So, my question to y'all is: have you ever experienced this phenomenon, or even attempted to?
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
synesthesia
The background information on Baudelaire presents the topic of synesthesia. It defines it as "the reciprocity of our five senses." I viewed synesthesia almost as a literary device in this sense; Baudelaire drew parallels between the senses and attempted to get his reader to see how they correspond. However, if you look up synesthesia online, it's mainly viewed in relation to the medical condition. I read an article released by pitchfork that detailed the various artists who have claimed to experience this phenomenon, which they defined as a condition in which a person's senses are joined. From Billie Eilish to Kanye West, everyone seems to want to claim this magical power. A professor of psychology at the University of Miami has claimed to experience synesthesia for as long as she remembers, and she even proposes that anyone can "teach" themselves the most common form of this unusual connection of senses.
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3 comments:
Sophia, I too didn’t know synesthesia existed outside of literary means. I thought that this concept was more of an idealistic type of view. It would be cool to experience two or more senses at once, but I never knew that people could.
But, as I began to think abut it, maybe we do and we just don’t realize it!! With this said, I think that we ALL do have slight synesthesia. Before you shut this down Brandon, hear me out! For example, Billy Joel “senses blue and green colors when he hears slow or soft music.” Although we might not do this exactly, we do this to some extent. Whenever I hear about danger, the color red is immediately associated with such events. For example, I associate red with fire drills.
On the other hand, synesthesia is not always positive. Sometimes synesthesia could be more negative than positive. For example, Van Gogh experienced negative effects from synesthesia. One article reads, “Poor van Gogh. He seems to have been one of those synesthetes who was more impaired than empowered by his condition. One paper highlighted the negative effect of his chromesthesia, noting that when van Gogh took piano lessons in 1885, his teacher realized he was associating the different notes with specific colors. Unfortunately for van Gogh, the teacher took this as a sign of insanity and forced him to leave.”
Although synesthesia has both negative and positive effects, why do most poets and writers focus on the positive? Do you think that they only have positive experiences with synesthesia?
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/616932/museum-themed-playset-teaches-kids-about-art
First off I would like to take credit for the idea of this post. Second I would like to note that Sophia doesn’t believe that synesthesia is a real condition and rather something trained by the mind. I don’t think it’s right to say something doesn’t exist just because we don’t experience it. There are many accounts of synesthesia and it is believed to be a connection between the sensory parts of the brain. Many syntesthetes end up becoming very successful in music or art. For example, the great Kanye West sees piano as blue, and basslines are dark brown and purple, and snares as white. For Duke Ellington, a D note looked like dark blue burlap while a G was light blue satin. When Pharrell Williams listened to Earth, Wind & Fire as a kid, he saw burgundy or baby blue. Orange is a big one for Frank Ocean. All of these artists along with Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Mary J. Blige, Blood Orange's Dev Hynes, and more have said to have experienced synesthesia. I don’t think this is something these people would just make up to be unique.
One interesting aspect of synesthesia is it's use as a memory tool. Synesthetes can have much more vivid memories and associate different pieces of information with certain experiences. This can allow them to memorize large sets of data more effectively than cognitively-normal people. This is an amazing ability and just goes to show the variety of ways a genetic quirk can alter the way one interacts with the world.
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763412000760
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