Did You Hear That Color?

Imagine the ability to hear a particular sound such as a musical note and a specific color, say green, appears within your mind's eye. Or imagine, even more baffling, the ability to taste shapes. Wait. Taste shapes? Hard to imagine, isn’t it?

These are just some of the unfathomable phenomena of synesthesia.

Synesthesia is an incredibly rare phenomenon in which one’s senses blend together. The senses — taste, sight, touch, sound, and smell get distorted together instead of remaining separate. That’s why a person with synesthesia can hear a color. Their senses of sight and sound have somehow crossed barriers and blended together.

To get a grasp of just how rare it is, only 4% of the earth’s population has the ability to hear a color or see a sound and those that do, experience the world in a way the majority of us will never know.

People that have synesthesia are either born with it or develop it very early in their childhood. In that regard, synesthesia is an inherited ability.

Memories from Childhood

One possible explanation for synesthesia is one’s experience of a childhood memory, more so on a subconscious level. Let’s say that when you were a kid, you had one of those placemats that had numbers and letters on it to help you learn numbers and the alphabet. The number 5 on the placemat was red. Now, as an adult, whenever you see the number 5 or hear someone say “5”, the color red automatically comes to mind.

There seems to be one issue with issue theory. One's memory can have a substantial influence on how one perceives things. Is a person really seeing the color red when they see or hear the number 5 being spoken, or are they being influenced by a memory of a red number 5 magnet that was on the fridge when they were a kid?

There are many different types of synesthesia — each unfathomable and amazing in its own way.

Here are just a few of them:

Chromesthesia — this happens when there is a connection between sound and colors. (Ex. A person sees a certain color when they hear a certain musical note). With this form of synesthesia, you might hear a certain color depending on what sound you hear. The many sounds of your everyday life can bring up a plethora of colors.

Grapheme-color synesthesia — this happens when there is a connection between colors and numbers or letters. (Ex. A person sees the color blue when they see or hear the number 3)

Number form — this happens when each number has a certain place in one’s mind. (Ex. The number 25 is always at a certain point on a line when a person envisions that number

Lexical-gustatory — this happens when there is a connection between a certain word and taste. (Ex. a person tastes chocolate when they see or hear the word “chair”) Even the names of others can trigger a certain taste.

Mirror touch — When there is a connection between sight and touch. (Ex. A person sees someone touching their arm and in doing so, they feel a touch on their own arm.

There are a few famous people that have synesthesia including Mary J. Blige, Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, Lady Gaga, and Billie Eilish.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this ability other than the ability itself, is that how one experiences synesthesia is as unique as the person themself.

Unless you are one of the very few that has synesthesia, it is near impossible to fathom what it is like. The rest of us will just have to speculate this unfathomable and amazing sensory ability.