Radio National’s Science Show recently broadcast a short interview on the subject of synaesthesia, the phenomenon of subjective sensation of a sense other than the one being stimulated. For instance, a form of synaesthesia is seeing patterns of coloured dots while touching particular kinds of surface. It is distinct from imagining or visualising.
The interview transcript is well worth a read.
While discussing the radio progam with a relative, she told me that she has a mild synaesthesia. Music with emotional content affects her perception of colour. For instance, in the Pink Elephants scene of Disney’s Dumbo, she sees the elephants as blue. Likewise, she is not sure of the colours through much of Fantasia.
The synaesthesia doesn’t affect the rest of her vision perception,1 so driving with the CD player going full blast is quite safe. The only problems I can think of are (a) she may not be able to tell the police the colour of the getaway car in a bank robbery, (b) finding her car in a carpark with background muzak may be difficult. five or ten people and nobody had it would be helpful. I’ll post another note
To me, the most interesting thing about the whole episode was that she thought everybody’s colour perception was affected by music. It hadn’t occured to her that there might be anything special about her perception. It causes me to question the strength of the grip we each have on the world around us. In particular, it makes me wonder what my quirks may be.
Anyway, I encourage you to ask your relatives and friends about experiences like this and let me know what you find—even a quick note to the effect that you asked five or ten people and nobody had it would be helpful. I’ll post another note in a week or two.
1 As far as she knows.
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