I heard about synesthesia for the first time, in the context of recent classes through the Globe Institute. Lisa Rafel and Randy Masters classes, I believe. Though, I’ve experienced some forms of this phenomenon, I hadn’t explored whether it had a word to describe it, a definition or diverse manifestations, until now. Truly, I feel like I have opened a sweet kind of Pandora’s box! Looking into the Greek etymology of synesthesia, I’ve discovered that Syn is “together” and Esthesia or aesthesis is “sensations” – versus the familiar anesthesia which represents “no sensation”. Syn-esthesia, a “crossing of the senses” is a peculiar neurological trait or condition, which allows the stimulation of one sense to cause an involuntary reaction in one or more of the other senses.
Here are the paper’s two accompanying sound experience tracks:
The experience of colors, shapes and light in closed eye vision.
