Synesthesia - Hearing Colors, Tasting Sounds and more!

in sirwinchester •  8 years ago  (edited)

Humans generally have 5 senses : Vision, Smell, Taste, Hearing and Touch.
(Actually, there might be more, as I have explained here)

But sometimes, these senses mix together and people see letters or hear musical sound in color or feel sounds - and more!

I have already known someone with this experience, and recently when shooting the Steemit film I got to know a new person that also told me about similar sensations.
So I thought I'd like to share this interesting topic with all of you - because many people don't even know that this is possible.

This is called Synesthesia and can happen between any combination of senses, with any number of senses involved.

Synesthesia is different for everyone, and although more than 100 different types have been reported, only very few have been researched yet.

The most common ones include:

  • When certain dates or numbers are placed in different locations. Monday for example could be located closer to us than Thursday.
  • When letters or numbers have a certain color attached to them
  • When certain sounds or musical elements are seen in color
  • When days, months or numbers each have their own character,
  • When a sound has a specific taste,
  • When taste is associated with shapes

Synesthesia can also be like an extreme form of empathy, where people experience physical pain when they see others hurting - often in the exact same spot.

People that experience different sensations this way are called Synesthetes.
Depending on the case, these abilities can be used to memorize certain things better or use it to improve learning in any other way.
Mozart for example could see music as shapes or color, he had a different color for all the different notes and even wrote down some of the notes in different colors.

But what are the causes of Synesthesia?

This has not been fully researched yet.
But it has been proven by recent studies that Synesthesia is genetic - then, different types of Synesthesia appear within the family.
Synesthesia can appear after seizure, stroke, deafness or blindness and could also be experienced artifically with LSD.

Scientists suggest that synesthetes' brains differ from "normal" ones in their anatomy.
When someone has Synesthesia, it seems that their connections between the sensory part of the brain are surrounded with more Myelin. This has the effect that neuron signals sent via these connections can travel much quicker.


Source of Images



- Instagram -

- Steemit FB Group - 

© Sirwinchester


Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

My wife @alladesria suffers from some unfortunate neurological issues. She sometimes experiences synesthesia as a result. It's interesting listening to her describe the sound of a particular color or how a number tastes.

wow thank you for sharing. yes, I can imagine how interesting that must be

Impetuous work! My friend @ sirwinchester brilliant presentation, thank you for this valuable information, arduous research work gives these excellent results congratulations, but consider myself a follower his fans, a true example to follow

thank you for the compliment, appreciate it!

I have some of those experiences. It helps with discriptive writing. Some cause anxiety (like feeling theres sand in the teeth when looking at something that has a texture I hate). T

Do you experience synethesia sirwinchester?

I had a friend who experienced it after a head injury. For a few days he would see sounds as well as hear them!

must be so interesting to experience something like this for a period of time!

Yes he actually thought it was quite cool aside from the headaches and other side effects.

Great article, thanks for sharing. It has been a interest of mine for quite some times now and I'm glad to come across such information available to all on steemit.com Namaste :)

This is very fascinating and not something you read about often upvoted.

such an interesting topic!! I had no idea that people had this

Yes I know someone who has this - they see certain letters in different colors. and it's been that way forever

wow I didn't know this was a thing! so interesting!

Tasting sounds?
I can'T imagine that.. I'm aways amazed what our body (and brain) can do!

awesome post! love to learn about new stuff like this, I bet it's an awesome experience

I read this article. Heard it loud and clear.

I've heard that synesthetes actually think that all people would have the same experience, until they some day noticed that they don't. very interesting phenomenon.

yes Ive read about this too. They've never known any other way so they assume it's totally normal

Interesting post. I remember seeing a segment on a show about a man who was struck by lightning and later was able to memorize the weather of any day going back 100 years. I wonder if this is related?

I often see sounds. Sudden loud bangs look like bursts and halos, much like fireworks. It's worse at night. The refrigerator looks like squiggle lines. The hum of the fan is like a muted version of static snow on an old TV blank screen. Drips of water are the worst! Those look like pulsing circles and they change color depending on the pitch of sound.

Interesting and intriguing article to say the least. I was just having a similar conversation with a friend of mine and we were speaking about the five or six human senses given to us in this physical world as opposed to the other senses unknown or unlocked in the spiritual realm connected with the soul and strength of the mind. I could only imagine what senses one would have in a higher state of being such as being in heaven and having a completely new body not subject to illness or having a comprehension of timelessness. I am sure that music has a certain smell, physical feel from its vibrations, a certain taste of our taste buds could detect such a thing, these outer limit spectrums are what make the imagination as well as the contemplation of deep topics and the possibilities of what we may think is unachievable, so captivating. Upvoted

Where do you come up with all your post topics... dang, good on you @sirwinchester !

This post has been linked to from another place on Steem.

Learn more about and upvote to support linkback bot v0.5. Flag this comment if you don't want the bot to continue posting linkbacks for your posts.

Built by @ontofractal