Synesthesia- an amazing neurological phenomenon and an unusual mental syndrome, which, despite all its "abnormality", is not a mental disorder. Nowadays, more and more people are discovering synesthesia syndrome, so it has come to be understood as a special view of the world, as a new, expanded, supplemented, higher level than the usual ordinary consciousness, a way of perceiving reality.

What is synesthesia, a mental deviation or a harbinger of the transition of mankind to new level consciousness?

In synesthesia syndrome, there isfusion of sensationsdifferent type. When one sensory system is irritated, the other is also irritated, which normally should not respond to this stimulus. For example, a synesthete, hearing a melody, can see in front of him geometric figures different colors (sound is perceived not only through hearing, but also through vision).

Synesthesia ismixed perceptionwhen several different sensations are born in the mind at the same time.

The person has five sensesthrough which he perceives the world and the correspondingFeel:

• visual,
• auditory,
• taste,
• olfactory,
• tactile.

Synesthetes are usually mixedtwoof the five types of sensations. On this basis, it is customary to distinguish severaltypes of synesthesia:

1. The confusion of visual perception of letters, numbers, words (graphemes) with the perception of color is calledgrapheme color synesthesia. This is one of the most common types of synesthesia, often combined with a phenomenal memory, because the color associations that are born during the perception of a grapheme allow the synesthete to quickly and permanently remember it.
2. Chromosthesia, which is also called “color hearing” is a mixture of color and sound, when, hearing a sound, a person simultaneously sees a color. Many prominent composers and musicians have had chromoesthesia.
3. At kinesthetic-auditorysynesthesia people hear certain sounds when they observe the movement of an object. And these are not the sounds that can be the result of movement, these are associative sounds.
4. Synesthetes with taste synesthesiacan, during the auditory and visual perception of the object, also feel its taste.
5. If the sound evokes certain tactile sensations (touch), synesthesiaacoustic-tactile.
6. Sequence localizationcalled synesthesia, in which a person observes a numerical sequence in the form of points in space.
7. A very unusual and rare type of synesthesia -touch empathy. The synesthete physically feels the same as the other person who is next to him feels.

Many other amazing and amazing types of synesthesia are also known to science, and every day there are more of them.

There are examples when a person mixed not two, but three, four, and even all at once.five types of sensations.

Such a person lived in Russian Empire(later the USSR) and his name was Solomon Shereshevsky (1886-1958). This amazing man had a phenomenal memory, and it was this gift that introduced him to the outstanding Russian psychologist Alexander Luria (1902-1977). Luria's research showed that Shereshevsky's phenomenal memory was due to nothing more than synesthesia, uniting all five senses at once.

Synesthesia as a mental syndrome

Synesthesia began to be studied only in the second half ofXIXcentury, but this phenomenon was known in antiquity to Greek physicians and philosophers. "Synesthesia" is translated from ancient Greek as"co-perception", "co-perception".

As a phenomenon, synesthesia syndrome was born, apparently, in prehistoric times. According to archaeologists, there were also synesthetes among primitive people. Scientists argue that cavemen during ritual dances probably did not share the perception of color and sound, for them these sensations were connected together.

The phenomenon of synesthesia has only been studiedfragmentarily, the exact causes of its occurrence have not yet been found. The problem of studying the syndrome of synesthesia is greatly complicated by the fact that synesthetes are very oftendon't knowabout the unusualness of their perception, since they are used to seeing the world this way and not otherwise, and do not understand how it can be perceived differently at all. Among synesthetes, there are also people who prefer to keep the secret of their unusual perception and do not tell anyone about it.

But, based on those numerous experiments, observations and experiments that were carried out by scientists in the century before last, the last century and today, it is possible to make tri very important conclusions:

1. The mixed perception of synesthesia is not painful or even unpleasant, it is eitherpleasant or neutralby feeling. That is, synesthetes do not suffer from the manifestation of synesthesia syndrome. That is why the syndrome is not recognized as a disease. The synesthete simply knows more about this or that object than people with ordinary perception.
2. Synesthesia syndrome is not onlydoes not interferebut very oftenhelpssynesthetes to live more consciously, to be creative and successful people in life. The inner world of synesthetes is usually much richer, and the consciousness is more developed than that of ordinary people.
3. Many synesthetes are humancreative,possessing extraordinary abilities and talents, brilliant. Creative synesthesia, examples of which are people associated with science, culture and art, is itself the clearest example of the fact that any deviation from the norm is not an obstacle, but, on the contrary, can become the key to success and self-realization.

Such outstanding personalities as V. Nabokov, K. Balmont, M. Tsvetaeva, B. Pasternak, V. Kandinsky, A. Scriabin, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, F. Liszt, N. Tesla and others were synesthetes.

Synesthesia as a new type of perception

Synesthesia as a special, mixed perception of the world is not onlycongenital(genetically transmitted), but alsoacquired(including at a fairly mature age). It may also occurspontaneouslyas a side effect of substance abuse. Sometimes synesthesia issymptomserious brain disease (may occur after a stroke, traumatic brain injury, with brain tumors and epilepsy).

But that's not all! Some type of synesthesiaformby learning to mix different sensations! In the same way as one can develop memory, thinking, speech and any other mental process, one can also develop perception, making it phenomenal.

Synesthesia is an unusual mental syndrome that differs from others in what it is for some people.desired! Nowadays, there are even psychological trainings on how to develop synesthesia in yourself, which helps you see the world and understand life differently.

In fairness, it should be noted that not all scientists agree that synesthesia syndrome can be developed. Some, on the contrary, say that this phenomenon is so spontaneous and unpredictable that it can never be understood and it is completely impossible to learn how to control it.

According to various estimates of scientists, today in the world live from0.05% to 4.4%synesthetes and the number of such special people is increasing.

Perhaps synesthesia will soon become the norm and all of humanity will begin to perceive the world differently, moving to a new level of consciousness?

Read about other unusual mental syndromes in the articles “” and “”.

Paintings by contemporary synesthete artist M. Mac Cracken. The girl sees music in color and draws it.

Synesthesia is a phenomenal state of the human body, in which some sensory (cognitive) directions create a connection with other similar directions. To put it simply, the meaning or understanding of one thing is possible in two different meanings or concepts. For example, a person possessing such a phenomenon is able not only to see color, but with no less success is able to hear color. The connection between the directions is formed involuntarily and consistently in time, excludes a conscious or arbitrary character.

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Personality and the Possession of a Phenomenal Ability

A person experiencing synesthesia does not think about creating a connection. For the owner of the phenomenon, the relationship between pairs of sensations or thoughts is a phenomenon for granted.

Therefore, synesthesia should be considered more of an atypical way of perceiving, rather than a medical condition or neurological abnormality.

Phenomenal perception: 1 - taste sensations; 2 - the function of touch; 3 - functions of the hearing aid; 4 - sense of smell; 5 - view functions

People endowed with the unique ability to experience this phenomenon throughout their lives have been characterized as synesthetes.

Science has explored several types of synesthesia. Meanwhile, all these types of phenomenal state are classified into one of two groups:

1. Associative.
2. Projective.

The owner of the associative type of phenomenon feels the connection of stimuli and feelings. But the possessor of the projective kind of phenomenon actually sees, hears, feels, or tastes the stimulation.

For example, for an associator, the sounds of a violin can create a strong association with the color of the blue sky. The projector, on the other hand, is able not only to hear the melody of the violin, but also is able to actually see the blue color projected in space, as if the violin existed there as a physical object.

At least 80 types of synesthesia are known, but some are more common than others.

What are the types of synesthesia?

The most common types of phenomena can be combined with the following list:

1. Chroresthesia is a common form of synesthesia where sounds and colors are closely related to each other. For example, the musical note "Re" may well correspond to the color green.
2. Grapheme coloring is a common form, characterized by the fact that graphemes (letters or numbers) are perceived by color. Synesthetes do not associate the same grapheme colors with one another. For such people, the letter "A", for example, is perceived as red.
3. A numerical mental form or series of numbers is a perception arising from seeing or thinking about numbers.
4. Lexical-gustatory perception is a rather rare type when perception by ear gives the result of taste. For example, the name of a pleasant person is perceived at the level of chocolate taste.
5. Mirror reflection perception is also a rare form, notable for its destructive power to the lives of synesthetes. In this form, the individual feels sensations as a response to stimulation by another person. For example, when observing an individual who is tapped on the shoulder, the synesthete feels the tapping on his or her own shoulder.

