Seeing Sounds: What It’s Like to Live With Synesthesia
By: Kara Mavros
Tags: Senses, Brain, Life, Science, Neuroscience

Elemental: What is happening when someone experiences synesthesia?

Dr. Richard Cytowic: It’s an issue of cross talk. All brains have cross talk among not only the senses, but among the different aspects of cognition and thinking. It’s just that synesthetes have more of this cross talk, and they’re consciously aware that they have it; therefore, they experience this overt synesthesia.

I read that everyone has synesthesia to a degree. It’s just that some are not aware that they have it, right?

We’re largely unaware of the cross couplings that are going on in our brain all the time. For example, when we’re at the movies, we believe that the sound is coming from the actor’s mouth on the screen, not the speakers that are surrounding us. These kinds of things are so common that we don’t even think that they’re unusual in any way. It’s only when people say, “Oh, I see music,” that some think that’s rather peculiar. If you think about it, it has to be that way because otherwise we’d never be as intelligent and creative as we are today.

So this is part of human evolution?

I don’t know if I would frame it in terms of evolution. It’s just that [synesthetes are] aware they have a different texture of reality because they’re more aware of what’s going on. It’s obviously a very delightful trait to have. Synesthetes have measurably superior memories than the rest of us because, again, they have all these different sensations that help them hook things onto. Their ability to index their spatial memory is extremely good. They can see things in their mind’s eye.

I remember talking to my mom about [the way my memory is organized] and asking her, “When you see the calendar, do you see January through June in one column, and then July through December in the other column?” And she just said, “Yeah. Doesn’t everybody?” It’s funny.

So she has a similar [type of synesthesia]. And how does it help you?

It definitely helps with my memory. It helps at work. When I’m trying to recall where I saw something on a page, for example, I can usually in my mind’s eye visualize, “Oh, it’s on my top left page, right over here.” And also just in general, I am very organized and everything has to have its place.

This [spatially-oriented memory] is very typical.

So my mother has it as well — is it genetic?

One in 23 people inherit the genes for synesthesia. A smaller number—or one in 90 people worldwide—has some kind of overt synesthesia. The most common are [seeing] colored days of the week, colored letters and numerals, colored hearings, etc. So, that’s 4% of the population, which is really quite high. Why does evolution maintain this gene for a pretty, but obviously useless, trait? The answer, I think, is that it’s really a gene for metaphor. As a species, it makes us much more creative, and we’re able to see connections that are not necessarily logical or rational.

That must have to do with the fact that we hear of more cases among artists or creatives?

There are more synesthetes who happen to be famous artists than there are famous artists who happen to be synesthetic. So yeah, we know it because of the people who talk about it.

Before this, I googled synesthesia and one of the things that auto-populated in the search bar was, “Is synesthesia a mental illness?” Even though it might have gained more exposure today than when you started researching, people still don’t really understand.

There’s this unwillingness to accept that other people have a different point of view. And then from a biological point of view, a small change in one’s DNA completely alters how you perceive the world. But some say, “Oh, this is crazy because I don’t understand that. Therefore, it must be wrong.”

Are there any correlations that you’ve found between synesthesia and cognitive function?

People with synesthesia have elevated memory; they have elevated spatial sense. Then there are also some real deficits. They have difficulty with arithmetic and with direction findings, so they get lost. Especially in cities that are set up on a grid.

And why is that?

If you have an elevation in one [brain hemisphere], you’re likely to find a diminution somewhere else. It’s a use it or lose it [kind of thing]. And so if you have it, you may have difficulties. Right/left confusion is very common. Direction with signs, difficulty with mathematics—all of that.

You’re describing my life to a T. It’s like how a blind person may have a heightened sense of smell or hearing because they can’t see, right?

It is very common among blind people. Their visuality or unused visual cortex is available—both for other things. And so other brain maps encroach onto the now unused visual cortex.

I know there are different kinds and combinations of synesthesia. How many combinations are there?

About 165 different kinds, but some are much more common than others. And the main thing is that synesthesia is often a one-way street. So, if sound goes to vision, vision normally doesn’t go to sound. There’s a small minority of people who are bidirectional, and it is confusing to them.

What would that look like?

There’s a music teacher outside of London whose synesthesia does go in both directions. She lives a relatively restricted life in the country because otherwise whenever she’s seeing electric signs, [they] create this blaring sound that’s disruptive and confusing. She participated in a BBC documentary [in the 1990s] and agreed to go into Piccadilly Circus at night, with all those neon signs. She described [the sensations] saying, ‘This is a horrible sound and it’s screaming at me.’ And then after about 30 or 40 seconds, she says, ‘I’ve got to get out of here. I’m going to pass out.’

Wow. There are so many more different combinations than I realized.

Again, some are much more common than others. With color and movement and shape, I often say it’s like fireworks as long as the sound is going. So some shape and color appears, it scintillates, moves around a little bit. It fades and gets replaced by something else as long as the stimulating sound continues.

[Overall], I think if there’s [one] lesson in synesthesia, it would be that listening is not a passive experience of hearing sounds. Listening is an active process. Everybody has a point of view different from yours.