Synesthesia: new book by Dr. Richard Cytowic
Richard Cytowic, MD, is one of the world's leading researchers on synesthesia, a mindblowing neurological condition in which two or more senses are linked so that you might, for example, "taste" sounds or "hear" colors. Cytowic and neuroscientist David Eagleman have a new book out, Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, about synesthesia, exploring the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy, and the subjectivity of reality. Jonah Lehrer, author of Proust Was A Neuroscientist and How We Decide, interviewed Cytowic for Scientific American. From SciAm:
"When Senses Intersect" (SciAm) Buy "Wednesday Is Indigo Blue" (Amazon)LEHRER: What can synesthetes teach us about the nature of human perception?
CYTOWIC: Far from being a mere curiosity, synesthesia is a consciously elevated form of the perception that everyone already has. Minds that function differently are not so strange after all, and everyone can learn from them.
Synesthesia has opened up a window onto a broad expanse of the brain and perception. Younger researchers are now active in 15 countries. Because the trait runs strongly in families, it is easy to collect DNA from a large number of synesthetic relatives. This means that synesthesia may be the very first perceptual condition for which science can map its gene. This inherited quirk is teaching us that cross-talk among the senses is the rule rather than the exception--we are all inward synesthetes who are outwardly unaware of sensory couplings happening all the time.
For example, sight, sound, and movement normally map to one another so closely that even bad ventriloquists convince us that whatever moves is doing the talking. Likewise, cinema convinces us that dialogue comes from the actors' mouths rather than the surrounding speakers. Dance is another example of cross-sensory mapping in which body rhythms imitate sound rhythms kinetically and visually. We so take these similarities for granted that we never question them the way we might doubt colored hearing.
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This smells really interesting!
As someone with significant synesthesia myself, I call bullshit. Wednesday is lime green, not indigo. Not even Tuesday is indigo, really.
I've lost my sense of smell a while ago (I'm much better now, thanks), and with smell, taste also goes. So everything I ate became a color for me, at the beginning quite often the color it was, but as I started to forget what things taste like, it became ... different colors. Curry was a rainbow, apple juice was the color of crisp autumn mornings. Nougat was warm, like an embrace.
(I'm quite happy I can smell and taste again, though. Eating colors is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to spend my life there.)
Reading about synaesthesia always makes me wish I could rewire my brain.
My synesthesia works on words and numbers. Individual words and numbers have all kind of tactile and visual qualities: textures, personalities, colors, sharpness, all kinds of stuff. With words, the qualities are usually unrelated to the word's actual meaning, or to its appearance when written.
I've also always had a knack for spelling, word-puzzles, anagrams, and such, and I'm better than average at math; I suspect this is not a coincidence.
My favorite form of synthesia is the ability to read .... converting shapes (visual) to sound.
many ppl have it.
#5-I've also always had a knack for spelling, word-puzzles, anagrams, and such, and I'm better than average at math; I suspect this is not a coincidence.
I envy you. I suspect my synesthesia might be hurting my math skills (along with other factors). I also see numbers and letters with colours and personalities. With letters, it works fine but I have trouble visualizing any numbers that aren't integers. Decimal digits and fractions abruptly turn the numbers into a grayed-out mumbo-jumbo.
I work around it but it has to be a constant, conscious effort, which is tedious. Geometry is the only branch of maths where I excel. I think it's because it gives me spatial elements to visualize (shapes, dimensions, angles...) as opposed to just plain numbers.
But I'm very good with languages, so it's a good trade-off. Words are pretty ;)
For less than the price of the book (about 500-1000 micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide) you can experience it yourself!
I'm so jealous of you synesthetes!!
Synesthesia is fascinating. Cytowic wrote another book about the subject a several years ago called "The Man Who Tasted Shapes" which changed the way I think about thinking. I'm looking forward to reading this one.
this is just another word for something else. this has already been done by using other methods. different toilet same stool. however its really cool.....
The New Yorker (May 11 issue) has a great article on Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, a pioneering neuroscientist. Briefly covers synesthesia.
Unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber to read the article.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_colapinto
I'm a synesthete, but didn't know I was different until 5 years ago. A lot of things suddenly started to make sense, especially why I became overwhelmed by sounds and visuals so much more than other people.
Am on medication (depression) now (probably will be for life) and it has sadly shut down my synesthesia almost completely. I miss not hearing colours and tasting shapes, but I am also coping with life a whole lot better.
As an artist, this is a tough trade-off. Now I *want* to create and am *able* to create, but the intense stimulus is gone. I'm holding out for my brain to right itself in time.
@2
You are indeed a strange person.
Wednesday is red.
I don't know more about Dr. Richard Cytowic. I have some few knowledge like, Dr. Cytowic is best known for rediscovering synesthesia in 1980 and returning it to the scientific mainstream where it is now seen as crucial to basic theories of how the brain works.
I am very excitement of these book and I will definitely read it.
I am excited about this new contribution to the field by a true leader. I first started going to medical conferences offered by Dr. Cytowic back in the mid-to-late 1980s. Wonderful mind and powerful teacher, a gift to those interested in learning more, and more, and more. Salute to the launch of Wednesday is Blue Indigo. Mega!
Niel
to #2 and #14:
Wednesday is obviously sunshine yellow. I sent an email to Dr. Cytowic, explaining the error in his book title, but he hasn't responded.... ;)
And I can't think of ANY day that is indigo! Maybe Thursday, but that's really pushing it...
I'm a copy editor by trade, concerned with grammar and punctuation and sentence structure. I've always been aware that my hearing played a major role in my ability to spot and fix errors and awkwardness, but I've never been able to figure out quite how that could be, since I don't mentally repeat what I'm editing, and a lot of the material I deal with is rather more complex structurally than normal spoken language.
Now I'm wondering if there might be some element of synesthesia involved. As far as I know, though, I don't have any other type of synesthesia.
You learned grammar and syntax before you knew any of the rules; we all did, but you just have a better ear than most. I am amazed at how effortlessly the ones who can really hear the music of language can swing with it. For instance, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a bit dyslexic and drove his editors nuts with his misspellings and eccentric punctuation; but no American writer, before or after, wrote better sentences:
"At the moment when he had affirmed immaculate honor a silver pennon had flapped out into the breeze somewhere and there had been the crunch of leather and the shine of silver spurs and a troop of horsemen waiting for dawn on a low green hill.”
Many good writers "hear" the the rules without learning them.
Wednesday is NOT blue indigo, it is RED!!!!! It is also partly wooden, because the letter "D" is made of wood.
There aren't any blue indigo days, but the letters "Q" and "W" are dark indigo, and so is a double "O" when pronounced as in "school". Also, June is a lighter purple month, but the "u" is a darker purple and contains juice which smells and tastes of Parma violets.
I can whistle in indigo, especially on the low notes