What is it called when a person sees the colors of sounds. Synesthesia - what is this phenomenon in psychology? Types of synesthesia
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, the other is automatically stimulated.
Who are synesthetes?
A person who is not subject to synesthesia is not able to fully understand the whole 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 a taste, and tactile sensations can be colored in different colors.
Synesthetes should not be confused with color blind 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 what others can feel with only one.
Examples of synesthesia:
- when listening to music, color spots flash before your mind's eye, or you feel the taste of a particular product in your mouth;
- each or some of the 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 comprehension see the same colors, hear the same sounds, etc., as everyone else, but get a little more information about the object in the process.
Society has always been suspicious of "strange" people who were different from others. A person who is able to perceive the world differently can be considered mentally ill. However, synesthesia should arouse interest, not horror and disgust.
Among the interesting facts about the phenomenon are the following.
The main thing is that synesthesia, from the point of view of psychology, is not a disorder or disease. This is the same feature of the human body as the color of hair or eyes. "Color hearing" was first described in 1812 by the German physician Sachs.
Not only psychiatrists were interested in the phenomenon, but also people of art. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a number of attempts were made to convey a mixture of feelings to those to whom these sensations were not available. In 1915, to perform the light part from A. Scriabin's Prometheus, a special instrument was created that allows you 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 cites the figure of 0.05%.
There is also an opinion that a mixture of feelings is characteristic of everyone and is a natural component of human nature. Many people simply do not pay attention to the presence of an unusual perception.
Where is the reason?
A general theory of why a person perceives something with more than one sense organ does not exist in modern science. The phenomenon in most cases 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 regions.
Each area performs its own functions. It is likely that synesthetes have significantly more connections between these areas than ordinary people. When one area is irritated, the second, or even the 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 get their names depending on the participants in the process. In a synesthetic act, usually 2 (in more rare cases 3) types of perception take part. Journalist Solomon Shereshevsky is one of the few who had all 5 senses involved.
The most common types of synesthesia include:
- Lexico-gastic. Taste associations arise from any images or words. Example: your favorite tune tastes like raspberry jam.
- Touch Empathy(mirror touch synesthesia). One of the rarest types. A person feels the actions carried out in relation to another person. Example: A synesthete has witnessed someone hit someone on the cheek and feels the blow on their own cheek.
- Ordinal linguistic personification. The form of the phenomenon, in which any ordinal sequence (days of the week, months, numbers, letters, etc.) evokes associations with certain personalities.
- Acoustic-tactile. One of the most common types, in which the sound causes tactile sensations.
- number line. A synesthete is able to involuntarily see a map of numbers when remembering them.
- Sequence localization. Represents the ability to observe a numerical sequence as points in space.
- Kinesthetic-auditory. This is the ability to "hear" sounds in their absence. Example: to observe from afar how someone knocks with a stick on the ground, and "hear" a hollow sound.
- grapheme color. This is a vision of numbers, letters and other graphemes in color.
- Phonopsia. It is a joint perception of sounds and colors. One of the most common types.
Misophonia is a neurological disorder in which certain sounds cause negative emotions. Scientists have not yet concluded 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 quite by accident. Previously, they did not pay attention to the fact that they see music in color or feel 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 pluses nor minuses. The presence of co-perception does not affect any other bodily functions.
There is no single answer to the question of whether unusual abilities can be developed in oneself. A person can simply cause associations of 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 sees the same sound as purple.
The reaction of co-perception may not occur to all words and sounds. The phenomenon is often caused by the use of alcohol and drugs. 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 optional. It's probably just not possible. However, if synesthesia suddenly appeared at a fairly mature age, the person should be alert and undergo a brain examination.
Acquired taste or color hearing may indicate, and some other diseases or injuries. In such cases, it is not necessary to get rid of synesthesia, since it is only a consequence, but of what provoked co-sensations.
Synesthesia test - can you taste the sound:
From the famous world
Among the people who have or have had co-perception, there are many famous people. Basically, this phenomenon affects creative people: writers, artists, actors, musicians.