How synesthesia works

Scientists have not fully studied the full mechanism of the phenomenon. However, there is a version that the principle of action is associated with increased crosstalk that occurs between specialized areas of the brain.

According to another version, the mechanism is a decrease in inhibition in the neural pathway, which allows synesthetes to conduct multi-sensory processing of stimuli.

Some researchers believe that synesthesia is based on the ability of the brain to extract and assign forms of stimulus (ideasthesia).

Psychologists who study the phenomenon claim that at least 4% of the world's population has a unique perception. At the same time, more than 1% of people have color synesthesia (colored numbers and letters). There are more women with this phenomenon than men.

Some studies show an increased susceptibility to synesthesia in people with and in people with the characteristic "left-handed" traits.

Regardless of whether there is a genetic predisposition or not, the unusual form of perception is actively discussed in scientific circles.

Can synesthesia develop?

There are documented cases where ordinary people have developed synesthesia. In particular, this was due to:

• head injury,
• stroke,
• brain tumors,
• temporal lobe epilepsy.

Temporary ability often manifests itself from the effects of mescaline, psychedelic drugs, semi-synthetic psychoactive substances such as LSD, as well as as a result of sensory deprivation or as a result of meditation.

It is quite possible for people who do not have synesthesia to develop an association between different feelings through conscious practice. A potential benefit for this development is improved memory functions and reaction time.

For example, a person reacts to sound faster than to sight, or recalls a series of colors better than a series of numbers. Some people with chromesthesia have an ideal basis for development because they are able to identify inscriptions in certain colors.

Synesthesia is closely related to unusual creative and unique cognitive abilities. For example, synesthete Daniel Tammet set a math record of 22,514 digits of pi using the ability to see numbers in memory as colors and shapes.

So, what is this amazing phenomenon that scientists do not classify as mental disorders, but undoubtedly claims to characterize deviations from the norm? Perhaps for someone the answer can be found in the frames of the video.

What is synesthesia?

Synesthesia is a special way of sensory experience when perceiving certain concepts (for example, days of the week, months), names, names, symbols (letters, speech sounds, musical signs), phenomena of reality ordered by a person (music, dishes), own states (emotions, pain) and other similar groups of phenomena (“categories”).

Synesthetic perception is expressed in the fact that the listed groups of phenomena involuntarily acquire in the subjective world of a person, as it were, a parallel quality in the form additional, simpler sensations or persistent "elementary" impressions - for example, color, smell, sounds, tastes, qualities of a textured surface, transparency, volume and shape, location in space and other qualities that are not obtained with the help of the senses, but exist only in the form reactions. Such additional qualities may either arise as isolated sense impressions or even manifest physically. In the latter case, for example, colors can form colored lines or spots, smells can form smells of something recognizable. Visually or bodily, a synesthete can feel the location of three-dimensional figures, as if to feel touching a textured surface, etc. So, the name of the day of the week (“Friday”) can be intricately colored in a golden-greenish color or, say, located slightly to the right in a conditional visual field in which other days of the week can also have their own location.

Synesthesia used to be characterized as an intersensory connection or "cross-modal transfer". However, this is only partly true. Such an understanding inaccurately describes the phenomenon itself and does not point to it. reason. First of all, synesthesia, although in most cases, but still does not always involve different feelings. For example, when coloring letters, both the signs on paper and their synesthetic color belong only to vision. On the other hand, systematic selectivity synesthetic responses (for example, only "to letters", but not to punctuation marks and other printed characters, or only "to music", and not to all noises and sounds) indicates that synesthesia is based more on the so-called " primary categorization" - preconscious grouping of phenomena at the level of perception.
Moreover, all phenomena that can cause synesthesia are the results of a person’s practical or mental activity. These are, as a rule, symbols, concepts, sign systems, names, names. Even such seemingly natural manifestations as pain, emotions, the perception of people (which some synesthetes may perceive as color spots or “auras”) are certain ways of grouping or classifying, albeit unconscious, but still dependent on personal experience. , that is, from life with other people - from the environment and culture, as well as from the meaning, which affects the selectivity of synesthetic reactions.

Simplifying, we can say that involuntary synesthesia is an individual neurocognitive strategy: a special way of knowing that manifests itself at a certain, very early point in life in the form of an unusually close connection between thinking and the system of feelings (cognitive-sensory projection). Because of this, synesthesia requires adequate research methods that would go beyond the "stimulus-response" and would include, among other things, the idea of ​​the complex, individual dynamics of a person's mental activity, highlighting the synesthetized stimuli by endowing them with a special meaning.

How does synesthesia manifest itself?

People who have such an unusual way of perceiving are called "synesthetes" or "synesthetics" (I prefer the first, less "hospital" term). For each synesthete, the phenomenon of synesthesia can develop very individually and can have both single and multiple manifestations. In the latter case, synesthesia is called "multiple" or "multidimensional" - when synesthesia occurs not on one, but on several groups (categories) of symbols or phenomena.

There is a “projecting type” synesthesia, in which the synesthete really sees or feels colors, smells and other additional qualities, as it were, on top of the objects of the world perceived by the senses. In contrast to this type, the “associating” type is singled out, in which additional qualities subjectively appear in the synesthete in the form of involuntary knowledge or in the form of a reaction at the level of persistent impressions that are not physically expressed, that is, in the form of projections. True, such a division is very arbitrary - you can often find intermediate options for synesthetic perception.

For example, what color is the cold water faucet? You will probably answer: "Blue". After all, this knowledge is formed by your experience: a cold tap is most often indicated in blue. But in fact, the color of the tap and the temperature are not identical and do not depend on each other in any way. A synesthete also has sensations that certain objects, symbols, sounds have some qualities that are not associated with them in the sensation and experience of other people. But unlike your blue faucet, the synesthete cannot remember exactly what formed the connections of his sensations.

In the name of the types of manifestation of synesthesia, the formula "stimulus-response" is traditionally adopted. That is, if you hear that someone has "grapheme-color" synesthesia, it means that he or she sees or feels an image of letters or numbers in color. If you yourself perceive music in the form of naturally and involuntarily manifested color spots, stripes, waves, then you are a “musical-color” synesthete.

The term "color hearing", although it has survived to this day, is still not entirely accurate: it can denote a color reaction to both music and speech, and until a certain time it was generally a complete synonym for synesthesia in all its manifestations without exception - probably , for the sole reason that other types of synesthesia have been little studied or completely unknown.
There are other classifications of types of synesthesia. For example, it seems logical to me to divide the manifestations of synesthesia into more basic, sensual (for example, speech sounds or emotions) and more conceptual, “abstract” (for example, days of the week or numbers). Such a division, in my opinion, focuses the researcher's attention on the mechanisms around the immediate cause of the very phenomenon of synesthesia: on the primary, preconscious categorization.

Synesthesia is experienced involuntarily- that is, against the will of the synesthete. However, most synesthetes can induce synesthetic sensations in themselves by recalling those concepts or phenomena that usually give rise to synesthesia in them. It is impossible to do this without recalling characteristic concepts or phenomena.

Most often, they have had synesthesia for as long as they can remember: from early childhood. Most likely, the development of synesthesia is beyond the temporary threshold of the so-called infantile amnesia. True, some synesthetes claim to be able to point directly to the point in their lives when they first experienced synesthetic sensations. I do not rule out such a possibility. However, I assume that it is not the very first synesthetic sensations that are remembered, but, most likely, those that made a greater impression than usual. Another, more complex explanation could be the phenomenon of transfer, in which, for example, a synesthete child who perceives individual sounds of speech in color, when learning to read, begins to “see” the written letters in color - after all, each of them already has a “color” for him. » sound. It is this moment that is remembered as the beginning of synesthesia, in fact it is not.

So, if your sensations are characterized by the above descriptions - that is, they are involuntary, constant, appear in the form of "elementary" qualities (bursts of color, volumes, textures, etc.) and you cannot trace how and when they you have, then most likely you are the owner of congenital synesthesia.

Why does synesthesia occur? A little about theories

Scientists are always very careful with conclusions about complex phenomena, such as human brain in general and involuntary synesthesia in particular. Today, synesthesia is studied as if "in parts", fragmentarily. Someone, having chosen one specific manifestation, tries to understand it in more detail. Someone explores the nature of attention and memory in a synesthete. Someone studies the anatomy of the brain and the dynamics of neural activity. Someone - a possible tendency of synesthetes to imaginative thinking ... The situation is further complicated by the fact that Western neuroscience now lacks a common theoretical base - that is, such a pragmatic picture of brain functions and their physiological basis, which would be shared by most researchers.

