Our man, who has suffered from synesthesia all of his life, walks into a pub; there is another guy at the bar who says “How are you?”. Our Man, “I’ve had a really hard day trying to perfect a sculpture I’ve been commissioned to make”. The other guy says “You’re an artist then?”, “Yes I am” says our man. The other guy, “So it’s a cushy life you lead, here you are in a bar; how can it be so hard? How about buying a hardworking man a pint?”. Our man says, “And what do you do for a living?”, “I’m an electrician.” says the other guy. Our man, “What you earn in one hour, takes me at least a day to earn” and “What you think about in one hour is what you’ve been taught, which complies with regulations. You have been told what to do and how to do it. I have to create. Nobody tells me what the answer is or how to achieve it; I’m supposed to create it and it has to be unique. If I don’t get it right, I don’t get paid a single penny. “-Its you who should buy me a drink!” The electrician walks off in a huff; our man buys himself a drink. He thinks to himself, why do I bother?; -the perception of what an artist is, is as a hedonist, with a “cushy”, lazy life. Unreal.
So
I have spent my life with synesthesia; I think and see in/with colours. It was stressful at the age of 5, and has been since. It also has its own advantages, one of which I believe is creativity. People experiencing my type of synesthesia are awash with colours in their minds and so can be awash with original ideas.
Synesthesia and Symptoms
Its automatic and cannot be consciously controlled. So it just happens, and is continuous when in a state of consciousness. Reading and writing for example; the letters of the alphabet have individual colours. This can also be true for the numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. My own experience is that this is so.
When asleep and dreaming it is possible that this effect carries on into dreams as long as the dream has some sort of graphic or diagrammatic element. Dreaming is an altered state of consciousness and therefore could be considered to be “not unconscious”.
When not How
I can also personally report that there has been no change in my mind in the assignment of a colour to a letter or a number, and that this has been the same throughout my life (I am 77). I believe that the relationship of colours to letters and numbers started to form from when I was about five years old. There has never been any variation. Please see the attached small spreadsheet below to see the letters and numbers in relation to colours. (Please note that the ‘glow’ is missing from these colours, – the ‘glow’ is what the mind’s-eye perceives/sees; all colours including the dark colours, therefore shine from the ‘glow’).
Music
There is, for me, some colour relationship within the experience of listening to music also, and sounds such as birdsong. However this is very much fainter and more subtle, to the point that it is difficult to confirm there is a constancy of colour to specific sounds. It is more a case of colours relating to harmonies and because music is a constantly changing mix of sound, so are the colours in their intensity, depth, mixture and hue. The end experience is a changing and moving wash. This sound is rather akin to the way some historic impressionist artists have tried to depict in their painted pictures. For example Turner’s picture “Rain steam and speed”.
Types of People
It is well known that those of us who are left-handed are more likely to have synesthesia; also being more artistic and/or creative are traits that prevail for left-handed people and people who are synesthetic. Also there are strong links to dyslexia. I am partially dyslexic. There are degrees of this condition and these are important to the overall state of a person who is living with this condition.
Just a few of my symptoms: -Reading a block of words backward or a single word last letter first. Having absolutely no cognition of the difference of Left and Right. Not remembering the names of people unless they are ‘visually anchored’ by an association. ‘Seeing’ surroundings and people in a strange ‘diagrammatic and analytical’, “patternistic” way. Weird feeling of perceiving reality to a very much greater depth than the average person; this I mistakenly used to think this was a ‘disassociation from reality’. —And there are more).
“Claims for the perceptual reality of synesthetic colors have been bolstered by recent functional brain imaging studies by researchers in the U. K. showing that synesthetic color activates central visual areas of the brain thought to be involved in perceiving real colors. The neural mechanism by which synesthetic colours are automatically bound to alphanumeric characters remains a mystery.” But at a guess by myself, it is formed and happens from the ages of 2 to 5 years of age.”
Research
There is an ever increasing amount of research into synesthesia, however there is as yet no understanding as to how or why synesthetic relationships occur. If you are interested, just make a few queries online to find out more.
Dyslexia
My personal view is that the condition of synesthesia plays a strong and overwhelming part in people with dyslexia who overcome their dyslexia to the point that they learn to use the special skills synesthesia/dyslexia imparts, to deal with their lives, careers, relationships and sanity.
The skills and view-point of such a person are the most creative; but this requires a level of dedication to obtain any goal that is so much greater as a level of endeavor compared to those of the general population who do not fall within this category. It is often the case in research that such a person will report that they have to work many times harder to just stand still and maintain any hard-won position or achievement in their lives. This is how they feel about their lives. Such is the lot of the dyslexic.
It is important to stress that on average the dyslexic person is probably going to be an intelligence level that is different and possibly higher, than the non-dyslexic. And of course occasionally this group of people includes those who we call geniuses but also others we call idiots. Many, like myself would just call ourselves “plodders” with a sense of shear bloody-mindedness to get where we’re going, in that ‘we do not stop and we don’t give up’. In current day Western cultures and society, and Eastern cultures trying to emulate western economies; true creativity generally has a very low perceived value and therefore a very low real value. The consequences of this can be seen World-wide with the complete failure to anticipate.
READ
Read this book – – The Power of Different. Author: Dr Gail Saltz.