Synesthetes are Vladimir Nabokov, Wassily Kandinsky, Ida Maria, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. There are, however, among these people and 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-sensation, indicates that synesthesia is not something dangerous or interfering with the daily life of a person. The inner world of a synesthete is much richer than the inner world of ordinary people.
The times when the uniqueness or eccentricity of a person caused censure from society long ago. Left-handers are no longer taught to write with their right hand, as they were 50 years ago, and any features of people are of interest to scientists. What was previously considered a deviation and tried to be destroyed, they began to actively study, benefiting from it.
What is synesthesia?
Some people have the ability to associate, for example, musical melodies with real images, to adjust colors in their heads to sounds. This phenomenon occurs in composers, and such people are called synesthetes. Synesthesia is a unique syndrome, which consists in the fact that some sense organs simultaneously began to work, reacting to a certain stimulus.
Synesthesia in psychology
Synesthetes are not necessarily talented people, but for the most part they are the only ones who are gifted. In medicine, synesthesia defines people who have the ability to clearly connect any object or imaginative perception with several senses at once. Synesthesia is in psychology unsolved questions and riddles, confirmed by experiments and tests.
Synesthesia - signs
Many people live with synesthesia and don't even know it. They are unaware that the rest do not see the letters in orange or blue, the word football does not taste like an apple in their mouth, and they do not understand how one can not hear the music in colors. They have synesthesia manifested in projecting or associative abilities.
- Projective abilities are manifested in mixed sensations. This is when the note "la" can be purple, and yellow can taste like a banana.
- Associative abilities are related to the unconscious, this is when additional qualities are attributed to simple things. Not summer is heat, but summer is tango, and the number 192 is pink.
Types of synesthesia
Synesthesia varies among any of the senses, more often among the two. The logical combination can be any:
- Grapheme color synesthesia- such people see associations associated with letters or numbers in color or texture images.
- Chromesthesia (phonopsia). This type of synesthesia transforms sounds into colors. Photisms, on the contrary, endow colors with special sounds.
- Kinesthetic-auditory It is the ability to hear sound where there is none. For example, with a flash.
- Synesthesia of Sequence Localization expressed in the ability to see numbers in space as points.
- Acoustic-tactile- this is when a person feels certain sounds in different parts of the body. It is the most common type.
- At ordinal linguistic personification numerals, calendar dates or simply months, days of the week, letters of the alphabet evoke associations with personalities.
- Touch Empathy This is mirror touch synesthesia. In this very rare form of synesthesia, the synesthete feels the same as the person they are watching.
- Lexico-gastic or gustatory synesthesia are flavor images. For example, the word "tennis" may have a strawberry taste.
- Olfactory-sound allows you to catch the rustle of smells.
- There are other little-studied forms of synesthesia: auric, emotional-color, olfactory-color, emotional-color, but they are little studied by science.
How to develop synesthesia?
The easiest way to develop synesthesia is to try to evoke unusual images and associations to a particular subject. If you are concerned about the question of whether it is possible to develop synesthesia, then the answer is yes. For this case, a number of exercises have been developed.
- It is worth trying to think differently, imagine famous people in a different profession. Let's say Lermontov composing music, or Bach as an artist.
- Do breathing exercises and do eye exercises.
- Train on smells, inhaling strong aromas.
- Touch various objects blindfolded.
- Reading the menu and descriptions of dishes will sharpen your taste perception.
- Try to see deeper, even silence is filled with a variety of different sounds.
Books about synesthesia
Scientists at different times put forward many theories that would explain the phenomenon of synesthesia. Some attribute this to illness or mental characteristics, while others suggest that nerve impulses are mixed in the brain. Synesthesia remains an unsolved mystery even today, its features are described in various literature.
- The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov. Synesthesia is described as a romantic ideal.
- "A Whole World" by Julia Glass, describes synesthesia in which there is a trait of pathology.
- "The Sound of Blue" by Holly Payne will talk about a romantic pathology that exceeds the daily potential.
- "Painting Ruby Tuesday" by Jane Yardley. In this book, synesthesia is described in terms of balance.