Neurophysiology, neurochemistry, bioelectrical activity, cognitive styles, individual functions of perception are often considered in forced isolation from the whole picture of the brain (it must be admitted that it is not yet as clear as we would like). Of course, this makes research easier. But as a result, a huge amount of statistical and individual data has accumulated about synesthesia, which are extremely scattered.

Yes, original classifications and comparisons appeared, certain strict patterns emerged. For example, we already know that synesthetes have a special nature of attention - as if "pre-conscious" - to those phenomena that cause them synesthesia. Synesthetes have a slightly different brain anatomy and a radically different activation of it to synesthetic “stimuli”. It is also known that Synesthesia can be genetic in nature, that is, it can be inherited. And many many others.

However - and maybe that's why! - general theory there is no synesthesia (scientifically proven, universal idea about it) yet.

However, there are consistent, consistent hypothetical descriptions that are called "models" in science.

At different stages of research in foreign neuroscience since the 1980s (and in Soviet / Russian neurophysiology - since the 1950s), different versions of the explanation of possible synesthetic mechanisms have been put forward. One of them was that in a synesthete in a certain part of the brain, the processes of neurons called "axons" - the nerve pathways - lose (or insufficiently develop) the myelin sheath. Due to the thinned layer of myelin "insulation", neurons begin to inadvertently exchange electrical excitations, causing phantom synesthetic images of colors, smells, etc. Another popular explanation, still valid today, is that synesthetes' brains retain certain "neural bridges" from early childhood that facilitate connections between the senses (this is the so-called "rudiments of synaptic pruning" hypothesis). Presumably, such connections are fully developed in infants who perceive the world as a chaotic picture in which colors, sounds, touches and "signals" of other senses are mixed and merged.

However, both of these hypotheses - incomplete myelination and rudiments of pruning - did not win universal support in scientific circles. Most likely, due to the fact that they do not quite correspond to our ideas about the psychological characteristics of the synesthetic experience.

The point is - and I've talked about this before - that synesthetic experiences are very selective. For example, if a synesthete “sees” music or letters, “hears” certain movements, then other sounds or signs on paper, as well as movements of a different nature, do not cause him synesthesia. Can an infant "store" neural connections to letters or music if he must first see them and learn to recognize them? The situation is similar with incomplete myelination: even if there is a local “network break” of neurons, can we explain the selective transmission of neuronal charge in it without explaining the properties of the entire network? In other words: can the gap "recognize" music or letters, or even be "aware" of the days of the week? Naive assumption!

To get rid of such contradictions, another proposal was put forward on the neural basis of synesthetic connections - on a particular example of grapheme-color synesthesia (coloring numbers or letters). So far, this explanation is the most common version of the neurobiological model of synesthesia. According to her, between two adjacent areas of the cerebral cortex, "responsible" for the color and letters (or numbers), there is cross-activation ("cross-activation"). At the same time, the "color zone" is functionally subordinate to the work of the "alphanumeric" area - either through the preserved "infant bridges", or on the basis of incorrect or absent suppression of the work of the "color zone" (due to the release of special chemical agents-neurotransmitters, with the help of which neurons "communicate" among themselves at "short and long distances").

The main feature of this understanding of the mechanisms of synesthesia is the localization of function, that is, the location of the observed function in a specific area of ​​the brain. In this case, synesthesia occurs due to the fact that the zone of recognition of letters or numbers in the cerebral cortex is presumably associated with the zone of color discrimination, and the region of connection itself is located somewhere in the middle: in the fusiform gyrus.

Note also that, according to the "cross-activation" model, synesthesia is an innate sensory phenomenon caused by the mutation of certain genes. It is this mutation that causes the unusual joint activity of these areas of the brain. As evidence, the researchers draw attention to the fact that, firstly, in the brain of grapheme-color synesthetes, in the communication zone, the volume of white matter (that is, the number of axons) is increased. Second, on specially designed tests, a synesthete searches for certain letters or numbers much faster than a non-synesthete. Thirdly, functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reveals high metabolic activity in this zone.

The big omission of this understanding of synesthesia is that it ignores at least three facts.

First, we must keep in mind that, as I said, synesthetic sensations are strictly selective. Secondly, many types of manifestation of synesthesia must include zones that are located at a great distance from each other. And, thirdly, this model does not take into account the special symbolic role of stimuli that cause synesthesia, such as music, letters, names, and other complex phenomena of human culture. These complex phenomena become possible due to the simultaneous work of many brain structures, and not its individual areas exclusively in the cerebral cortex.

As an attempt to develop an alternative model and reduce the theoretical gaps in the theory of cross-activations, I proposed integrative neurophenomenological paradigm of synesthesia research.

This approach in the broadest sense includes a consistent comprehensive study of both environmental influences and possible genetic predisposition, both cognitive (mental) and sensory features, both subjective experience and objective manifestations of the phenomenon of synesthesia. The result was a model called "Oscillation-Resonance Correspondence" or OCR. According to this model, synesthesia is an involuntary sensory manifestation of a specific neurocognitive strategy.
In a very simplistic way, such a strategy can be described as overreacting or overreacting to stimuli of a certain kind. The peculiarity of these stimuli is that for their "processing" it is necessary to simultaneously combine two skills: individual selection from a certain group (for example, recognition of a specific letter as such) and inclusion in a meaningful sequence (words, sentences, etc.). Applications of the skills of using systems of conventional signs (language, music, etc.) are always individual and situational, that is, they are fundamentally open. It is this “openness” that gives rise to a special attitude towards them in the synesthete - a kind of intense expectation that the sequence (sounds, letters, names, days of the week) can contain new and new elements and meanings.
Here it should be noted that we are talking about a child who does not know in advance how many days there are in the week or the letters in the alphabet and what their combination can stand for each subsequent use. This expectation generates an overreaction.

The structures of the brain (basal ganglia), through which the dual skill of "recognition-inclusion" is realized, are anatomically associated with another structure - the thalamus, which gives experiences a sensory quality. Therefore, the thalamus takes this excessive reaction on itself - and the integral system of the brain interprets this as an additional sensation that corresponds to one or another "signal" coming from the outside from the senses. This happens not through linear synaptic discharges of individual neurons, but through the total resonant capture - as if by a "common wave" - ​​of some large clusters of neurons distributed over many areas of the brain by other neuron groups.

Let's explain even more simply. It can be said that those brain structures that are responsible for recognizing elements (letters, numbers, touches, sounds) and including them into a single whole - that is, a category - are so "overexcited" that they transmit tension back "into" the brain, where there are structures responsible for the perception of more elementary qualities, such as color, taste, smell, etc. Thus, in the perception of, for example, a letter, more structures are included than is really necessary - and an unusual connection of a letter with color, taste, or a sense of volume arises. As a "sensual echo" of the most complex symbolic thinking.
Each element of this model still requires careful confirmation. But even now it can be said that none of its provisions contradicts the observed facts about synesthesia and general ideas about the work of the brain. Moreover, the hypothetical foundations of the neurodynamics of synesthesia (called the “synesthetic factor”, according to A. Luria), identified in the ORS model, include most of the types of synesthetic experience known today. And highlighted in it general characteristics stimuli eliminates the rough understanding of the interaction of heredity and environment in the development of neural activity as the basis of appropriate cognitive skills.

Synesthesia: norm or pathology?

Synesthesia - although extremely unusual, is quite common. According to some researchers, the maximum number of synesthetes is 4 percent. This means that out of a hundred people among us, four - one in twenty-five - may have synesthesia in one form or another. I myself consider this statistic to be a little overestimated due to the fact that the method and place of its collection were not quite adequately chosen (museum largest city). A figure of 0.05% seems more realistic. Nevertheless, the numbers, even with such a sample, do not at all speak in favor of the sweeping and stereotypical conclusion of medical enthusiasts. In addition, I am sure that synesthesia has nothing to do with medical insurance costs, reporting at district clinics or sick leave.

Of course, we want everyone around to think and feel the same way. Like all "normal" people. Therefore, even in large publications, sometimes there are small flashes of psychological discrimination in the form of variations of the phrase "suffer from synesthesia syndrome." But since such passages are not substantiated in any way and a large number of facts testify to the contrary, this is written no more than out of ignorance.

