Synaesthesia, or when senses overlap

Tasting Tube stations, raining numbers

Synaesthetes are often asked about our first experiences. Most people with synaesthesia are born with it so, as James Wannerton puts it, “That’s a hard question to answer. It’s akin to being asked: ‘What’s the first thing you ever smelled?’.”

But, while identifying the very first memory can be difficult, remembering powerful early experiences is much easier. For James – who has lexical-gustatory synaesthesia – words have taste, texture, and temperature. Listening to him, I realise how mild my own experience with this particular kind of synaesthesia is.

James remembers the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ – repeated often in early school years – tasting strongly of bacon, and that his friends all had “nice-tasting names”. For him, different London Underground stations also taste of flavours  – since childhood, Tottenham Court Road station has tasted of sausage and fried eggs, while Leicester Square tastes like a Curly Wurly.  

For Jack Coulter – an abstract expressionist artist whose synaesthesia-inspired paintings are celebrated around the world – his first synaesthetic memory is very clear: “The sound of my own heartbeat resonating colour to me as a child, it really scared me. I recall the visualisation similar to the infrared radiation glow cast from a black light pulsating in front of me.”

Likewise, “raining numbers” from zero to nine have been a feature of nurse Iman Fayali’s life since childhood. They are “in the air, in the environment around me, running from top to bottom. The numbers are yellow, like light”. She explains that the numbers are linked to people, words, or movement – for example, someone in a bar moving a hand to their drink will change the numbers.  

For those of us with acquired synaesthesia – which develops later in life (sometimes as a result of trauma or, as was the case for me, through illness) – the first instance is easier to pinpoint. Mine was tasting bright, gritty metal and hearing low, humming notes while looking at Mark Rothko’s ‘Seagram Murals’ during a migraine – an experience so pivotal that it inspired my first novel.

Investigating synaesthesia

Research shows that around 4 per cent of people have synaesthesia, but some experts suggest that this number could be higher – not least because some synaesthetes don’t realise that the way in which we perceive the world isn’t typical. It can run in families, but not much is yet known about its genetic origins. 

According the University of Sussex, among the most common kinds are experiencing days and months in colour, and perceiving letters, numbers, days and months in spatial form.  

Synaesthesia isn’t an illness or condition, but instead a trait or characteristic; you can’t go to your GP and get ‘diagnosed’. That said, consistency tests are used to show some types, such as grapheme-colour (coloured numerals or letters). fMRI scans can prove others, for example, by showing the taste-processing area of the brain light up when someone with lexical-gustatory synaesthesia listens to words. James Wannerton refers to this discovery as a point when people started to take synaesthesia more seriously.  

Other current areas of research include how synaesthesia links to language and memory, and how it evolves over a person’s lifetime.

Does synaesthesia make you creative?

Synaesthesia has been a rich vein for artists and musicians to tap into throughout history. Among the most well-known synaesthetes are artist Wassily Kandinsky – the father of abstract art who famously heard his paintbox hiss – and rapper Kanye West, who has spoken of seeing music as colours and shapes. 

Jack Coulter paints the colours he sees when listening to music and recently painted live to a performance by the London Chamber Orchestra. He recalls: “One of my definitive early synaesthesia experiences was at one of my aunt Christine’s exhibitions as a child, where I could ‘hear’ her paintings; it was a very strange, yet beautiful, experience.” 

However, Jack advises against equating synaesthesia with artistic talent or trends, emphasising the importance of technique and practice. He explains: “My entire world has been seeped in musicality since I was a child. I use sticks, broken glass, my hands to apply paint. I am meticulously erratic, yet structured, when painting. Just because someone can see the colours they hear, doesn’t mean they’ll have the skill to perpetuate it onto canvas.” 

Paula Sandham also responds to music. She has auditory-tactile synaesthesia, which means she feels sounds. Paula cites ‘Japanoise’ as a highly tactile genre that particularly affects her hands. As someone who only feels ‘bad’ sounds, I found myself rather envious of her vivid experiences and how much she seems to enjoy them.  

Paula says that this track by Zarqnon the Embarrassed sounds like “silver balls, really shiny and blobby and 3D, that jump from fingertip to fingertip. It's spectacular”. 

Gift or curse? 

Synaesthesia can also involve bodily sensations such as pain. For one social work student, discovering that something she has always experienced has a name was a relief. She has mirror-touch synaesthesia, which causes her to involuntarily feel sensations felt by others. “I always thought my body was just painful but little did I know I carried other people’s pain.” While it can be intrusive, she explains, “It keeps me connected to people on a deep level”. 

She is also one of about half of synaesthetes who have more than one type. Her pain experiences are coupled with time-space synaesthesia, one of the most prevalent kinds. She likens it to “an incredible train journey. I can see and feel memories from 25 years ago like they were yesterday. I can also visualise where I am going next – something I find that I couldn’t be without now as I would feel lost”. 

There are a handful of cases where synaesthesia has been lost through brain injury. As mine is associated with migraine, the better I feel, the more the colours and tastes fade. Synaesthesia is like knowing another language and having access to new parts of myself, so the idea of it going completely if a migraine cure was found is bittersweet. 

This is a common theme. While some synaesthetes find their experiences overwhelming – even challenging – few would part with it. 

Jack Coulter gets severe visual migraines that require medical management, and has “colour-induced hallucinations every single day”, but has adapted and is “very thankful that I experience my art, music, the world through iridescent vision”. 

James Wannerton overcomes the distraction caused by constantly tasting words with strong sweets and coffee. And, in his decades of investigating it, has found that “only a handful of people would like their synaesthesia taken away”.

The image at the very top of this article is ‘give in to me – michael jackson’ by Jack Coulter.

If you enjoyed this article about synaesthesia – and you’re in London – you might also enjoy ‘Sensorium Tests’ and ‘At the Threshold’ by Daria Martin, part of 'Somewhere in Between' at Wellcome Collection until 27 August 2018.