TheBiologySpace.BioBlog

There are various forms of this disease. One of these involve affected people tasting colors or hearing shapes. Its hard to imagine having this condition as it involves perception, something that is unique to each individual. For this reason, we can never know how someone else sees the world, both literally and figuratively. I would never know how someone sees the color blue. They could see blue as i see the color green but since we had associated that color with the color by the name of blue, we would never see a difference.

I found this article that talks about synthesia and how some people who do not have syntehsia can develop synaesthetic effects after taking drugs, suffering brain injury, or epilepsy. It also includes the perspective of someone how has synthesia. I think it is really neat that they are able to improve memory and recall by association, but I sympathize with the negative side effects such as frustration and migraine.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A558371

Im a bit confused does this mean some people actually smell with their eyes or see smell. Its almost impossible to imagine. Because everything i know is due to the 5 senses, and now that i relize they could be mixed up, i can’t imagine.

Its like thinking of a color you can’t see.

This is a little tidbit that you can relate you your husband ( tho I’m more than sure he knows). A very famous abstract artist, Kandinsky, had synesthesia. Some of his paintings were reflective of his synesthesia when he “saw” (when he was really listening to) famous pieces of music.

Another disconnect point has been mentioned briefly and would be obviously in the brain. We have two possibility branches from here. Either the neural impulse goes to the wrong part of the brain, or the portion of the brain primed for say smell impulses develops in a different part (say switches with the touch part). For psychadelic drug cases, perhaps the drugs cause these portions of the brain to mutate or switcharoo or do some other witchcraft I vote for mutation by drugs
though.

I am thinking that there are two possible points in our sensory perception where a disconnect that could possibly cause synthesia could occur. The first is at the point of contact, such as the nostril. One way this could work, at least in genetically inherited cases, would be for the receptors in the nostril to develop as sound receptors, for
instance. So the receptors are fine, they are just located in the wrong place.

I think that it would be pretty awesome to have the dysfunction for a little bit and then get rid of it. It would certainly help artists. However, keeping it around is not something that I’d want. 1 in 23 people? I find that kind of iffy. That would mean that almost 175 people in this school would be affected by it. I don’t think it’s quite that prevalent in our population.

This is a mostly negative thing for me. I can’t really say much about it.

This is tight i have never heard of this before. but it does make you think. i think that its all about perception. how do you know that the person standing next to you can hear the same thing or close to it. and think about how people like diffrent taste and how one person likes cheese and one person doesn’t i know there is an answer but what makes this variation. stephen out.

I’m not sure how this works or how they could “see smells” or “hear sights”. Is it just a miscommunication in the brain saying “you are seeing” when you are actually smelling something… but you are smelling or seeing? Whatever it may be, it sounds interesting. I don’t think synethesia would be helpful for a person since most of the population is relatively unaffected by this disease, therefore, society is generally geared towards those with matched-up senses. I’m sure they would run into simple problems that create complex issues.

i did some resarch on Vilanayur Ramachandran and found out that he was was born near to my hometown. that maakes me proud

I’ve never heard of this before, its kind of interesting, it kind of makes you wonder, if you could smell sounds, what would you smell, would the sound from the television smell like? This is one of those win-lose situations, on one hand it would be fun to know what other sounds smelt like, but would that end up being really annoying. Constantly smelling the same sound waves emitted from the television, or the computer, or hearing a car start.

this idea of synesthesia is nbot making sense to me? how a person hear a taste. when you think about it are they really hearing what we are hearing? we need more clarifications on that. but it will be cool have synthesia for some time to know how it works not for the whole life time

I think that this condition could be caused by some neurons in the brain coming from and too the different sensory organs. These neurons could be crossed or could be sending the same signals to multiple parts of the sensory sections of the brain, even if they are located in different areas. Or maybe the brain matter itself isn’t correctly placed or parts of it are in different areas than they are supposed to be.

I’ve actually got to say that if this didn’t produce harm to the person who was effected by synesthesia then I would totally want to have that condition cause is it just me, or does is sound pretty stinking cool to be able to see smells and taste sounds. Again I say only if it didn’t produce harm to the person effected then it would be kind of a novelty idea to try to produce the condition in people by exposure to those psychedelic drugs, but again, I don’t know if that would be ethicle (sp).

I happen to be one of the smarter ones of my groups of friends, and when I mentioned this phenomenon, I was literally laughed at (a rare occurence when I interject factual information). However I am so glad that you posted this blog so I could prove my victory once again.

However, this condition even puzzles me. Im shocked that senses can become so disoriented. As far adaptive advantages..none that I can think of that are anything too advanced or superior. Possibly it could be an advantage if like some composers, they were able to express there music in a different manner.

If one out of 23 people are affected by some form of this condition, then does that mean that the form of the condition could be very minute? Such as individuals who have an extraordinary and delicate passion in writing/composing music, or cooking food, or painting a picture. Because, if that is the case then yes, I would say that synesthesia is advantages, because it bring a wonderful comfort and compassion to those blessed individuals. Also, if a person was to become unexpectedly blind or deaf due to an unfortunate accident, the development of synesthesia would be completely advantageous, because that disabled person could compensate for the loss of their sense. Yet, wouldn’t the lacking in the ability to recognize warnings of bad taste, unpleasant sounds, or horrible images cause the lives of those who are affected from synesthesia to be a hassle and disadvantage, or does synesthesia’s mismatch of senses make up for each other?

