Synesthesia: The 6th Sense

These are the words of one Albert Einstein. His love for music is well documented. There are many pictures of him indulging himself in the tones of his violin, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world. As anyone who has ever loved music would know, our musical tastes have a lot to do with what we think and who we are.

Of course, on first read, Einstein's account sounds nothing more than a metaphor for visualization. But could it be more? Could someone possibly see music? Could there be anything more to the conscious experience?

In 1812, a physician by the name of George Tobias Ludwig Zacks was writing about the nature of albinism. Having the condition himself, color was a recurring topic in his analysis of albinism. As such, in discussing his own experience, he mentioned that colored ideas appeared to him. They were intimate and recurring and couldn't be reckoned with the usual sight. According to Sax, Sax is now regarded as the first medically documented case of synesthesia, a neurological condition in which a sensation in one of the senses evokes a sensation in another.

The term quite literally means a cross-mingling of the senses, exactly opposite to the more familiar word anesthesia, which means no sensation. This cross-mingling could theoretically happen between any two or even more senses. It's no wonder then that there are more than 80 types of synesthesia known till now. Sax himself seemingly had multiple forms of synesthesia, reporting that numbers, days of the week, time periods, letters, and notes of music—all of these elements adopt those colors.

These introduce themselves to the mind as if a series of visible objects in dark space, formless and noticeably of different colors. This is most likely a case of ordinal linguistic personification, where, as the name suggests, ordered sequences tend to have personalities and colors to each element of the sequence. This type of synesthesia tends to co-occur with grapheme-color synesthesia, the most common form of synesthesia, where numbers are associated with colors.

There are many other types of synesthesia, such as lexical-gustatory synesthesia, where hearing certain words causes certain tastes, or audio-tactile synesthesia, where hearing certain sounds can lead to a sensation of touch in parts of the body. Oddly enough, there's even a type of synesthesia where swimmers thinking, watching, or performing a certain swimming stroke perceive a color that they consistently associate with that swimming stroke.

There have also been surgeons with what's called mirror-touch synesthesia, where they're able to feel the pain of the patients they're observing. "While CPR was being administered, I have died many times," says Dr. Joel Salinas, a neurologist who possesses this condition.

However, the most awe-inspiring case of synesthesia probably took place when a man was able to visualize colors when he saw numbers. The only catch is he was colorblind, and the colors he was visualizing had never been seen. But how credible are these accounts? Considering Sax's colorful landscape was also attributed by some to congenital eye defects common in people with albinism, couldn't all these just be hallucinations or simply psychedelic experiences under the influence of a drug or some other sign of an overreaction?

The science is very clear on that front. While synesthesia-like experiences have been created with the help of psychedelic drugs, synesthesia is a consistently reproduced condition. Meaning those that have it will recall these same exact colors, the same exact tastes, and the same exact sensations with nearly 90 plus accuracy, even when they're tested years apart and without warning.

This pattern of consistent experiences has so far been the most reliable way to test whether someone has synesthesia or not. Mind you, consistency here does not mean that the same letter will always be correlated with the same color for all synesthetes. People who have synesthesia, individual to individual, these correlations may vary, even if they may have the same type of synesthesia. But for the same individual, the correlation stays remarkably precise.

So precise, in fact, that they can tell apart shades of color that are only slightly different. So if the letter A isn't orangish-red for you, it may not be the same for another synesthete, but it will always be orangish-red for you. This quality is also why the musical synesthetes tend to have perfect pitch, because they can superimpose the sound with a very intricate visual map and confirm what is what.

Synesthetes also score higher on memory tests, especially with numbers and names, because they're most remembered as multi-property objects, each with unique associations. Perhaps the most compelling evidence that synesthesia is not an occasional random hallucination is the fact that the brains of synesthetes are physically different from those that are not. Synesthetes display consistently higher connectivity in their brains than non-synesthetes, especially in between visual and auditory regions.

The visual regions were also better connected to the frontoparietal region, a region crucial for color association with numbers or letters. The amount of connectedness also reflected the strength of the synesthetic experience. The stronger the connections, the stronger the synesthetic experience.

Research has also revealed that synesthetes generally have more white matter. This intrinsic increased network connectivity led scientists to agree that there is a genetic component to synesthesia. And sure enough, about 40 percent of all synesthetes have a first-degree relative with synesthesia, and many synesthetes recall having synesthesia as long as they can remember.

