Colours help us all to navigate the world in some respects, but for people with the condition synesthesia, colours can be inextricably linked to other senses. Synesthesia is a condition in which two or more senses are activated at the same time. Once dismissed as being the product of an overactive imagination, scientists have now accepted that it is a genuine, if harmless, neurological phenomenon. And synesthesia may not be as rare as once thought: research suggests that around one person in every 100 has cross-sensory experiences that don’t happen to non-synesthetes, such as tasting sound, instantly relating shapes to certain smells or hearing colour.
You might think that we all experience synesthesia from time-to-time, when a song evokes a specific memory, or a smell takes you right back to a certain emotion or place in time. But for synesthetes the experience is very different.
When a sensory experience creates a picture in a non-synesthete mind, it’s just that – a picture. The picture you see will probably change each time you hear the same song or catch a whiff of the same fragrance, even if the gist of the experience is similar, and it might only happen occasionally. A synesthete will have the same experience every time, and the mental picture they experience is more simplistic than a “memory”: a specific sound might instantaneously put a certain texture, taste or colour into their mind, for example.
We know synesthesia is harmless, and far from being a “negative” condition, many creative people, particularly artists and musicians, say that being a synesthete actually enhances their talent and creativity.
Among the long list of famous synesthetes is Jimi Hendrix, who described chords and harmonies as colours. Hendrix called E7#9 the “purple chord” and used it heavily in the song Purple Haze. American singer-songwriters Stevie Wonder and John Mayer are also synesthetes. Like Hendrix, they associate the sound of music with different shades. Other pop luminaries said to have the condition include Billy Joel, Mary J. Blige and Pharrell Williams – and Mozart is possibly the most famous musical synesthete of all.
In the art world, the French artist Edgar Degas was reportedly a synesthete and David Hockney sees colours when he hears music. Although the condition doesn’t appear to affect his painting or photography, he has been known to base the colours and lighting for ballet and opera stage sets on the colours he sees while listening to music.
The acting world also has its fair share of synesthetes. Tilda Swinton has described how she associates individual words with specific types of food. The word “table” tastes like cake and “tomato” tastes like lemon, she says. Geoffrey Rush has also spoken publically about the experience of being a synesthete. Rush didn’t become aware of the condition until he was in his 40s, but remembers experiencing it at infant school, seeing sounds as colours when he was learning the alphabet. He also associates the days of the week with specific colours and experiences spatial sequence synesthesia, meaning he visualises numerical sequences or dates in physical space. As a winner of the coveted “triple crown” (an Academy, Emmy and Tony award) it’s clear that synesthesia hasn’t had a detrimental effect on the Australian-born actor’s illustrious – and colourful – career.
A synesthete cannot control how or when synesthesia happens and they have no power to choose which senses become entwined. Most people with this fascinating condition have experienced it since childhood, so they have never known life without it. The most common experience for synesthetes is the involuntarily association of sound and colours, but synesthetes have also reported having specific tastes in their mouths when they hear certain sounds, or seeing a certain colour when they hear or read names and words. Scientists have identified over 50 different types of this condition.
Researchers at the Australian National University found that the brains of people with synesthesia can be affected in other ways, too: synesthetes have closer mental associations between related concepts than people without the condition, and the areas of the brain that process language and colour are more strongly connected.
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