Synesthesia

I’ve been writing some fiction where the narrator’s daughter is synesthetic. Never heard of it? It is rare, and I’ve talked extensively with someone with this condition.

Synesthesia is often describes as a continual LSD trip. It is a condition where senses cross over and present a strange sort-of sensory overload. Synesthetic people will taste sounds, feel smells and see music in the air. One telling symptom is seeing colored letters or words. A synesthetic person reading this will see each letter has its own color like the photo above, or each word will have their own color letters. Aside form the sensory overload causing difficulties in learning, imagine seeing the word “green” and the letters for this word are always pink. It would be confusing at best.

The synesthetic woman I spoke with told me that when she hears music she can see the air move the way the rest of the people see heat rising. Really loud music really distorts the air for her vision. She told me that she can physically feel a hoop when she smells bread baking. Not with her hands, just with her feelings, the way we remember things we have touched. She also hears what she tastes. She will taste things and hear certain tones.

Imagine being an undiagnosed child with this condition wondering why others so flatly describe the things they are describing.

My wife’s children are both red/green color deficient. She figured this out when they brought home pictures from school and all the evergreen trees they drew were all brown. Red, green and brown all look the same to them. They also favored the color yellow because it is a color they can see vividly.

Is it any wonder there are so many points of view to every topic. Some people see more or less than others. Yet we seem to co-exist in spite our senses or lack there of.