An interesting way to test whether you might have grapheme-color synesthesia, which is number-to-color synesthesia, is to look at this picture. Try to identify the twos as quickly as you can. People who have synesthesia react quicker on a test like this because the twos and fives are naturally seen in different colors to them, like this, which makes it much easier to identify. They are able to see the twos in different colors without necessarily having to hunt for them, like non-synesthetes.

So they're not staring at a number and then thinking of the associated color; it's an automatic response, one synesthete cannot turn off. And that can be a problem. Right? Even with the five senses most of us are able to use, sometimes we feel overwhelmed by the world around us. So to be overstimulated all the time with a barrage of sensory inputs would be pretty uncomfortable, or so you would think.

Synesthetes, by and large, consider their abilities as gifts rather than curses. Most synesthetes are completely unaware that others don't see the world the way they do. For some, sound has always had color; color has always had taste; and taste has always had sound. It sounds strange, but you'd be surprised how many of your favorite artists are synesthetes, from musicians like Lorde and Pharrell Williams to novelists like Vladimir Nabokov, from theoretical physicists like Richard Feynman to painters like Vincent van Gogh. All are said to have had synesthesia.

Their conditions are as versatile as their crafts. Common amongst all, however, is the fact that their contributions have all been incredible feats of creativity. This convergence of creativity and synesthesia is no coincidence. In fact, synesthesia is up to seven times more common in artists and people involved in creative professions.

It's no surprise then that synesthetes perform better on tests of creativity and originality than the average person. But of course, as with any condition, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Some kids who have the condition display poorer reading comprehension than their peers and often have a hard time following lectures. Solomon Shirashevsky was a Russian journalist who was also diagnosed with a condition; he could recall unusually long lists of information without error but said that the automatic and nearly permanent retention of every detail due to synesthesia made it very hard for him to grasp abstract concepts or make sense of what he was reading.

Still, synesthesia is generally considered a positive, and most people that have it do not think of it as a disorder. It's staggering how the same world you and I experience can actually be so different compared to so many different people. I had no idea that such a condition existed before I was introduced to this tool just a few days ago.

It allowed me to see what my name looks like to a synesthete. In her video, violinist, composer, and synesthete Caitlyn Hova recalls finding out in college that not everyone saw music as she did. The prevalence of synesthetes within the general population is remarkably high, contrary to what it may seem. As many as 1 in 20 people can have some form of synesthesia, and you probably know a lot of them; you just don't know that you know them. But now you know that you don't know that you know them. You get the point.

In what follows, Caitlyn goes on to play an incredible piece on her violin to showcase what she sees when she plays it, which really makes me wonder how relatively colorless our realities are in comparison, or are they? You see, we all visualize things. We may not see colors for every note on an instrument or have perfect pitch, but we do visualize. It happens all the time when we're trying to process large amounts of data or trying our hand at more artistic ventures. We're trying to see something totally abstract.

One of the more interesting studies regarding synesthesia is the Bouba-Kiki effect. Take a look at this image. Which one of the shapes looks like it's called Bouba and which one is called Kiki? An overwhelming majority of the initial participants chose the image on the right as Bouba and the left as Kiki. Even across languages, even children as young as two and a half years old have demonstrated this effect.

While these findings are not seen in every community, the consensus suggests that the Bouba-Kiki effect is a cue to pre-existing synesthesia-like associations present in all of us. It would reinforce the idea that the neural hyper-connectivity that is responsible for synesthesia is seen in pretty much all babies. Most of us simply lose those connections as we grow older.

And that's the beauty and tragedy of synesthesia all at once, that we all have it but most of us lose it. Caitlyn ends her video by asking what could have happened if we were all more conscious of others' experiences and how different our senses might be from one another—how we solve a math problem, how we make sense of complex concepts, how we enjoy music. Sharing these things can make learning so much more fun.

"What does it mean to know you have the correct answer?" she asks. "What is that feeling? Is that feeling a color?" As a student of the sciences, I find myself wondering time and time again how scientists realize some of their most mind-bending, unintuitive truths about the universe. How are they so confident in their findings? Aside from the degrees and credentials, what does it truly mean to know something? What is that feeling of harmony, that creative connection, and why does it soothe our hearts?

Whether we can describe these things or not, you and I have felt them, maybe in a painting, or in a ballad, or in a book. But we've all felt them. Answering these questions could help uncover the colors in our mundane but elegant reality and allow us all to experience a richer consciousness, all whilst using an ability that deep down we all possess.

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