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According to its Greek etymology, the word synesthesia comes from the words – syn, together; aisthánesthai, to perceive – which means “simultaneous perception”. More precisely, it can be defined as an intermodal and transmodal phenomenon that consists of the perception of data through at least two different sensory channels , among them, the preferred one by the type of perception and the other. In other words, if I hear a sound and perceive a particular odor, I am having a synesthetic experience.

Even though initially it was only interpreted as an expression of psychopathology (specifically hallucinations), in recent times it has been studied with great interest, since it is considered an absolutely normal, even rare, perceptual modality that denotes a particular sensitivity.

qualities of synesthesia

At least four qualities of synesthesia can be enumerated:

• It is stable : the subject who perceives a given in a synesthetic way will tend to perceive it with this modality throughout his life.
• It is real : synesthesia is an expression of a real perception of the subject, which is not just imagined.
• It is involuntary : synesthesia is done automatically, as if it were a reflex.
• It is unidirectional : if when listening to a certain noise you can also perceive a certain perfume, it is not implied that by smelling this perfume you can hear the noise in question. This means that the connection between one direction and another is only in one direction.

Next, we will see the types and examples of synesthesia.

Linguistic synesthesia is the activation of several senses due to the association that the subject makes between a word and another type of sensation. A person experiencing this type of synesthesia, also called grapheme-color, may associate individual letters of the alphabet or numbers (graphemes) and a specific color . In some cases, even whole words can have their own tone.

This type of synesthesia tends to appear during the early school years, when the child first comes into contact with graphemes. This type of synesthesia is strongly influenced by experience , the main responsible for the association itself and for all types of synesthesia that have been identified so far.

The grapheme-color synesthesia is one of the most widespread and studied. In fact, grapheme-color synesthesia is very beneficial for some people, as it has been shown to aid memory and, by extension, learning. Discover the types of human memory in this other article.

In this type of synesthesia, what happens is that some words or phrases are composed of particular linguistic sounds to make the pronunciation refer to a synesthetic experience in which, in addition to vision, it also involves the auditory canal. For example, the poetic expression “rustling the leaves” presents an alliteration so that the reader, while pronouncing these words, can hear the sound of the leaves moved by the wind.

In cases of representative synesthesia, there can be either a representation of aesthetic synthesis, when a multichannel product that involves the activation of several senses is reached, or an aesthetic translation, when a single-channel product, such as a painting, is studied with the intention of also activate another sense .

Pure synesthetic perception is a phenomenon that does not imply other cognitive processes, but refers to the perception of data through multiple sensory channels . In the case, for example, of individuals capable of “seeing the colors” of words. It is a non-pathological condition, but rare at the level of diffusion in the population.

In ordinal linguistic personification, the synesthete perceives ordered sequences such as numbers, letters, days, or months as if they have intrinsically different personality and gender traits . For example, the synesthete may feel that the letter A is female, the letter T is male, and the letter M has no gender.

In addition, you may also perceive number 5 as subtle and number 9 as demanding. In certain cases, even letters or numbers have personal relationships between them. For example, B and R are friends and neither of them supports Y.

This type of synesthesia is also known as color sound synesthesia and can be explained simply as seeing sounds . In chromesthesia, the sounds that the synesthete hears are associated or perceived as particular colors. The synesthete listens to sound like everyone else, however, in any case where sound is heard, he simultaneously and naturally experiences a color that remains more or less constant with that particular sound.

Some chromesthesia synesthetes take advantage of their condition by using sounds, such as playing a piece of music, as a way to help them relax.

Spatial sequence synesthesia is sometimes called visual-spatial synesthesia and is one of the more intriguing types of synesthesia, where sequences such as numbers, letters, months, and dates perceive each other as points in space . A synesthete who experiences this phenomenon can see the spatial arrangement in their “mind’s eye” or in the actual space around them.

For example, there are synesthetes with spatial sequence synesthesia who, when they think of the letters, can see A farther than B and perhaps B higher than C. The arrangement can take different shapes, for example columns, spirals or circles.

Another example of people with this type of synesthesia is that they perceive the time as a clock situated at specific points in the space around them. Therefore, 12 o’clock has a fixed position, as do hours 1, 2, etc. They can rotate to the hourly position to focus on it and move to it.

This is one of the rarest types of synesthesia and one that has the highest possibility of being an acquired condition (as opposed to congenital) in a synesthete. In mirror contact synesthesia, the synesthete feels the same sensations as someone else . The feeling of touching the mirror can be triggered by real situations, in person or looking at someone on a screen.

For example, while looking at a doctor who places a cold stethoscope on her baby’s back, a mother feels the sensation in her back. Another example would be while watching a friend rubbing a sore spot on their shoulder, feeling the same sensation as rubbing their shoulder. Or maybe, while sitting next to someone on the bus who starts grinding his teeth, the synesthete feels the same uncomfortable feeling in his mouth.

Auditory-tactile synesthesia happens when the sounds heard by the synesthete produce a tactile sensation in certain internal and external areas of the body. A sound might be perceived as a tingling sensation to one synesthete, while to another that same sound is perceived as the pressure we normally associate with something pressing on our skin.

Sounds can be reported as sensations of heat or cold, as if tickling, as if a feather is lightly brushed, or as electrical discharges.

In number synesthesia, the synesthete involuntarily sees a mind map of whatever group of numbers he thinks about . The dispositions in the number form of synesthesia differ from the conventional number line we are taught in school and can be idiosyncratic (unique to each synesthete), and unchanged for the entire life of the synesthete.

The synesthete may have a particular form for the months of the year and another for the dates. Furthermore, the numerical shapes that are perceived are not linked to colors and do not necessarily have any form of symmetry. Numeric shapes can be complex or simple and can imply curved or straight lines or a combination of both.

A person who has lexical-gustatory synesthesia hears words , both spoken and written, as different tastes, odors and textures in the mouth or feels the flavors in the head. The phenomenon has been shown to include non-lexical sounds, that is, sounds unrelated to words such as music or the sound of a jackhammer. Hence the difference, sometimes, of sound-gustatory synesthesia.

Misophonia is a condition in which the synesthete experiences negative and aggressive emotional reactions to sound. It has been described as a hatred of sound and the most common triggers are human-related sounds such as breathing, chewing and moving the lips. It is important to keep in mind that the sounds that trigger misophonia tend to be everyday and unavoidable sounds .