I just finished reading a young adult book, A Mango-Shaped Space. It is about a girl who has synesthesia. This is a condition where stimulation of one sense leads to perception in another sense or another cognitive perception within that sense. Since that sounds like gibberish, the protagonist sees colors when she hears sounds. She also associates each letter or number with a particular color. Other synesthetes might link taste or smell with shapes or colors.
Why do I write about this? Because my wife and daughter have synesthesia. My wife had talked about how she sees colors in numbers, but I didn't really understand it until I stumbled upon the above-mentioned book while looking for a recorded book to listed to on a family trip. My wife also associates color and sound to a lesser extent, such that she can tell you the color of a concert C, for instance. No wonder she has good pitch!
When I found the book, I excitedly told my oldest daughter, who was with me, about my discovery. She surprised me by stating that she also associates colors with letters and numbers. I don't know if sound has any color for her, but the book was an interesting read to me to learn how synesthetes perceive the world. My wife thinks synesthesia is common, but I have assured her that I associate no colors with letters, numbers, sounds, smells, or tastes. My sensory perceptions are very discrete.
Read more about synesthesia here. Synesthetes can have learning difficulties in some areas, for instance foreign languages and math. My wife is good at math, and my daughter does fine, but my wife is terrible at languages, because the equivalent Spanish and English words have different colors, so she has trouble with the associations. But, synesthesia often leads to exceptional ability in the creative arts. My wife is good at art, sculpture, and music. My daughter is good at dance and creative writing and poetry. Synesthesia is also associated with high spelling ability, but my wife and daugher appear to be fairly average in this regard.
Since synesthesia is not a disease or disorder with a "cure," I plan to encourage my daughter to use her synesthesia as an asset to help her perceive things in a richer way and to encourage her to explore careers and hobbies where synesthesia may be an asset. I don't think my older son is a synesthete, but I don't know about the younger two yet.
Family life in Texas, in-house practice, and snippets of LDS (Mormon) theology.
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About Me
- Himni
- Professionally, I'm a commercial/corporate lawyer at a large corporation. Personally, I'm a father of four, a political moderate, and an active Latter-day Saint (Mormon). I'm also a Westerner trying to adjust to the flatlands of Texas.
2 comments:
This topic has come up several times with friends. Most people I talk to associate colors with letters and numbers. We've found (in our circle of friends) that fewer people don't do it. Obviously, though, this is not a scientific experiment. I thought you might find our little mini test group interesting.
Interesting. I'd never heard of it before I met my wife, and I don't know anyone else who has it. I've heard estimates ranging from 1:30 to 1:100000 of the population. For me, it's difficult to imagine how synesthetes see the world, almost like explaining to someone born deaf what sound is like.
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