People who hear colors and see sound are described as synesthetes.
Synesthetes have a response with one of their senses that matches what
they are detecting with another of their senses.
While many people will hear a sound and not associate it with a
particular color, people who are synesthetes experience something
different. They match what they hear with a color.
Synesthetes may
experience a mixing of more than one sense at any time. They may smell a
particular sound- for example, laughter may smell sweet. An individual
who perceives sound like this may also associate a visual with some
sounds.
Doctors
describe this medical condition as synesthesia. It is a neurological
condition which is experienced by people all across the globe. Many of
the people whose senses work differently have always been synesthetes.
People with synesthesia feel different effects.
Some
synesthetes do not see letters that are typed in regular black text as
black. Instead, their brain automatically assigns a unique color to each
letter. Some persons have a sense of space when it comes to dates and
may see a calendar date that is nearer as being physically closer than
another date. There are more than sixty different ways in which people
with synesthesia mix their senses.
Doctors
are divided on how synesthesia works. Some physicians think that all
human beings are born with synesthesia but as the brain develops, many
people have their senses split. This means that they no longer see blue,
for example, when they hear a loud sound. Doctors think that the split
occurs after a child reaches four months.
According to what
some doctors think, people with synesthesia do not experience this
split after they reach four months, so they may hear a sound every time
they see something move. Physicians are of this opinion because they
observe that young infants only respond to changes in the intensity of
the stimulation that they receive.
There
are also people who have never experienced synesthesia before, who only
start to see colors and hear sound after they have had something affect
them externally. For example, people who have had seizures, individuals
who have had a concussion and persons who have lost the blood supply to
a particular area of the brain may all smell colors, see sound or
experience synesthesia in some other way.