This really befuddles me. I don’t understand how this confusion of sensations works. Do these people really have a sensation for these odd senses or is in all in their minds? Regardless, I certainly think this would be a terrible hindrance in life, that is, of course, unelss they could taste normal tasting things and ALSO sounds/sights/etc. Perhaps then, life would be opened up that much more. As for blind and deaf people experiencing this–I’ve heard that if you close off a sense, your other senses are that much more aware of their surroundings, and perhaps the strain on senses with the lack of one causes the perception that those senses are accounting for the missing one.

Interesting, one of the first articles I have prior knowledge of. I first heard of synesthesia sometime last year because of House (the show). It may not be advantageous if you have all of your senses. However, if you are blind or deaf it may have some benefit if you see or hear (respectively) things from other senses. This may enable you to better sense danger. For everyday life with all senses present though it would be detrimental. Interesting is the statistic, 1 in 23 may be affected by some form of the condition. When I read that I remembered that on rare occasion, always when I feel sick, I can have tastes, usually bad ones, in my nose. Those always puzzled me because while I know the two senses are related, they were distinctly tastes and not smells. And on what different things look, taste, feel, sound, and taste like when the result of a mixed up taste, it probably depends on the individual person.

I think synesthesia can be used to gain insight into the functioning of the brain. For example, I have always thought that the part of our brains analyzing vision must be very strong, since analyzing images so rapidly is amazing. So say that a synesthete sees sounds. After learning to analyze with their new senses, if that synesthete has a very strong (or unique) hearing, it can indicate that the part of the brain analyzing vision is strong.

Wow, I actually hadn’t really thought about that…what would certain sounds taste like? Or certain colors sounds like? Would red be loud? Or would soft noises taste good, or loud noises spicy? Or what? Is there a pattern for how people with synesthesia experience these phenomenoms or would it be personal to each person?

so basicaly what we have here is proof that daredevil could actually exist by seeing sound? it is an interesting phonomenon. it would be very peculiar sensation to see what i hear and to hear what i taste. our body is so amazing and complex it scares me sometimes. but hopefuly with research and time we can help people with this diability.

Also, depending on the severity of the condition, the senses would be constantly bombarded, I would imagine. For normal people, if we don’t want to look at something we close our eyes or if we don’t want to hear something we cover out ears. But it might be harder for a synesthete who would smell colors and hear tastes.

Being a synesthete obviously would give you a totally different outlook on the world and would provide great inspiration for artists and such, but because the world isn’t geared toward this condition, it might not be advantageous. Imagine going into a store and asking a sales person if they have shirts that tastes like banana…awkward.

This was interesting condsidering I have never heard of synesthesia before. The only advantage of having this condition that I can think of is having creativity. In Ramachandran’s video conference, he mentioned synesthesia is most common in artists. They are using their handicap to produce a great talent instead of viewing themselves as outcasts. I was surprised to see the statistic of 1 in 23 persons getting this condition because i have never heard of it.

Being a synesthete is definetly not advantageous! It may help artists achieve something extraordinary, but it will not make life miserable. How would you like it if you would be able to taste sounds? There are sounds everywhere, so you would constantly taste something. Not to mention what if certain sounds, such as typical road traffic sounds, make you nauseous. You wouldn’t be able to drive. In addition, you would just have taste, you would not physically have food in your stomach. Furthermore, sounds account for a lot of warnings, so how you get a taste warning that symbolizes where it is coming from and what it is. So yea….. synesthesia es no bueno.

The only benefit I would see in synesthesia would be for more of animals of those who live where they have they have to hunt for the food and stuff. It would be benificial in that case to be able to see smells. An animal would be able to smeel there victim and see them or in some case some animals have better hearing than sight so they would be able to hear sights verses seeing them.

I don’t think this would be helpful in humans life at all, i think it would cause more stree and problems. Just think if you could taste sounds, and all sounds tasted good, then would obesity become a more prevailing problem than it already is?

How does this work? Like if you taste sounds, would dissonance taste sour? But I thought it was the composition of food that made it taste certain ways. So are they just imagining a taste? For artists this definetly would improve their ability to affect an audience’s multiple senses. They could convey the image that they have of sound through whatever sense they experience it in, in such a way that we not only hear it, but can also feel it with another sense. Also, there is a quote that says, “Music is what feelings sound like.” I wonder if some composers hear things when they feel emotions, like their anger or happiness are felt as sounds and music to them.

I think that a particular synthesthete could have an advantage in either math or music or simply some daily occurances may be more exciting or enjoyable to them than others. This is difficult to say considering the fact that most synthesthete conditions are unique to each person who have them.

I agree that the proximity of each part of the brain could lead to the interference. Perhaps brain damage at a young age or head injuries in general could also trigger this condition.

people who are victims of this condition must live very stressfull lives. It probably has an itense effect on their personalities and behavior. I would guess that there is no cure for it but there might not actually be a need for one since it has not been given alot of attention in the media.