The answer to the question of pathology can be given from at least two positions: from the point of view of scientific conclusions and on the basis of common sense. In the case of synesthesia, these perspectives almost coincide.

Synesthesia may be a symptom of a neurological disorder, but in and of itself it is not a pathology. Contrast this with numeracy and numeracy skills: their presence, absence, or hypertrophied manifestations can, along with other signs, serve as signals of special development. But their highly uneven distribution among people of different professions and mindsets is no reason to diagnose all mathematicians. I emphasize that synesthesia is absent both in the list of ailments listed in the latest edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), and in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) - unlike claustrophobia, exacerbation of appendicitis, stomach ulcers or banal depression.

There is no evidence in history that the writer Vladimir Nabokov, the physicist Richard Feynman, the composers Franz Liszt, Jean Sibelius and Olivier Messiaen complained about their unusual sensations or sought medical help about them. The Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who enriched his science, and at the same time the entire world community, with the concepts of "autism" and "schizophrenia", had grapheme-color synesthesia. However, he never put the features of his own perception - which he himself called secondary sensations - on a par with the main objects of his research.

The prevalence of synesthetic reactions, their diversity and the individual manifestations of such cognitive abilities as memory, figurativeness of ideas, sensation and imagination, give full reason to call synesthesia an insufficiently studied deposit that manifests itself at a very early age. A deep and systematic study of this deposit will help shed light on our understanding of the connection between abstract thinking and the sensual sphere.

How and who studies synesthesia?

Synesthesia in the world is studied by about a hundred psychologists and neurophysiologists and a myriad of specialists in linguistics, design, literary criticism, art criticism, as well as scientists in other fields. Everyone chooses his own perspective and coverage of the phenomenon and, using the methods inherent in his science or direction, tries to understand the result of synesthetic impressions, the way a work of art is designed, the sensual imagery of a writer or poet, the perception of combinations of color, lighting and volume, and similar phenomena. This may or may not apply at all to what has been termed "synesthesia" in psychology.

Of course, the confusion from such blind borrowing of terms and "cross-pollination" of sciences and practices only intensifies. Often, synesthesia is understood as various kinds of free intersensory analogies. However, this kind of experience is very complex, because it depends on personal factors(style of thinking, previous experience, leading feelings, etc.), from the current situation and the acceptability of decisions, the image of the world, from the physical state of a person at that very unique moment of creating an image or metaphor. But the main thing is that such metaphors are inherently based on spontaneous and free knowledge of the world, the creation of new connections and relationships at every moment of time, and their results are embodied in different (!) images every time. How similar intersensual metaphorical comparisons are to the constancy and involuntaryness of physically concrete synesthetic reactions should be the subject of more than one work of those who take the liberty of directly comparing or, conversely, refuting the similarities between these phenomena. I hope that some of them are doing just that now.

In particular, psychologists and scientists in the cognitive sciences, as well as when working with other phenomena of human cognitive activity, explore synesthesia in several ways: both psychological and instrumental. As expected, they use observation and interview methods, questionnaires and various general and individually constructed tests, the main of which are tests for consistency and constancy, serial search (picture with fives and twos, for example), Stroop test with individually ( incongruous colors, letters or sounds, and other research methods related to the features of the manifestation of memory, attention, sensory sphere, imagery, etc.

The main goal in the study of synesthesia is the search for mechanisms nervous system of a person, which underlie the synesthetic features of perception. To do this, scientists first have to split one big goal into several immediate tasks and subtasks. For example, learn to determine whether a person really has synesthesia by external signs that appear during psychological testing. Comparing the results of performing a certain task in a synesthete and a non-synesthete, the researcher must learn to draw objective conclusions. In the ideal case - even regardless of the test subject's self-report.

Such a study helps to quickly and accurately determine the next steps. And since physiological study equipment is often expensive or unavailable for some reason, this stage may be the first and only one.

However, one should not think that psychological and neurophysiological tests are universal and omnipotent. It is likely that the test has not yet been created directly for your manifestation of synesthesia, or the features of your perception are not captured by existing methods of confirmation. It all depends on how correctly you describe your type of synesthesia and how accurately the researcher selects or creates an individual test for you.

As an example of the use of neuroimaging tools (obtaining an image of the structure and functioning of the brain in the form of snapshots or in a special way fixed electromagnetic waves) can be called almost all data acquisition technologies available today. Starting in the mid-1980s with positron emission and computed tomography (Richard Saytovik), researchers moved on to more modern methods, such as magnetoencephalography (MEG), brain diffusion tractography (DTV). Of course, they used and still use electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Each of these tools has its own limitations and possibilities. EEG and MEG provide a good fixation of brain reactions in time, but are inferior to MRI in clarity and accessibility in the form of a photographic three-dimensional image. Therefore, whenever possible, synesthesia research combines means of obtaining data for reliability, and the discoveries made with their help are compared and used to refine and put forward new hypotheses.

It must be borne in mind that our scientific knowledge about the phenomenon of synesthesia is based on generalizations and is already very limited for this reason alone. Rather, it should be considered a form of collective experience, and not an invasion of privacy, the formula of which can hardly be calculated and placed in a frame. By wanting to know more (or less) about ourselves, we create the content of our lives. Someone else's experience is just a distant analogy. It should be noted once again: synesthesia is a complex phenomenon, relating to a number of questions about subjectivity and consciousness in their fundamentally constant development. Probably, it will be trite to repeat that the very existence of such questions is both the result of previous decisions and the motive of the next stages of self-knowledge. My position here is that this kind of ambiguity is not a cause for despair, hoaxes or conflicts. In the openness of such questions we find the condition of vital creativity, individuality and unpredetermined choice. The share of uncertainty makes the situation real and filled with experiences.

Synesthesia research will inevitably lead to new discoveries. But they will also lead us to new frontiers and "mysteries" in the realm of the sensual and the symbolic, in which everyone can again find both their own comforting constancy and their own creative uncertainty.

How can you tell if you have synesthesia?

There are many varieties of synesthesia documented by researchers: something like 70. In my observation, each variety may have several more subtypes of manifestation, as fellow scientists, for convenience or in ignorance, apply insufficiently clear bases for classifications. However, if you have a more or less common form of synesthesia, then there is probably already a special test for it, even more than one (see above for ways to test synesthesia). However, we continue to discover new varieties and new bases for grouping their manifestations. So, sound synesthesia for movement and color synesthesia for swimming styles were recently discovered (!!). However, if synesthesia is understood not as an intersensory connection, but as a connection between thinking and feelings, based on preconscious classification, then these discoveries are a continuation of this research logic.

A person often discovers the synesthetic features of his perception by accident. For a long time considering synesthesia as a common experience for all people, he suddenly in a conversation, while watching a TV show or other media materials, concludes that he is original. At the same time, one should not confuse the originality of the personality as such, and of our subjective world in particular, with the involuntary nature of synesthetic reactions. After all, synesthesia is not associations: the synesthete often does not know what is behind each connection, and these connections have a very special character. For example, a synesthete, whose names are painted in a certain color, regardless of the alphabetic composition (the name Alexander is brown, and Alexei is white, etc.), has completely new and even exotic names for our culture, such as Gottlieb or Bertrand, will acquire a certain color, unpredictable even for the synesthete itself. What is the association here? With what exactly and for what reason?

Therefore, synesthesia - with the aim of identifying it and distinguishing it from a number of other phenomena - is understood not just as a sensual connection, but as an excessive one, one that, as it were, duplicates sensory activity and has a very strict systematic, regularity and involuntariness. Synesthesia hardly changes over time. Synesthetic sensations occur even if you are not paying attention to them. As a rule, they are very ordered, that is, selectively appear on some special groups of sounds, letters, concepts, names. To understand yourself more clearly, you can compare your feelings with the feelings of acquaintances and friends, delve into the available literature and, of course, take a survey ( questionnaire posted on our website).

What is the meaning of synesthesia?

My close and friendly communication with more than a dozen synesthetes opened for me amazing fact: the meaning of synesthesia for the synesthete itself can vary from complete indifference to it to exalted admiration for it. It all depends on personal characteristics, worldview and experience. So, probably, it should be. The less a phenomenon is studied, the more personal interpretations are saturated with its understanding.