- In the book Mango Shape Space by Wendy Mass talk about synesthesia as a form.
- "Ultraviolet" by R.J. Anderson and "Everyone Isn't a Lonely Number" by Evelyn Krieger This is young science fiction.
Synesthesia in famous people
- Verlaine, Baudelaire, Rimbaud covered the phenomenon of synesthesia, from Russian authors these were Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Balmont. The phenomenon of synesthesia was observed in Rimsky-Korsakov, Scriabin, and in the singer from Norway, Ida Maria.
- Dmitri Nabokov inherited synesthesia from his mother or father. Vladimir Nabokov himself covered this phenomenon more than once in his works.
- Daniel Tammet speaks 11 languages and is able to mentally calculate complex mathematical problems.
- Journalist Solomon Shereshevsky is the owner of a phenomenal memory.
Synesthesia is a phenomenal state of the human body, in which some sensory (cognitive) directions create a connection with other similar directions. To put it simply, the meaning or understanding of one thing is possible in two different meanings or concepts. For example, a person possessing such a phenomenon is able not only to see color, but with no less success is able to hear color. The connection between the directions is formed involuntarily and consistently in time, excludes a conscious or arbitrary character.
Publication content
Personality and the Possession of a Phenomenal Ability
A person experiencing synesthesia does not think about creating a connection. For the owner of the phenomenon, the relationship between pairs of sensations or thoughts is a phenomenon for granted.
Therefore, synesthesia should be considered more of an atypical way of perceiving, rather than a medical condition or neurological abnormality.
Phenomenal perception: 1 - taste sensations; 2 - the function of touch; 3 - functions of the hearing aid; 4 - sense of smell; 5 - view functions
People endowed with the unique ability to experience this phenomenon throughout their lives have been characterized as synesthetes.
Science has explored several types of synesthesia. Meanwhile, all these types of phenomenal state are classified into one of two groups:
- Associative.
- Projective.
The owner of the associative type of phenomenon feels the connection of stimuli and feelings. But the possessor of the projective kind of phenomenon actually sees, hears, feels, or tastes the stimulation.
For example, for an associator, the sounds of a violin can create a strong association with the color of the blue sky. The projector, on the other hand, is able not only to hear the melody of the violin, but also is able to actually see the blue color projected in space, as if the violin existed there as a physical object.
At least 80 types of synesthesia are known, but some are more common than others.
What are the types of synesthesia?
Seeing a number with color helps those with a unique ability to perform mathematical calculations easier and easier than ordinary people can.
The most common types of phenomena can be combined with the following list:
- Chroresthesia is a common form of synesthesia where sounds and colors are closely related to one another. For example, the musical note "Re" may well correspond to the color green.
- Grapheme coloring is a common form, characterized by the fact that graphemes (letters or numbers) are perceived by color. Synesthetes do not associate the same grapheme colors with one another. For such people, the letter "A", for example, is perceived as red.
- A numerical mental form or series of numbers is a perception arising from seeing or thinking about numbers.
- Lexical-gustatory perception is a rather rare type when perception by ear gives the result of taste. For example, the name of a pleasant person is perceived at the level of chocolate taste.
- Mirror reflection perception is also a rare form, notable for its destructive power to the lives of synesthetes. In this form, the individual feels sensations as a response to stimulation by another person. For example, when observing an individual who is tapped on the shoulder, the synesthete feels the tapping on his or her own shoulder.
How synesthesia works
Scientists have not fully studied the full mechanism of the phenomenon. However, there is a version that the principle of action is associated with increased crosstalk that occurs between specialized areas of the brain.
According to another version, the mechanism is a decrease in inhibition in the neural pathway, which allows synesthetes to conduct multi-sensory processing of stimuli.
Some researchers believe that synesthesia is based on the ability of the brain to extract and assign forms of stimulus (ideasthesia).
The percentage breakdown of the phenomenal society: 1% - diagnosed with autistic disorders; 0.04% - proportion of autistic synesthetes; 4% - covered by the phenomenon of synesthesia
Psychologists who study the phenomenon claim that at least 4% of the world's population has a unique perception. At the same time, more than 1% of people have color synesthesia (colored numbers and letters). There are more women with this phenomenon than men.
