Seeing Sounds and Hearing Colors

Before the Eagles kicked off against the Falcons, the group gathered to talk about a common thread among them. Synesthesia.

Brian has been open about sharing his experience with music and how other types of sounds affect him. So, Emily and I decided to open the floor to our spellers to talk about this fascinating condition.

We started our by introducing synesthesia and what it entails.

Rapid fire: Give me a word to describe this condition.

S: Energizing

B: Mesmerizing

N: Interesting

G: Beautiful

A: Creative

K: Distinct

We couldn’t get “energizing” off our minds, so we decided to let the spellers give their two cents on the matter.

N: I can imagine it is refreshing to see the world this way.

G: I agree it is incredibly refreshing to see the world like this.

B: It energizes your senses.

So of course, we had to ask, “Why did you choose ‘energizing?'”

S: It really notches my senses up.

The lesson then turned to grapheme, or color synesthesia. This type of synesthesia is when a person sees individuals letters or numbers “saturated” with a certain color. Some studies have shown that synesthetes – people with synesthesia – will see certain letters the same way.

Let’s play a game! Pick a letter, any letter, and tell me a color for that letter.

N: N (How does it look to you?) It doesn’t look any different

A: H (how does it look to you?) It is almost like apple green

B: H is apple green to me too

S: Me too!

K: H is no different [than any other letter]

G: S (How does it look to you?) It is otherworldly to see. So many colors surround it, lots of shades of red and yellow (How does H look to you?) It is all brown.

Next, we learned about chromesthesia, which is sound-to-color synesthesia. In this case, synesthetes experience colors when they hear sound. Sometimes those colors are in shapes like squares or circles or, in some cases, patterns.

Open the Floor….. “Free Spell”

S: It is hard to describe this. I see colors and textures in numbers and sounds when I hear them materialize in front of me all the time everyday

K: I don’t experience this but I am really interested in how you all experience music.

G: That is absolutely my profile of synesthesia. When I hear sounds I see color. Most often with music but with other things too like when you do that (singing the letters as he spells)

A: I definitely have that but I also experience smells

B: Half of my life I had this condition it is hard to describe but it is my favorite part of my autism.

N: I can imagine this is so interesting to live with. Too bad I don’t get experience it.

K: I’m curious how genres of music sound.

S: I like the colors of country a lot. It is mostly outdoor colors. It is very pleasant. (Is there a particular artist you enjoy?) I love everything country.

B: Each is different in its own way. I like rock the most. Its very expressive in its colors. The diversity of the genre provides a lot of different experiences.

G: I love the classic rock and roll. The colors are magnificent.

A: Not only do I see colors texture and shapes but I see them light up in front of me.

As you can see, a couple K, what are your thoughts?

K: That is really interesting to hear.

N: I love all of your experiences. You all teach me so much.

Do any of you synesthetes have questions you would like to ask to our non-synesthetes?

B: Do you experience music in a unique way?

N: I do have such heightened senses so I think I probably do experience it differently than neurotypical people.

K: I do. It helps me regulate my body.

We continued to talk about music and some of the more famous people with chromesthesia, which include Vincent Van Gogh, Billy Joel, Lady Gaga and Pharrell.

Probably everyone is familiar with Pharrell’s song ‘Happy’. What color does this song suggest to you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM

G: That made beautiful shades of gold, yellow and also blue like the sky.

S: I saw lots of colors like the rainbow.

B: I see so many colors but yellow is the brightest.

K: (What’s your perspective of the song?) I like the song. It has such beautiful words.

A: It expresses many merry and bright colors such as green, red, lime green, purple and yellow.

N: It just screams happiness.

The final bit of synesthesia we talked about was called lexical-gustatory synesthesia. This is where people associate between words and tastes. For example, some may associate a certain word or conversation with a particular smell or taste.

Thoughts on what we just read?

K: These are so cool to hear.

A: I have this too.

G: I am so interested to hear more.

B: That is so incredibly interesting yet so confusing. Its weird that a word may not taste like itself.

S: That is so cool. I don’t have it though.

Tell us about a name and what it tastes like,

A: Your name (Tom) tastes magical. It tastes like my mom’s cooking.

N: That is crazy to hear.

As you can see, some of our spellers have this incredible gift. Our non-synesthetes even have an interesting perspective when it comes to music and sounds. It just goes to show that we are just barely scratching the surface of the autism experience.