Synesthesia may be the main perceptual property around which the inner world synesthete, his creativity and relationship with other people. Sometimes the opposite happens: synesthesia can be avoided, hidden and cause complexes, feelings of inferiority or doubts about one’s “adequacy”. In both cases, it is important to have educational materials, joint communication, the ability to understand one's unique properties, not only and not so much synesthetic, but also those that are manifested in the comparison of all personal qualities, a vision of oneself holistically, in development, in relation to with others. Then synesthesia does not acquire the veil of a mysterious gift, does not become an annoying ballast or worthless curiosity, but appears as an individual feature of perception, a significant skill and trait that can develop harmoniously.

The phenomenon of synesthesia is also important for culture and art. This is a highly developed topic, and I can only superficially retell its most general points without claiming to have a complete understanding.

First of all, synesthesia as a way of creativity or, more precisely, as a worldview is very common in the works of romanticism and symbolism. It provides the basis for the formal methods of abstractionism and is the effect upon which the technical solutions of some modern multimedia works are designed. Probably, the appeal to intersensual connections returns the fullness of sensations to the work, saving it from the bored one-dimensionality and “knurled” practice of self-expression, which appear in a genre or movement due to repetitions at previous stages of the development of art.

Any work claims to build a holistic world - that is, to one degree or another it is synesthetic. Therefore, in my opinion, it is important to understand the very reason for the artist's declaration of his works as synesthetic or intersensual. For romantics, this could be a programmatic step, marking a break with the stiffness of the era of classicism and manifested itself in a wave of experiments with sensuality against the backdrop of protests against the rationalism that dominated the knowledge of the world. In turn, if it were not for the synesthetic manifestos of Kandinsky, abstractionism would have quickly exhausted the means available to vision and the canvas. In this case, synesthesia contributed to the establishment of completely new links between subjective experience and its reflection - the renewed symbolism of abstract shapes and colors. For multimedia artists, it is important to claim the full-bloodedness of the virtual space they create and an attempt to escape by including other, apart from vision, feelings from a pixelated world without shadows and gravity.

Another important cultural significance of synesthesia – and here I am talking about the phenomenon of involuntary synesthesia – is the experience of mystical revelation. Most likely, the first reports of synesthesia were perceived in this way. If you think about the fact that some manifestations of synesthesia are similar to the description of “auras” and “emission of energies”, that before the mass spread of writing, the vast majority of books were of a religious nature, and music accompanied mainly cult performances or was a relative rarity, then synesthesia could be perceived as physical confirmation of the existence of another world and the proximity of some people to sacred sources and actions, that is, to the knowledge of something inaccessible to others.

In the framework of scientific research on the human psyche, the significance of synesthesia, in my opinion, has not yet been fully appreciated either in foreign or in Russian psychology. The fact is that researchers often pay attention to the more visible, manifesting side of synesthesia: the coloring of music, the visualization of a sequence of numerical series or time units. Of course, these manifestations are very important, but not only as a fact, but also as a possibility of the human mind - random or regular. However, it is even more important to try to understand the condition and basis of its occurrence in the context of a holistic, systematic understanding of the human nervous system.

In my opinion (I will greatly simplify my position here), the study of synesthesia can shed light not only on private questions about the features of memory, attention or perception of a person, but also, taking into account, on the one hand, the symbolic nature of synesthesia, and on the other, its fusion with the unconscious mechanisms of the psyche, contribute to our understanding of such strictly human manifestations as symbolization, abstract thinking, the connection of thinking and sensations, their natural interaction. That is, the study of synesthesia can, in essence, reveal some aspects of the balance between freedom and determinism, which allows us to get rid of environmental dependence, but nevertheless keeps a person in adaptive tension and does not allow us to completely break away from the essential reality.

Synesthetic mechanisms make the symbol, sign and abstract concepts individually significant and at the same time physically real and universal, as if immersed in physiology and thereby acquiring self-sufficiency. The maximum program in the study of synesthesia, in my opinion, should be just such a definition and identification of the synesthetic foundations of human consciousness.

Is synesthesia creative?

The answer to this question depends more on what you define as creativity than on the phenomenon of synesthesia itself. Most often, creativity is called something original, new and, most importantly, useful. These are very subjective assessments, just like creativity itself. If the synesthete simply expresses his feelings on canvas or in music without rethinking or tension - the value of this, of course, is doubtful. This formal approach is valuable for enriching the means of art or design and often dominates in conservative periods. There are also reverse examples, when synesthesia plays the role of a conductor of new meanings.

Vladimir Nabokov, according to some researchers, starting from his own involuntary synesthesia, literally filled his works with new organics, original connections of feelings, creating a semblance of sensory montage. The same example of the conversion of involuntary synesthesia into creative synesthesia was the work of the bell-player Konstantin Saradzhev: he perceived more than one and a half thousand shades of colors in one octave and used this heightened sensation to study bell ringing and create bell symphonies.

Of contemporary synesthete artists who use their involuntary synesthesia in an original way, we can recall Marcia Smileyk(there is a material about it on our website). Her impressionistic photographs capture moments saturated with a synesthetic impression – sound. It is no less fascinating to read the texts of Marcia, in which she conveys to us the moments of the metamorphosis of her experience in a semi-meditative form.

However, involuntary synesthesia can - with some reservations - be considered a creative phenomenon from a more specific point of view. The fact is that synesthesia, although it appears spontaneously and without the consent of the synesthete itself at a very early age, can serve as a special strategy, an original way of highlighting some phenomena of the outside world: letters, music, people's names, etc. It can be simplified to say that synesthesia is the sensual creativity of a synesthete child, which turns out to be very useful for him. All three qualities of the creative act are present here. The only warning can be that the constant use of a certain find without introducing novelty and creating meanings erases the gloss and power of impressions from it. So, whether creativity is synesthesia or not is up to you to judge. In any case, in order not to devalue either synesthesia or the creative act, it is not worth putting a complete equal sign between them easily.

How can synesthesia be used?

A thousand different ways. Due to the fact that synesthesia contributes to the perception of complex and systemic concepts, as it were, in terms of simpler sensations (remember: we remember metro lines more easily by their color than by name and place on the diagram), perhaps the most natural and urgent ways will be more easy memorization of phone numbers and names of people (in grapheme-color synesthetes), melodies and keys (in people with color ear for music), dates of events (in synesthesia with colored or localized sequences). People who perceive written words in color are much easier to detect spelling inaccuracies in them - by incorrect coloring that gives an error. But this is only the result of abilities, and how, where and with what personal meaningfulness to use it is up to the synesthete himself.

Many synesthetes are attracted to creativity, one way or another related to their form of synesthesia: music, painting, and even culinary arts. Close attention to color, imaginative thinking, keen perception of music (sometimes combined with absolute pitch), memory for shape and texture often lead synesthetes to take photographs, painting, design, and music. However, whether you perceive your synesthesia as an accident, a curiosity or a gift, in order to become the basis of creative action, it will always need development, rethinking and new forms of application.

Among the professions chosen by synesthetes, psychology also occupies a significant place, and in foreign countries the role of a neurophysiologist researcher and a synesthete test subject is also often combined in one person. Laurence Marks, one of the most experienced neurophysiologists who has devoted more than 40 years to the study of synesthesia, without being a synesthete himself, in an interview for our website, suggested that such a combination can have both pluses and minuses.

Since our research is by no means at the initial stage, we would like to hope that the negative aspects - subjective interpretation, excessive evaluation or overgeneralization - have been left behind. But this does not mean that there are enough synesthetes-scientists in psychology or neurophysiology. There should be more of them, in my opinion. Who, if not them, should follow the call of Socrates in the field of knowledge of synesthesia?

Are we all "synesthetes"?

All people have memory, but this does not give grounds to call us all "mnemonists". The term exists in order to distinguish people with a special quality of perception. There is no more elitism in this than in the profession of a mathematician, who uses the features and abilities of his mind for certain cognitive and creative purposes.

Terminological confusion, however, sometimes goes even further and leads to a confusion of two phenomena: involuntary synesthesia and intersensory figurative thinking, the connection of which, although it seems subjectively obvious, has not yet been objectively and analytically proven. The reverse side of this simplification is the passionate attempts to classify famous personalities from the sphere of art and science as synesthetes. Wassily Kandinsky, Olivier Messiaen and Richard Feynman possessed or did not possess synesthesia - the topic of a separate article. However, (different) answers to this question will not bring us any closer to understanding the very essence of the phenomenon: after all, among synesthetes there are people who devote their lives not only and not so much to creativity, but among the most prominent artists, composers or physicists there were still not so many synesthetes .

