Saturday, May 2, 2015

Play like a Synesthete



Surprising as it may seem, some people can smell sounds, see smells or hear colors.  Synesthesia - from the Greek "syn" (with) and "aisthesis" (sensation) - consists of the pairing of two bodily senses. The perception of a determined stimulus activates a different perception with no external stimulus. 

In the Department of Experimental Psychology and Physiology at the University of Granada, Spain, a research group works on the systematic study of synesthesia and its relation to perception and emotions. Professor Juan Lupiáñez Castillo and Alicia Callejas Sevilla have devoted many years to the study of this phenomenon which affects approximately one person out of every thousand. Some claim it occurs in newborns.

Arthur Rimbaud, in one of his most famous poems, assigns colors to each vowel: 

A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,
I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins:
A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies
which buzz around cruel smells

Create like a synesthete and play with the smell of sounds, see smells or hear colors.  

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