Living with Synesthesia, a Sensory Disorder

Everyone knows the five senses: sight, touch, smell, taste, and hearing. But what if those senses overlapped? What if you could hear a color? Taste a touch? See a sound? Then you might be a synesthete, which by definition, is a person with synesthesia.

Synesthesia is a condition in which two or more of the five senses are incompletely separated. My friend, who wished to be called only by her first name Natasha, is a synesthete. She professes not to know much about synesthesia in general because she never studied it. "I thought everyone saw things in colors for almost my entire life, so I never thought it as anything different," she laughed.

Natasha's forms of synesthesia focus mostly on days of the week, numbers, and music. Her days of the week translate into colors, she said, which is typical of grapheme -> color synesthesia. "Monday is aqua, Wednesday is yellow, Thursday is forest green, Saturday is bright burnt orange, and Friday is pewter. Tuesday and Sunday have no colors, although Sunday is occassionally pink."

She experiences the same form of synesthesia with numbers as well. "Some numbers have colors. 1 is yellow, 3 is aqua, 4 and 6 are forest green, 5 is jagged bright like a streak of light, and 7 is turquoise," she said.

When I asked her what she meant by the days and numbers having colors, she explained. "The colors happen whenever I think of Monday, for example, although I have to either read the word or hear myself say it, either out loud or to myself. It's a fleeting thing.

"It's sort of as if someone poured watercolor paint down a sheet of glass - it colors for a moment, then goes. Or as if someone shined a colored flashlight across for a moment - not like a blinking light, but a wash of color moving across," Natasha said. "I don't change the color of the printed letter, day of the week, number, etc. on the paper. It's a 'wash' of color in my brain, often swirling, sort of in the background. The colors never change and are very specific."

Music is affected by Natasha's synesthesia as well, which is called sound -> color synesthesia. "Remember the movie Fantasia? Well, I thought that was the normal way to 'hear' music. Since there was a movie, well, I figured everyone did," she laughed. "Also, in the late '60s and early '70s, concerts all had light shows with them. They were swirling masses of color set to the music - overhead projectors showing masses of oils with swirled colors. It made perfect sense to me. So between that and Fantasia, I just figured everyone saw music that way."

I asked her if the musical synesthesia impaired her everyday activities, such a driving. I was curious if she was able to listen to the car radio. "I can't really listen to music when I do other things, but that's not a factor of the synesthesia. I just get too distracted by the beat, the rhythm, the words. I sing and dance along," she laughed. "I do listen to music in the car and find myself with mental images of notes and colors swirling, but it's like a 'daydream' and doesn't really interfere with driving. I can't listen to classical orchestral music in the car, though, because the imagery of the colors is too overwhelming. The tympani crashes in in pewter colored rumbling waves, the violins soar across in brighter colors, and so on."

Natasha said the only illustration she has found to describe her musical synesthesia has been photographs from the Hubble Telescope.