Some studies show an increased susceptibility to synesthesia in people with and in people with the characteristic "left-handed" traits.
Regardless of whether there is a genetic predisposition or not, the unusual form of perception is actively discussed in scientific circles.
Can synesthesia develop?
There are documented cases where ordinary people have developed synesthesia. In particular, this was due to:
- head injury,
- stroke,
- brain tumors,
- temporal lobe epilepsy.
Temporary ability often manifests itself from the effects of mescaline, psychedelic drugs, semi-synthetic psychoactive substances such as LSD, as well as as a result of sensory deprivation or as a result of meditation.
Psychedelic and psychoactive drugs that provoke the appearance of synesthesia
It is quite possible for people who do not have synesthesia to develop an association between different feelings through conscious practice. A potential benefit for this development is improved memory functions and reaction time.
For example, a person reacts to sound faster than to sight, or recalls a series of colors better than a series of numbers. Some people with chromesthesia have an ideal basis for development because they are able to identify inscriptions in certain colors.
Synesthesia is closely related to unusual creative and unique cognitive abilities. For example, synesthete Daniel Tammet set a math record of 22,514 digits of pi using the ability to see numbers in memory as colors and shapes.
So, what is this amazing phenomenon that scientists do not classify as mental disorders, but undoubtedly claims to characterize deviations from the norm? Perhaps for someone the answer can be found in the frames of the video.
Original taken from zherazborki Q How do I see sound and hear smells?
Imagine a world where you see numbers and letters in different colors, where music and voices swirl around you in a whirlpool of colorful shapes. Meet synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon in which two or more senses fuse together. It occurs in four percent of the population. A synesthete can not only hear someone's voice but also see it, taste it, or feel it in the form of a touch.
Different parts of the brain, performing different functions, in synesthetes have more "cross" neural connections. People who experience synesthesia, in addition to possessing tremendous creative potential, have amazing abilities to remember and reproduce information. The peculiarity of their perception allows the brain to "mix" the data received from several senses before analyzing them.
Synesthesia is not positioned as a disease or disorder, although it can have completely bizarre forms of perception that are not entirely clear to the average person. Before we figure out whether it is possible to artificially induce synesthesia in ourselves, let's deal with forms.
There are several more or less studied forms of synesthesia:
Grapheme color synesthesia.
Color associations to a separate grapheme (writing unit: letter or number) or to written words of the text.
With the help of such "additional perception", it is obviously easier to notice the details of the text, perceive, remember and reproduce it.
Chromesthesia (or Phonopsia).
Color association for sounds. Sound generates a sense of color and it can "look" in different ways. Some synesthetes may perceive music as fireworks, others as a vibrating movement of multi-colored lines. Like colored waves from a sound source.
Some hear the speech, "color" the words. And their color and shades are determined not only by the pitch, but also by emotions. Obviously, using this feature of perception, it is easier to memorize and reproduce musical works, because visual memory is also involved in the process, despite the fact that "color pictures of sound" are drawn by the imagination. It is easier to remember information perceived by ear: conversations, lectures, business communication. It is very useful in ordinary, everyday life.
Kinesthetic-auditory synesthesia.
Sound association to a visual stimulus. The ability to "hear" a sound by seeing a moving object.
Synesthesia of numerical forms (localization of sequences) and "number lines".
These are two types of synesthesia that are often confused by the layman. Synesthesia of Sequence Localization implies that a person, finding a numerical pattern in something, can see numerical sequences in the form of points in space. Such people can visually "observe" around them the numbers of hours, days of weeks, months, years, around them. They line up in some reasonable sequence, and (for example) 2000 the year will visually appear further, and 2016 nearer. Such people have a well-developed visual and spatial memory. They are well oriented, remember the events that happened to them even a very long time ago. And they also think well, because they can also "project" sequences of numbers around themselves, for example, where 1 will be closer and 9 -farther.