However, each of us has experienced what might be called "synesthetic insight": a brief, fleeting experience in which an image or situation that has captured our attention triggers a new, inexplicable experience in us. For example, after watching a sad and gloomy movie, you can really feel a depressing physical state, and after watching comedies, you can feel real lightness and relaxedness.

The fact is that, probably, the meaning of the film turned out to be so significant for us that it caused not only an emotional reaction, but also literally captured us physically, so to speak, “overwhelmed” our feelings. Probably, this is exactly what people of a creative warehouse experience when immersed in questions about the meaning of a particular situation and, being involved in it literally with their whole being, they experience it so emotionally that it causes new sensations in them, for which they select an original image. What kind of image it will be - visual, bodily, auditory, etc., in other words, what sphere of sensations the "sensory projection" will fill - depends equally on the characteristics and preferences of the poet or artist himself, and on those accepted in his cultural environment. ways of experiencing and expressing: the smells of the morning - in a playful melody, a declaration of love - in dance, the sounds of music - in color. The poet's situation in this case is extremely similar to the situation of a synesthete child trying to comprehend meanings that are still obscure to him with the help of the innate abilities of the organism available to him.

On the other hand, from the education and upbringing system both abroad and in our country, calls to “develop synesthetic abilities” began to sound when educational theorists began to discover with horror that the bodies of most of the children they raised anatomically began to repeat the shape of a chair and desks, and intelligence - a school board with formulas in a column. However, what was a great undertaking gradually turned into another template and "paragraph in the manual." In this context, the so-called "development of synesthesia" often comes down to the imposition of certain means of expression, very predictable for our culture (music and drawing), with the obligatory search for pictorial connections between them. At the same time, as a rule, the goal is not set to teach the child to be fluent in the entire palette, the plasticity of sensuality, the logic of movement and the range of thinking - from touching the beating heart of a friend to the taste of snow and the feeling of weightlessness - everything that makes up the intellectual potential in his personally significant spontaneous manifestation and in the broad, unlimited sense of this concept.
Is it worth talking about synesthesia as an educational task in this case? I think it’s worth it - unless, of course, this is another formal-theoretical attempt on creative development a child in whom intellectual and sensual boundaries, it seems to me, should not be imposed from outside, but should be found or created by the child on his own with the sensitive and very careful help of an adult.

Who was a famous synesthete?

Up to a certain point in the past - and this once again demonstrates the close relationship between science and everyday understanding - as long as there were no strictly fixed terms in the language and interest in the sphere of perception was more blurred than today, it is difficult to talk about biographical and autobiographical works. , including a description of the experiences of intersensory associations. Nevertheless, for example, according to the results of my own, very cursory acquaintance with the articles and memoirs of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, and also judging by the analysis of the composer's works, performed by psychologist P. Popov and published by him in the journal Psychological Review (No. 1, 1917), a cautious conclusion can be made: Nikolai Andreevich really had a “color ear” for the pitch of sounding notes .

A reverse example of the hasty admission to the ranks of the synesthetes is the myth of the synesthetic abilities of Wassily Kandinsky and Alexander Scriabin. A lot has already been said about the work of the author of "Prometheus" by the scientific and creative team of prof. B.M. Galeev, whose works I would highly recommend to the interested reader. My research, mainly reading primary sources: "On the Spiritual in Art" and "Point and Line on the Plane" - led me to similar conclusions about the absence of "involuntary" explicit synesthesia in the founder of abstract painting V. Kandinsky. That wealth of transitions between various “pure” images belonging to different spheres of sensuality, to which Kandinsky refers, their intricate, intellectual loading speak more about the artist’s endless sensory-symbolic fantasy than about the presence of constant correspondences, known today under the term “synesthesia” . An even more compelling argument against the misconceptions about Kandinsky as a synesthete: in one of his works, the artist directly says that he is familiar with a case of involuntary synesthesia, but we will not find in Kandinsky any confessions, or even hints that such a feature of perception is in himself.

Involuntary synesthesia, most likely, was possessed by physicist Richard Feynman and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, writer Vladimir Nabokov, composers Franz Liszt, Gyorgy Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Jean Sibelius, theorist and musician Konstantin Saradzhev, jazz player Duke Elington. Clearly, some performers of the modern pop scene also possess it (Billy Joel, Tori Amos, Lady Gaga). Of course, the presence of synesthesia can only be confidently said after a series of tests. However, the very fact that we have some systematic descriptions that coincide with our understanding of synesthesia at the moment makes synesthetic features not just a fact of the biography or the result of the imagination of these composers and performers, but an integral, albeit to varying extent, part of their work, the role which requires further comprehensive research.

Is it possible to get rid of synesthesia?

Synesthesia is an involuntary reaction that is almost impossible to change at will and volitional effort. In some forms of manifestation, synesthetic reactions can be modified depending on whether attention is paid to them, on the general emotional state, on the expectation or surprise of the synesthetized stimulus.

Very rarely, a synesthete may experience some "sensory overload". In such cases, as in similar situations encountered in non-synesthetes with fatigue from painfully bright lights or with unbearably loud music, intrusive noises, or tiring postures, avoiding excessive exposure to provoking stimuli is a natural response. But even after such situations, the talk of "getting rid of synesthesia" in most cases comes only hypothetically, out of curiosity or playing with possible options a different existence and a different form of perception.

Again, the development of synesthesia is closely related to age and appears to begin in very early childhood. It is even possible that some forms - "to music" or "to the sounds of speech" or "to emotions" - may appear before birth, even in the womb.

The disappearance of synesthesia is also not so rare. Most often, this occurs during the transition period and, presumably, is associated with global changes in the functions of the body and, in particular, the nervous system. It is known that the temporary disappearance of synesthesia can cause long-term and intense stress. In addition, synesthetic reactions may somewhat fade or weaken with age, but it is still difficult to trace any patterns here.

In synesthetes, whose main activity - work, creativity, study - covers the scope of experiences that cause synesthesia, according to my observations, the partial disappearance of reactions occurs less often than, for example, a general dulling of sensations. If the synesthete, by the nature of his activity and the nature of his personal interests, does not pay attention to synesthesia for a long time or does not encounter provoking stimuli at all, then some of them may permanently lose their synesthetic properties for him. For example, in this way, some consonants may fall out of a group of letters that cause synesthesia.

From the history of synesthesia research, I know of two cases where special magnetic stimulation (TMS) of certain areas of the brain in synesthetes was able to temporarily disrupt synesthetic reactions, and one experiment in which researchers caused synesthetic-like reactions in non-synesthetic subjects. However, for all the described dynamics of the development and disappearance of synesthesia, there was not a single case when researchers managed to disrupt synesthesia for a long time or suppress it forever.

What is “artificially induced” synesthesia (synesthesia and meditation, hypnosis, drugs, exercise)?

In the scientific and near-scientific literature, one can find many works and everyday testimonies about the experience of states similar to early involuntary synesthesia. Changes in the general intellectual perception of the world in altered states of consciousness (ASS), as a result of which sensual (sensory) integration is also transformed, can lead to the adoption of certain psychotropic drugs, meditation, hypnosis, hypnagogic states (transition to sleep), physical activity and external influences. The question of the similarity of permanent involuntary synesthesia and synesthesia generated by external factors or ASC should remain open due to at least three questions.

First, how does the selective reaction of synesthesia of an involuntary nature, highlighting, for example, only numbers or only days of the week or names, similar in subjective experience to ISS synesthesia, in which the boundaries of all sense organs and sensory systems “mix” and shift? Secondly, is not the very constancy of involuntary synesthetic reactions and their narrow selectivity (in contrast to general ISS-synesthesia) directly the main, determining factor of early synesthesia? Thirdly, what do synesthetes themselves testify to, having experienced the use of psychotropic substances or practicing meditation or hypnosis, comparing their constant reactions with temporarily provoked sensations?

At present, it can only be argued that there are several quantitative differences between permanent synesthesia and ISS-synesthesia: the level of integration, the time of flow and the intensity of the involvement of subjective experience, etc. It is these differences that are most likely decisive. The specific, selective nature of permanent synesthesia and the global, but temporary nature of ISS synesthesia have different systemic bases in the work of the brain.

