Imagine if you could taste the sound of a musical note, or if colors took on properties that caused sensations in your body.
Red feels powerful, while yellow feels fragile and broken. Blue is hard and strong, and confusion evokes an intense orange.
Each letter and number burns with bright colors, and you can’t think of one of them unless it’s in relation to everything else in the alphabet or number system. The letter “F” is a greenish brown and the word “Monday” feels like a ring of indigo.
If this doesn’t sound bizarre, then you may be among the 4 percent of individuals with the rare neurological condition known as synesthesia.
Some of them — known as “synesthetes” — will travel to Belfast from all over New England on Sunday to meet with a leading expert on the condition.
Derived from Greek words meaning to “perceive together,” synesthesia is a lifelong phenomenon that involves the involuntary coupling of the senses.
When one of a synesthetes five senses is triggered, another kicks in as well. Some synesthetes hear, taste, smell or feel pain in color. Others possess “conceptual synesthesia,” where abstract concepts, numbers and mathematical units are projected in the environment as shapes or vivid colors.
The most common form of synesthesia is sight and sound pairings. A voice, music playing, a dog barking or dishes clanking in a kitchen can trigger visual sensations in a synesthete’s head. Think of it like a colorful firework that arises out of nowhere, flashes with light, depth and movement, then shimmers and fades away.
Synesthesia is now accepted in the scientific community as an actual phenomenon, instead of just as evidence of an intense imagination or mental illness. However, the American Psychiatric Association does not list it as a formal diagnosis because synesthesia doesn’t negatively impact quality of life — it’s simply a difference in perceptual experience.
While synesthesia’s cause is still a mystery, scientists know the trait is genetic and occurs more frequently in women than in men.
Research performed at the McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, suggests that all infants start life as synesthetes, with highly malleable sensory pathways. This would mean a baby has one all-encompassing sense, without any distinction from one to another. So when a baby shakes its rattle, it’s not just hearing it, but tasting, feeling and smelling it. As the baby matures, certain sensory parts of the brain become blocked off from each other, the research suggests.
One of the researchers who helped propel synesthesia from the murky depths of pseudoscience and into the mainstream was Richard Cytowic, a neurologist and author who has been studying synesthesia since the 1980s.
“When I started in 1979, my colleagues in neurology looked at me wide-eyed,” said Cytowic, a medical doctor trained in neurology, neuropsychology, and ophthalmology. “They told me that synesthesia was too weird and to stay away from it because it would ruin my career.”
But Cytowic has since written four books on the topic that are widely praised by critics as thought-provoking insights into the mysteries of how our brains work.
On June 28 at 3 p.m., he will visit the Old Professor’s Bookshop in Belfast for a TED-style talk on synesthesia and creativity and how the condition’s workings affect us all. Cytowic explained the condition in a June 2012 TED-Ed video, saying, “A synesthete might not only hear my voice, but also see it, taste it or feel it as a physical touch.”
“There’s been a paradigm shift,” said Cytowic, a neurology professor at George Washington University. “There’s no doubt that this is real. Our whole notion that our five senses travel down five separate channels and don’t mix is completely wrong.”
His first book, “The Man Who Tasted Shapes,” served as a “eureka” moment for many people around the world who didn’t realize they had synesthesia. Cytowic said he’s spoken about synesthesia all around the world and met many people who became fascinated once they realized they had it.
Betty Woodman of Appleton, a spatial sequence synesthete, first knew that her texture of reality was different during a conversation with her father in college. Before that, she didn’t realize her perception was statistically abnormal.
“I was talking with my father about a physics class and in the process of explaining it, I said ‘Oh you know, like over a column and down a couple,’” said Woodman. “He looked at me confused when I asked him, ‘How do you see your numbers?’”
For Woodman, numbers, letters and days of the week take on certain attributes. She can’t think of a number or letter on its own without viewing it as a cog in a huge, organized machine. The alphabet is organized into 1,000 blocks and Woodman sees numbers as columns of 20 that go all the way up into the sky. July and August are bigger, while Monday is always shaped like a ring.
“It’s like some weird, multidimensional thing,” said Woodman. “It’s like a big reference in my head that’s not optional.”
Ingesting hallucinogenic drugs such as mushrooms or LSD can mimic the effects of synesthesia, according to David Mokler, a professor of pharmacology and neurology at the University of New England.
“The brain is amazing,” said Mokler. “Like with synesthesia, when you take hallucinogenic drugs it sorts of lifts a gate in your brain that allows all these senses to pour in. Once the inhibition is removed, there’s an overflow of information and all of a sudden you can see sounds and hear colors.”
Mokler said synesthesia is a neurological condition, but he’s not sure it’s accepted in the scientific community yet, mostly because it’s hard to prove a subjective experience. He compared it to the struggles of proving that a patient is experiencing pain in clinical medicine.
“If someone says they’re in pain, you have to believe them,” Mokler said. “It’s very hard to say that something can’t happen in the brain. There’s no way to prove or disprove [synesthesia].”
Robin Wilkinson, a Farrington Elementary School teacher from Augusta, has a type of synesthesia that makes every letter and number emanate a bright color inside her head.
“It’s interesting that the most vibrant colors are vowels,” she said. “They really stand out in the word. If something is printed in black, I see it as black, but in my mind’s eye, I see colors.”
When Wilkinson sees the letter “A” printed on a page, her eyes perceive it in black like other people. But in her mind, she also sees yellow. She described the experience as an enhancement, like an extra hook to hang thoughts on. It also makes text more interesting and beautiful, she said, and helps Wilkinson perform well on math puzzles such as sudoku.
“It’s easy,” Wilkinson said. “I just look at a row and if I don’t see blue, then I know I don’t have a 5 yet.”
Woodman and Wilkinson, like many synesthetes, love their condition and say it aides in their memory.
According to Cytowic, many synesthetes keep their experiences to themselves for fear of being ridiculed.
“I don’t care if no one believes me, I know I have it,” Wilkinson said. “I really don’t talk about it much at all.”
“They love having it and to lose it would be a horrible fate for them,” Cytowic said. “But the reaction of others is what makes synesthetes reticent to talk about their experiences.”
But Cytowic, who’s dedicated half of his life to studying the science, sees many ways for people to learn from synesthetes. Within the scientific community, it’s forced a rethinking into how the brain is organized, he said.
For synesthetes, the condition facilitates an increase in memory. For others, it can teach tolerance and a sense of wonder.
“You can’t assume that the person sitting next to you sees the world the same way you do,” Cytowic said. “Learning about synesthesia changes your attitude towards others.”
In Belfast, he will sign his 2009 book, “Wednesday is Indigo Blue,” and connect with synesthetes from throughout the region.
“I want people to question how they see the world and how they appreciate subjective differences in other people,” said Cytowic. “For a writer, there’s nothing better than to have somebody say, ‘You’ve changed my life.’”