Week #4 Overlap and Hidden Senses
J Burns -
When I was little, I posed a very interesting question to those around me. If you invented a completely new color, only you had seen it, how would you convey this to others? No one had a concrete answer. Obviously, this scenario can’t literally happen because while “new colors” are discovered, they are blends with new names. No completely new colors are out there. However, the question brings up an valid and relevant point. When an individual has a unique sense- in this case the sense being a pairing of two other senses, how can they convey that to those who don’t possess it?
This is one of the problems I’m discussing this week. Most sources cite the kinds of overlap that have caused synesthesia to go unnoticed for so long. And overlap within synesthesia itself.
These are problems like sensitivities, spirituality, neurodivergences, metaphors, music enthusiasts, and clusters.
Sensitivities:
I’ve become aware of these especially through the Divergent Minds book and Synesthesia podcast, which I combed through this week. A number of studies have concluded that synesthetes are far more likely to experience anxiety, while others speculate about overlap between Highly Sensitive People and synesthetes. This makes sense because the parts of the brain interacting in both scenarios are affiliated with both these conditions.
Confirmed synesthetes have been known to have their abilities influenced by trauma to the head, caffeine, prescription medication, and for unknown causes. Interestingly, highly sensitive people (as a coined by Elaine Aron, the diagnosable term describes a subset of the population who are high in a personality trait known as sensory-processing sensitivity (SPS)) have been known to be influenced dramatically by the same things.
Also, other sensory differences, like misophonia or autism, are conflated with synesthesia sometimes. The relationship between these conditions isn’t clear yet.
Spirituality:
The only studied way to develop permanent synesthesia is through blindness. (Head trauma has been known to permanently take it away in rare instances, though). Often, blind individuals will “learn” synesthesia to compensate for the lost sight. I have seen no evidence of this happening with any other sense, like hearing, but I’m going to look more so into this later.
However, per the core tenants of Buddhism, synesthesia is a part of Nirvana. Because of this, Monks are also a group of people frequently studied within synesthesia. In fact, the longer a monk meditated for, the more likely they were to perceive synesthesia. So it must be connected on some level with this sort of spirituality as well.
Not only that, but many modern synesthetes cite their synesthesia as evidence of spirituality. Synesthetes and doctors who study it alike, say that it made them aware to the small part of the universe available to humans. There is so much more out there, and the existence of senses that others don’t have is evidence to more going on. Professor Cytowic describes this as a part of the umwelt a synesthete has and furthers his point by explaining that color is a construct our brains make up. Thus, the brain is not passive in the process of what we know of the world.
Scientists say that 2/3rd of our genes are expressed in our brains. I found this interesting because scientists still know so little about the brain. Personally, I agree that there is a kind of spiritual quality associated with synesthesia. When the brain is so powerful, but we rarely see it expressed, I too, wonder if there are entire planes of sensory awareness we don’t even consider.
Metaphors and Musicians:
It’s also nearly impossible to tell if people in the past are synesthetes or not because they could be describing synesthesia that someone else told them about or even speaking in metaphors.
Something I didn’t expect from the podcast was that musicians are more likely to identify as a synesthete, even if they aren’t. In fact, self reporting in the area of synesthesia has been very unreliable. Musicians are more likely to have synesthesia, as is any artistic profession, but at the same time, they are more likely to falsely idea as a synesthete. Dr. Simner expands on this to say that types of perfect pitch overlap slightly with synesthesia.
There are forms that require perfect pitch, and they can become confused. Thus, musicians might report they are synesthetes when they experience one of these other phenomenon.
Clusters:
It wasn’t until recently scientists had an accurate enough understanding of who was and wasn’t a synesthete to be able and map out which kinds of were more common, but along with this, they were able to study which kinds of synesthesia cluster together. You see, the presence of any type of synesthesia makes you 50% more likely to experience an additional type.
They figured that if they measured which types went together, they could discover the mechanism of synesthesia. It wasn’t so simple, but it did provide the categories or “clusters” of synesthesia that are more likely to be expressed together.
The sense or concept coming first in the compound of senses is considered the “inducer” or “trigger”. The one after it is the sense invoked. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve added examples.
The categories are as follows:
language-color (color grapheme)
language-taste (words tasting specific ways)
personification (letters having personalities)
visualized sensations (seeing sounds)
sequence space (seeing the months laid out in space around them)
language-touch (feeling sounds)
smell/taste concurrents (smelling music)
miscellaneous (tickertape)
Sacks, O. (2007). Musicophilia : tales of music and the brain. Picador.
Ward, J., & Simner, J. (2022). How do Different Types of Synesthesia Cluster Together? Implications for Causal Mechanisms. Perception, 51(2), 91–113. https://doi.org/10.1177/03010066211070761
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