Can Synesthesia Be Learned?

I would like to hope that, having read such an extensive and detailed description of synesthesia, the reader will be able to independently answer not only this question, but also many others that remain outside the scope of our article. I will only add that attempts to imitate the development of synesthetic reactions by fixing associations have been made more than once in scientific practice since the beginning of the last century, but not a single one has led to any confirmed positive results.

Failures in understanding, dissonance of interpretations and the inability to imitate the manifestations of synesthesia have more than once caused quite predictable and - alas! - banal accusations of falsification and far-fetchedness, led to unfounded conclusions about the mediumistic abilities of synesthetes, or, conversely, gave reason to attribute the status of a pathological illusion to synesthesia. And despite the fact that evidence has already been obtained about the psychological and physiological reality of the phenomenon of synesthesia and there is even an opportunity to point out its general cognitive nature, the answers to so many questions still remain at the level of hypotheses and intuitive ideas. These ideas require experimental validation and perhaps even new coordinated interdisciplinary research methods and tools.

Such openness, unresolved and, from time to time, sharp discussion indicates that synesthesia is a unique phenomenon that challenges traditional ideas, for example, about the division of the human mental sphere into thinking, perception and sensation. One can be sure that the significance of the content of the answer to the question "What is synesthesia?" will turn out to be much larger than the one that was laid down in his original formulation.

Anton Sidorov-Dorso site-specific

Each person has certain mental disorders. No, this does not mean that everyone around is crazy. You can't be 100% normal. Strange habits, tastes, interests - all this makes a person different from others. Now, in the modern world, "if you're not weird, you're weird" is a very popular expression in popular culture.

Synesthesia is a very interesting phenomenon. This is a designation for a unique syndrome, which consists in expanded perception. About what synesthesia is, what this concept means, and what types of synesthesia exist, will be discussed in this article.

At earlier stages of the development of society, the presence of a deviation could be perceived by others with extreme hostility. The pronounced oddities of the individual could be perceived by ordinary people as a danger to society. This led to the fact that any oddities - both positive and negative - were often hidden by their owners because of their desire not to pay for special mental abilities or strange mental deviations.

At the moment, the eccentricity of the individual is no longer condemned by society. Specialists undertake to correct deviations, carefully examining their nature and symptoms. Strange habits and character traits are of particular interest to specialists in the field of psychology.

What is Synesthesia - Definition

The word "synesthesia" itself is of Greek origin and means "mixed perception". According to conventional wisdom, synesthesia is indeed a unique syndrome, the essence of which is expressed in the fact that Multiple senses can respond to a single stimulus. The owners of such an interesting syndrome may have associations with various images when listening to a certain melody due to the existing peculiarity of the psyche, adjust colors in the mind to sounds.

The antonym of the word "synesthesia" can be called quite famous concept"anesthesia" (absence of sensations). Synesthesia is a process of perception that involves stimulation of a particular sense organ, but at the same time, the emergence of a perception related to another sensitive organ is noted. In simpler terms, this is the process of the emergence of various associations that can mix and synesthesize. People prone to this phenomenon have the opportunity not only hear sounds, but also see them.

Synesthesia is the opposite of anesthesia, in which there is a lack of irritability, as a reaction to the manifestation of external factors and events. The owners of this syndrome cannot show such abilities, which are a consequence of the presence of synesthesia. Everyone knows that a person is able to use five different sensory organs, each of which is responsible for certain sensations:

• visual;
• olfactory;
• taste;
• auditory;
• tactile.

Psychologists are convinced that synesthesia is a result of a malfunction of the hemispheres of the brain. That is why we can note an interesting ability of synesthetics, which consists in the presence of unique motor skills of the hands. In other words, people with this syndrome are equally good at both right and left hands. This is their versatility.

Recognition of synesthesia and its varieties

The term itself appeared relatively recently. But do not assume that the phenomenon itself began to manifest itself only now. Its existence has been known since ancient times. Primitive people did not share colors and sounds, performing their special ritual dances. And at the end of the nineteenth century, the syndrome described in this article became quite popular in the cultural sphere.

People who were gifted were able to combine sounds and colors, as well as combine visual and taste sensations. Thus, artists could get inspiration in simple situations, synthesizing the impressions and sensations received into subsequent creations.

But synesthesia was popular not only among artists. She was actively interested in doctors who really saw the importance of researching this unique syndrome. Modern medicine has divided synesthetic impulses into several varieties:

The study of synesthesia by psychologists

Medicine has been and is studying such a phenomenon as synesthesia. Specialists clearly define individuals who are able to connect images or objects through several senses at once. It was mentioned above that creative personalities belong to synesthetes. But this is an optional moment. Artists and musicians may not always be synesthetes, but sometimes there are real unique people among these people.

Synesthesia sometimes endows some of its owners with phenomenal memory. The proof of such an interesting point was obtained by specialists after a series of experiments that were able to demonstrate that in some cases synesthetes really have this quality.

For example, consider a study in which the subject was a woman. She was shown matrices, each containing 50 digits. She got acquainted with the proposed data, and then rewrote them on a piece of paper. Two days later, the same test was duplicated. The results were similar. According to psychologists, the woman was able to demonstrate such results due to the fact that when contemplating the numbers, the corresponding associations appeared in her head.

Synesthesia in psychiatry

This term began to be used in psychiatry in the nineteenth century. For a more thorough study of this phenomenon, poets, composers, artists and writers were studied by specialists in the field of psychiatry. After the studies, psychiatrists concluded that no mental abnormalities were found, which made it possible to assert that synesthesia is not a disease.

Notable synesthetes

For the sake of interest, you can provide information about which of the famous and popular personalities was a synesthete.

It should be noted that synesthesia can be inherited. A striking example of this is the son of Nabokov - his direct descendant. It is generally accepted that Nabokov and his wife were synesthetes. Their son also subsequently adopted this phenomenon.

Also, in addition to the above personalities, one can name quite a few writers who were also representatives of such unusual people. Among these were those who did not miss the opportunity to mention such a phenomenon in their works - Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine. Among domestic writers, one can single out Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, Balmont and others. Also, world-famous composers can serve as examples - Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov. They were also synesthetes. The unique case is the case with Daniel Tammet. This synesthete became famous for his incredible ability to quickly count huge numbers, as well as speak eleven languages.

Original taken from zherazborki Q How do I see sound and hear smells?

Imagine a world where you see numbers and letters in different colors, where music and voices swirl around you in a whirlpool of colorful shapes. Meet synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon in which two or more senses fuse together. It occurs in four percent of the population. A synesthete can not only hear someone's voice but also see it, taste it, or feel it in the form of a touch.

Different parts of the brain, performing different functions, in synesthetes have more "cross" neural connections. People who experience synesthesia, in addition to possessing tremendous creative potential, have amazing abilities to remember and reproduce information. The peculiarity of their perception allows the brain to "mix" the data received from several senses before analyzing them.

Synesthesia is not positioned as a disease or disorder, although it can have completely bizarre forms of perception that are not entirely clear to the average person. Before we figure out whether it is possible to artificially induce synesthesia in ourselves, let's deal with forms.

There are several more or less studied forms of synesthesia:

Grapheme color synesthesia.

Color associations to a separate grapheme (writing unit: letter or number) or to written words of the text.

With the help of such "additional perception", it is obviously easier to notice the details of the text, perceive, remember and reproduce it.

Chromesthesia (or Phonopsia).

Color association for sounds. Sound generates a sense of color and it can "look" in different ways. Some synesthetes may perceive music as fireworks, others as a vibrating movement of multi-colored lines. Like colored waves from a sound source.

Some hear the speech, "color" the words. And their color and shades are determined not only by the pitch, but also by emotions. Obviously, using this feature of perception, it is easier to memorize and reproduce musical works, because visual memory is also involved in the process, despite the fact that "color pictures of sound" are drawn by the imagination. It is easier to remember information perceived by ear: conversations, lectures, business communication. It is very useful in ordinary, everyday life.

Kinesthetic-auditory synesthesia.

Sound association to a visual stimulus. The ability to "hear" a sound by seeing a moving object.

Synesthesia of numerical forms (localization of sequences) and "number lines".

