[synesthesia]

I've been reading Cretien Van Campen's The Hidden Sense: Synesthesia in Art and Science. In it Van Campen wonders how it might feel like to "hear music in colour, or to see someone's name in colour." Me too though sometimes when speaking to listening to people speak (not singing though) I imagine words or letters...not sure if that counts. According to Van Campen, synesthetes "perceive the colours of words and letters only when they read themin written or printed form." Brain scans of synesthetes show that even when blindfolded and listening to spoken words, the areas of the brain responsible for hearing AND colour vision light up simultaneously. This is unlike nonsynesthetes where brain activity is generated "only in the areas known to be responsible for hearing."



For those of you who are not synesthetic you might be interested to try the "synesthesia on demand" application at hypertextopia. My attempt as a synesthete resulted in this:



(text from Van Campen p. 58)

[synesthesia]

I've just bought The Hidden Sense: Synthesia in Art and Science (Leonardo Book) by Cretien van Campen and can't wait to dig in. I've always wondered what it might be like to hear music but then see colours or hearing a word (hypertext for instance) and smelling something (peaches maybe).



Take a look at the image above. What do you see?

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"Someone with number – colour synaesthesia will immediately see a triangle of 2’s – it would stand out because the 2 and the 5 are seen in two different colours."

If synethesia is a

"union of the senses"

does that imply a greater degree of transliteracy (if in fact transliteracy can be measured in degrees or otherwise). Would having synethesia mean readers can experience a variety of modes simultaneously? Images appearing as sounds or text as smells, rendering the whole experience sensory in both the online world and real world?

One of my students, Andy Warrington, on the Digital Cultures module for the IOCT Masters has drawn my attention to this interesting talk by neurologist Vilayanur Ramachandran on brain fuctions including synethesia. Excellent: