013).

Currently, middle-class and luxury cars are subject to high demands on the “perception” of their quality. Evaluation of the appearance, sound and feel of materials is usually carried out within specialized departments. The next step, which is often ignored, is the optimal sensory matching of the vehicle's components. When a person touches any material, he should feel and hear exactly what he expects from the appearance of this material. Individual perception is a good start to expanding your creativity. However, each approach must prove itself before final approval. The final product design must be suitable for all customers. We use scientific tests and research based on customer feedback to make sure we are moving in the right direction.

The smells of gasoline, oil, plastic and metal are not among the most pleasant materials. I like the smell of natural materials much more, for example, the smell of leather or natural fabric. But in some cases I feel that even the smell of gasoline is appropriate, for example, for an old-fashioned model. Leather scent is preferred in Europe and North America, but customers in Japan, China and India do not like finishes that smell like leather. At Ford, we're focused on a "clean" interior experience without intense aroma. Almost every car company tries to optimize the look, touch, sound and smell of their cars. However, the approach to optimizing senses is new to the automotive industry.”

How does society perceive synesthetes?

More traditionally minded people may demonstrate one side of the double stereotype in relation to synesthesia as a phenomenon that deviates from the “statistical norm.” On the one hand, pathologizing patterns can be issued, on the other hand, there is a desire to place the phenomenon of synesthesia on a pedestal, endowing it with the romantic character of genius-by-default. People with more open views, recognizing the significance of the diversity of manifestations of human types and accepting the uncertainty of differences in subjective perception, when assessing synesthesia, begin to ask questions, finding out for themselves the essence of this phenomenon. Such people perceive this unusual phenomenon with genuine surprise and curiosity.

Which famous person is a synesthete?

There are biographical evidence, more often from the first person that such outstanding personalities as Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize winner in physics), philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, writer Vladimir Nabokov, composers Franz Liszt, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, György Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Jean Sibelius, had synesthetic abilities. theorist and bell player Konstantin Saradzhev, jazz player Duke Ellington. I hasten to warn you that although the presence of synesthesia makes someone the owner of extraordinary perception, it does not automatically add to it the authorship of the novel “Lolita”, the opera “Sadko” and primacy in the discovery of the principles of quantum electrodynamics.

How do you know if you are a synesthete?

You can detect synesthesia in yourself, knowing about the features of this phenomenon, through reflection and comparison of the patterns of your perception with the perception of other people. Some synesthetes can live their entire lives without learning about their characteristics. Others are aware that their perception is different from the perception of their acquaintances, relatives and friends, but do not know that this feature has its own name and that it is being fruitfully studied by a wide range of scientists.

Is it possible to develop synesthesia?

In scientific practice, there have been several unsuccessful attempts to “develop” synesthesia under strict laboratory control. All that was achieved were intersensory associations, which, although somewhat reminiscent of synesthetic experiences, are not them. As mentioned above, synesthesia is a systemic and involuntary experience of an additional sensory quality, and the immediate mechanisms of the generation and manifestation of this experience are hidden from the synesthete. Synesthesia is an additional experience and does not exclude the parallel, simultaneous occurrence of more typical associative experiences that are characteristic of all of us, and for this reason alone is not equivalent to them. This means that a synesthete, in addition to synaesthetic sensations associated with a particular stimulus, may also have ordinary associations caused by the same stimulus. Scientific experiments have repeatedly proven that it is impossible to consciously develop synesthesia, therefore, for example, mnemonic techniques that refer to the case of the synesthete mnemonist S. Shereshevsky, to put it mildly, mislead the public. In order to have a unique memory, like Solomon Veniaminovich, you must first have the same unique, to one degree or another innate, perception properties.