These are two types of synesthesia that are often confused by the layman. Synesthesia of Sequence Localization implies that a person, finding a numerical pattern in something, can see numerical sequences in the form of points in space. Such people can visually "observe" around them the numbers of hours, days of weeks, months, years, around them. They line up in some reasonable sequence, and (for example) 2000 the year will visually appear further, and 2016 closer. Such people have a well-developed visual and spatial memory. They are well oriented, remember the events that happened to them even a very long time ago. And they also think well, because they can also "project" sequences of numbers around themselves, for example, where 1 will be closer and 9 -further.

Synesthesia of "Number Lines" it's a little different. People tend to represent quantitative information in the form of a mental line along which numbers increase from left to right. This property of the psyche is called the “mental number line” (mental number line). But the features of early education can change this structure of the "line" and in the future a person, thinking about numbers in his imagination, sees a certain subjective model (actually created by himself in the process of early education). Take a look at the number lines drawn by synesthetes:

The number line that appeared to Francis Galton at the slightest mention of counting and numbers. The numbers from 1 to 12 had in this number line, in the representation of Galton himself, an analogue of the dial and were always compared with the clock.

The number line was first described by Sir Francis Galton in his work The Visions of Sane Persons, 1881.

And this is how the number line looks like in a person who, in addition, also has grapheme-color synesthesia.

Illustration from the book "Wednesday Is Indigo Blue" (Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, 2009, Richard Cytovich and David Eagleman).

People with a special "number line" are very capable of counting, they remember dates, numbers, bills well. Everything related to numbers is easier for them, due to the fact that "visual" information is used in counting and memorization. Accordingly, "visual" memory is also included in the work.

Acoustic-tactile synesthesia.

Sensual association to sounds. Certain sounds can cause different tactile sensations in different parts of the body (touch, tingle).

Ordinal and linguistic personification.

Synesthesia of personifications usually occurs along with grapheme-color synesthesia. And it differs in that letters and numbers are tied not to color, but to images. Most often these are images of people and animals. "4 is a kind, but healthy and formidable lion, and 5 is a friendly black man, 9 is an insanely sexy girl in red with long legs ...". Thanks to vivid images, such people also remember information related to numbers well. But as expected, such people do not outperform synesthetes with an unusual "number line" and synesthetes with localizations of number sequences in the score. Because in the latter, visualization is subject to a logical order in which you can navigate by doing mathematical calculations. But a kind lion and a crazy beauty in red cannot give such an opportunity.

Misophonia.

Sound-emotional synesthesia. In this regard: we are all synesthetes, but it must be said that specifically Mythosonia is defined as a neurological disorder and is mentioned precisely in a negative aspect. This disorder implies that certain sounds evoke strong negative emotions in a person: fear, hatred, anger, and so on. It's not very cool to hear a door creak and want to shoot someone at the same time.

Touch empathy.

Touch empathy is also referred to as a disorder. Have you ever wondered why it is unpleasant for you to look at surgical operations, beatings .., at punishments and tortures? This happens because in our brain there are so-called "mirror neurons", they allow us, seeing the situation, as if to "try on" it for ourselves. The person who suffers from touch empathy feels the touch that he sees. He can look at how you touch the other person's hand and feel the touch on his hand. Watching porn may be great, but in everyday life, you would hardly like it. Such people cannot look at injections, cannot even see just cutting meat, it literally hurts them to see how someone falls off a bicycle .. All these little things make life very difficult ..

Lexico-gastic synesthesia, "Color smell", and "Rustle of smells".

At lexico-gastic Synesthesia is a stable taste associations from images, words, sounds. Such people can listen to music to remember the taste of their favorite dish. Only 0.2% of the population has this form of synesthesia. Filmed about her documentary"Derek the taste of earwax".

A color sense of smell represents color and emotional associations for smells. The smell can be presented visually, much like it is often shown in films, but only more vividly (having a pronounced color). And evoke different emotions.

The rustle of smells(olfactory-sound synesthesia) - sound association to smell. For people with this form of synesthesia, the smell can sort of "sound".

Auric synesthesia.

Matching people and colors. People with auric synesthesia "color" other people according to their appearance, their mood, the emotions they evoke. This allows you to remember well personal and business meetings that were even a very long time ago, to remember the emotional "color" of those meetings. It allows you to position yourself well in relationships and helps build communication between people.

Is it possible to induce synesthesia artificially?

There is a lot of controversy about this. They begin with what has been revealed: the ability to synesthesia can be transmitted hereditarily, at the gene level. For a long time it was believed that someone is given and someone is not. But changes in the genome of the cub are manifested, among other things, under the influence of environment parent. Apparently both the parent and nature itself find this skill useful for survival. And the ability to this skill is transferred.

Synesthesia, in essence, developed associative thinking. The brain is plastic, some connections in it have been rearranged from the moment you opened this article to the time you finished reading this paragraph. In the material sense, this is an endless neural construction of the web, from your knowledge, thoughts, experience, reactions. They intersect with each other so that one causes the other. And in grapheme-color synesthetes, the initial connections were traced back to childhood, no matter how ridiculous the simplicity of this phenomenon was - often magnets on the refrigerator in the form of numbers and letters became the initial connections. Taste synesthetes have been linked to inexpensive letter-shaped pasta. As a child, they ate this pasta and unconsciously connected "letter-taste", and the brain further seemed to push: there are other letters - they must also have a taste. Someone in childhood solved mathematical and logical problems like these:

Childhood is a time when brain plasticity is very high. And synesthetes not on purpose, and unconsciously bring up associations in themselves from the very beginning. All the things that happen after, all new knowledge, and all new experience - already passes through the prism of these associations, educating and only reinforcing this unusual perception. It will be much more difficult for an adult to artificially cultivate synesthesia in himself. He is already more reasonable and can subordinate associations to reasonable logic. To really help him in life. But the fact is that for synesthetes - their associations - are unconscious, they appear without mental or volitional effort. Cases when artificial synesthesia was developed to the same degree have not yet been recorded.

The owners of the best artificial synesthesia are mnemonics (sport, meaning whose speed and storage capacity). Mnemonics learn to associate text or sound information that comes to them with visual images, doing this even in details, even in trifles. For example, they can remember the order of a deck of cards in a minute, thanks to the fact that they put information in a "mnemonic lock" (a mentally locked well-known room). They imagine a dwarf juggling red dice (jack of diamonds), and other images like a black BMW (seven of spades), or a ball of maggots (ten of hearts) along their path from one end of this room to the other. Joshua Fore, in the book "Einstein Walks on the Moon", told how Ed Cook, one of the best mnemonics of our time, at the first meeting mentally imagined that Joshua was joking, and this joke cuts Ed into 4 parts. Ed did it just to remember the name. Joshua Faure was in tune with "Joke" (eng. joke) and "four" (eng. four). He said that he does it already unconsciously - it has become a habit.

It has not yet been possible to develop synesthesia of numerical sequences, but it is by no means a fact that this is impossible. cooks different countries after many years of work, they felt the association of the "taste" of the image, also experienced sommeliers found a pattern in taste and color, they could artificially evoke taste sensations simply by seeing the wine in order to compare it with another. Many really experienced musicians have associated sound with colors, and with ... temperature. They tried to write works, musically "describing", for example, simply the weather outside the window and trying to convey its beauty. These words can be read with disdain - any artist can present his compositions this way. But among professional musicians, there are a lot of real synesthetes. There are even examples when composers themselves described this phenomenon, at a time when even such a term as synesthesia did not yet exist.

Developing synesthesia means restructuring your perception. To draw a parallel with the efforts that would have to be applied for such a "perestroika", here is the story.

In London, a taxi driver must obtain a special license in order to start working. They study for 3-5 years. During this time, they drive through the streets exploring the sights. As a result of training, they need to know 25,000 (!!) streets, be able to make optimal routes, and talk about more than 1,000 (!!) sights. The work of their brain was studied at the beginning and at the end of training. Asking a novice student what this or that attraction is famous for, scientists observed how one area of ​​the brain turned on, which recalled certain facts. When they were already licensed taxi drivers, they were asked similar questions, scientists saw several areas of the brain turn on at once. Zones that were responsible for cartographic and spatial memory were included. First of all, they remembered where it was. An image was drawn from visual memory, tactile sensations were drawn. After all, they visited this or that attraction several times, and at different times of the year. And clear images made taxi drivers remember the history of the attraction in detail. Despite their huge number (more than a thousand). The connections of their brain during the period of training (3-5 years) changed by 7%.

Within the current understanding, synesthesia can be developed, but it will take a very long time of hard and directed work.