Synesthesia of "Number Lines" it's a little different. People tend to represent quantitative information in the form of a mental line along which numbers increase from left to right. This property of the psyche is called the “mental number line” (mental number line). But the features of early education can change this structure of the "line" and in the future a person, thinking about numbers in his imagination, sees a certain subjective model (actually created by himself in the process of early education). Take a look at the number lines drawn by synesthetes:
The number line that appeared to Francis Galton at the slightest mention of counting and numbers. The numbers from 1 to 12 had in this number line, in the representation of Galton himself, an analogue of the dial and were always compared with the clock.
The number line was first described by Sir Francis Galton in his work The Visions of Sane Persons, 1881.
And this is how the number line looks like in a person who, in addition, also has grapheme-color synesthesia.
Illustration from the book "Wednesday Is Indigo Blue" (Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, 2009, Richard Cytovich and David Eagleman).
People with a special "number line" are very capable of counting, they remember dates, numbers, bills well. Everything related to numbers is easier for them, due to the fact that "visual" information is used in counting and memorization. Accordingly, "visual" memory is also included in the work.
Acoustic-tactile synesthesia.
Sensual association to sounds. Certain sounds can cause different tactile sensations in different parts of the body (touch, tingle).
Ordinal and linguistic personification.
Synesthesia of personifications usually occurs along with grapheme-color synesthesia. And it differs in that letters and numbers are tied not to color, but to images. Most often these are images of people and animals. "4 is a kind, but healthy and formidable lion, and 5 is a friendly black man, 9 is an insanely sexy girl in red with long legs ...". Thanks to vivid images, such people also remember information related to numbers well. But as expected, such people do not outperform synesthetes with an unusual "number line" and synesthetes with localizations of number sequences in the score. Because in the latter, visualization is subject to a logical order in which you can navigate by doing mathematical calculations. But a kind lion and a crazy beauty in red cannot give such an opportunity.
Misophonia.
Sound-emotional synesthesia. In this regard: we are all synesthetes, but it must be said that specifically Mythosonia is defined as a neurological disorder and is mentioned precisely in a negative aspect. This disorder implies that certain sounds evoke strong negative emotions in a person: fear, hatred, anger, and so on. It's not very cool to hear a door creak and want to shoot someone at the same time.
Touch empathy.
Touch empathy is also referred to as a disorder. Have you ever wondered why it is unpleasant for you to look at surgical operations, beatings .., at punishments and tortures? This happens because in our brain there are so-called "mirror neurons", they allow us, seeing the situation, as if to "try on" it for ourselves. The person who suffers from touch empathy feels the touch that he sees. He can look at how you touch the other person's hand and feel the touch on his hand. Watching porn may be great, but in everyday life, you would hardly like it. Such people cannot look at injections, cannot even see just cutting meat, it literally hurts them to see how someone falls off a bicycle .. All these little things make life very difficult ..
Lexico-gastic synesthesia, "Color smell", and "Rustle of smells".
At lexico-gastic Synesthesia is a stable taste associations from images, words, sounds. Such people can listen to music to remember the taste of their favorite dish. Only 0.2% of the population has this form of synesthesia. A documentary film, Wax Taste Derek, was made about her.
BUT color sense of smell represents color and emotional associations for smells. The smell can be presented visually, much like it is often shown in films, but only more vividly (having a pronounced color). And evoke different emotions.
The rustle of smells(olfactory-sound synesthesia) - sound association to smell. For people with this form of synesthesia, the smell can sort of "sound".
Auric synesthesia.
Matching people and colors. People with auric synesthesia "color" other people according to their appearance, their mood, the emotions they evoke. This allows you to remember well personal and business meetings that were even a very long time ago, to remember the emotional "color" of those meetings. It allows you to position yourself well in relationships and helps build communication between people.
Is it possible to induce synesthesia artificially?
There is a lot of controversy about this. They begin with what has been revealed: the ability to synesthesia can be transmitted hereditarily, at the gene level. For a long time it was believed that someone is given and someone is not. But changes in the genome of the cub are manifested, among other things, under the influence of the environment of the parent. Apparently both the parent and nature itself find this skill useful for survival. And the ability to this skill is transferred.
Synesthesia, in essence, developed associative thinking. The brain is plastic, some connections in it have been rearranged from the moment you opened this article to the time you finished reading this paragraph. In the material sense, this is an endless neural construction of the web, from your knowledge, thoughts, experience, reactions. They intersect with each other so that one causes the other. And in grapheme-color synesthetes, the initial connections were traced back to childhood, no matter how ridiculous the simplicity of this phenomenon was - often magnets on the refrigerator in the form of numbers and letters became the initial connections. Taste synesthetes have been linked to inexpensive letter-shaped pasta. As a child, they ate this pasta and unconsciously connected "letter-taste", and the brain further seemed to push: there are other letters - they must also have a taste. Someone in childhood solved mathematical and logical problems like these:
Childhood is a time when brain plasticity is very high. And synesthetes not on purpose, and unconsciously bring up associations in themselves from the very beginning. All the things that happen after, all new knowledge, and all new experience - already passes through the prism of these associations, educating and only reinforcing this unusual perception. It will be much more difficult for an adult to artificially cultivate synesthesia in himself. He is already more reasonable and can subordinate associations to reasonable logic. To really help him in life. But the fact is that for synesthetes - their associations - are unconscious, they appear without mental or volitional effort. Cases when artificial synesthesia was developed to the same degree have not yet been recorded.
The owners of the best artificial synesthesia are mnemonics (sport, the meaning of which is the speed and volume of memorization). Mnemonics learn to associate text or sound information that comes to them with visual images, doing this even in details, even in trifles. For example, they can remember the order of a deck of cards in a minute, thanks to the fact that they put information in a "mnemonic lock" (a mentally locked well-known room). They imagine a dwarf juggling red dice (jack of diamonds), and other images like a black BMW (seven of spades), or a ball of maggots (ten of hearts) along their path from one end of this room to the other. Joshua Fore, in the book "Einstein Walks on the Moon", told how Ed Cook, one of the best mnemonics of our time, at the first meeting mentally imagined that Joshua was joking, and this joke cuts Ed into 4 parts. Ed did it just to remember the name. Joshua Faure was in tune with "Joke" (eng. joke) and "four" (eng. four). He said that he does it already unconsciously - it has become a habit.
It has not yet been possible to develop synesthesia of numerical sequences, but it is by no means a fact that this is impossible. After many years of work, cooks from different countries felt the association of the "taste" of the image, also experienced sommeliers found a pattern in taste and color, they could artificially evoke taste sensations just by seeing the wine in order to compare it with another. Many really experienced musicians have associated sound with colors, and with ... temperature. They tried to write works, musically "describing", for example, simply the weather outside the window and trying to convey its beauty. These words can be read with disdain - any artist can present his compositions this way. But among professional musicians, there are a lot of real synesthetes. There are even examples when composers themselves described this phenomenon, at a time when even such a term as synesthesia did not yet exist.
Developing synesthesia means restructuring your perception. To draw a parallel with the efforts that would have to be applied for such a "perestroika", here is the story.
In London, a taxi driver must obtain a special license in order to start working. They study for 3-5 years. During this time, they drive through the streets exploring the sights. As a result of training, they need to know 25,000 (!!) streets, be able to make optimal routes, and talk about more than 1,000 (!!) sights. The work of their brain was studied at the beginning and at the end of training. Asking a novice student what this or that attraction is famous for, scientists observed how one area of the brain turned on, which recalled certain facts. When they were already licensed taxi drivers, they were asked similar questions, scientists saw several areas of the brain turn on at once. Zones that were responsible for cartographic and spatial memory were included. First of all, they remembered where it was. An image was drawn from visual memory, tactile sensations were drawn. After all, they visited this or that attraction several times, and at different times of the year. And clear images made taxi drivers remember the history of the attraction in detail. Despite their huge number (more than a thousand). The connections of their brain during the period of training (3-5 years) changed by 7%.
Within the current understanding, synesthesia can be developed, but it will take a very long time of hard and directed work.
Synesthesia- 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 synesthesia syndrome, so it has come to be understood as a special view of the world, as a new, expanded, supplemented, higher level than the usual ordinary consciousness, a way of perceiving reality.
What is synesthesia, a mental deviation or a harbinger of humanity's transition to a new level of consciousness?
In synesthesia syndrome, there isfusion of sensationsdifferent type. When one sensory system is irritated, the other 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 sensesthrough which he perceives the world and the correspondingFeel:
- visual,
- auditory,
- taste,
- olfactory,
- tactile.
Synesthetes are usually mixedtwoof the five types of sensations. On this basis, it is customary to distinguish severaltypes of synesthesia:
- The confusion 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 a phenomenal memory, because the color associations that are born during the perception of a grapheme allow the synesthete to quickly and permanently remember it.
- Chromosthesia, which is also called “color hearing” is a mixture of color and sound, when, hearing a sound, a person simultaneously sees a color. Many prominent composers and musicians have had chromoesthesia.
- At kinesthetic-auditorysynesthesia people hear certain sounds when they observe the movement of an object. And these are not the sounds that can be the result of movement, these are associative sounds.
- Synesthetes with taste synesthesiacan, during the auditory and visual perception of the object, also feel its taste.
- If the sound evokes certain tactile sensations (touch), synesthesiaacoustic-tactile.
- Sequence localizationcalled synesthesia, in which a person observes a numerical sequence in the form of points in space.
- A very unusual and rare type of synesthesia -touch empathy. The synesthete physically feels the same as the other person who is next to him feels.
Many other amazing and amazing types of synesthesia are also known to science, and every day there are more of them.
There are examples when a person mixed not two, but three, four, and even all 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, uniting all five senses at once.
Synesthesia as a mental syndrome
Synesthesia began to be studied only in the second half ofXIXcentury, but this phenomenon was known in antiquity to Greek physicians and philosophers. "Synesthesia" is translated from ancient Greek as"co-perception", "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 cavemen during ritual dances probably did not share the perception of color and sound, for them these sensations were connected together.
The phenomenon of synesthesia has only been studiedfragmentarily, the exact causes of its occurrence have not yet been found. The problem of studying the syndrome of synesthesia is greatly complicated by the fact that synesthetes are very oftendon't knowabout the unusualness of their perception, since they are used to seeing the world this way and not otherwise, and do not understand how it can be perceived differently at all. Among synesthetes, there are also people who prefer to keep the secret of their unusual perception and do not tell anyone about it.
But, based on those numerous experiments, observations and experiments that were carried out by scientists in the century before last, the last century and today, it is possible to make tri very important conclusions:
- The mixed perception of 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. The synesthete simply knows more about this or that object than people with ordinary perception.
- Synesthesia syndrome is not onlydoes not interferebut very oftenhelpssynesthetes to live more consciously, to be creative and successful people in life. The inner world of synesthetes is usually much richer, and the consciousness is more developed than that of ordinary people.
- Many synesthetes are humancreative,possessing extraordinary abilities and talents, brilliant. Creative synesthesia, examples of which are people associated with science, culture and art, is itself 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 is not onlycongenital(genetically transmitted), but alsoacquired(including at a fairly mature age). It may also occurspontaneouslyas a side effect of substance abuse. Sometimes synesthesia issymptomserious brain disease (may occur after a stroke, traumatic brain injury, with brain tumors and epilepsy).
But that's not all! Some type of synesthesiaformby learning to mix different sensations! In the same way that memory, thinking, speech, and any other mental process can be developed, perception can also be developed, making it phenomenal.
Synesthesia is an unusual mental syndrome that differs from others in what it is for some people.desired! Nowadays, there are even psychological trainings on how to develop synesthesia in yourself, which helps you see the world and understand life differently.
In fairness, 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 how to control it.
According to various estimates of scientists, today in the world live from0.05% to 4.4%synesthetes and the number of such special people is increasing.
Perhaps synesthesia will soon become the norm and all of 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. Mac Cracken. The girl sees music in color and draws it.