We explain what synesthesia is as a perceptual condition and what types exist. Also, synesthesia as an artistic resource and examples.
What is synesthesia?
Synesthesia is a non-pathological condition of the perception human, which consists of the ability to involuntarily and automatically experience an additional sense to a specific sensory stimulus, that is, to jointly perceive two senses to the same specific stimulus. This is a genetic condition whose origins are not fully known yet.
It is not that the senses are intermingled, but rather that when perceiving a specific stimulus (for example, a tactile sensation) some other is also activated (for example, the perception of a color).
Thus, synaesthetic people can perceive a caress through the touch and at the same time view, when feeling it with the skin and also seeing a color associated with said stimulus, or even perceiving a sound specific along with the caress, or a taste determined in the language.
The first description of synesthesia in history occurred in 1812, recorded by Dr. Georg Tobías Ludwig Sachs (1786-1814), and since then it has been found mostly in people with autism or with special features. It is known to occur in approximately one person in every 100, that is, about 1% of the world's population.
Types of synesthesia
The main forms of appearance of synesthesia are three:
- Lexical-gustatory synesthesia, which consists of the perception of certain flavors when a word specific.
- Grapheme-color synesthesia, which consists of the direct association of a written sign (letters, numbers) as a specific color or a tonality of it.
- Synesthesia music-color, which consists of the perception of a certain color during certain musical passages, especially with regard to timbre or sound frequency.
Synesthesia as an artistic resource
In the world of art, the term synesthesia is reserved for certain types of stylistic and expressive devices, such as rhetorical figures, in which it is sought to mix the impressions traditionally associated with a certain sense with others, in a novel way, to obtain a much more original and expressive result.
It is a kind of metaphor, present in the literature since classical times, and of enormous presence in the baroque Spanish and the symbolism French, as well as in the modernism Latin American.
Expressions such as "sonorous ivory" or "blue sweets" are examples of first degree synesthesia: the impression of two different bodily sensations in a direct way; while others such as "sour melancholy" or "bitter waiting" constitute a case of second degree synesthesia, which combines a bodily sense and a idea or an object, that is to say, that composes its image indirectly.
Some examples of synesthesia in the literature are the following:
- In the verses of Juan Ramón Jiménez: “by the green tinged with melodious golds” or “in the blue zenith, a pink caress”.
- In the verses of Francisco de Quevedo: "I listen to the dead with my eyes."
- In the prose of Luis Cernuda: "then a delicious aroma gushed out, and the rainwater collected in the hollow of your hand had the flavor of that aroma."
- In the verses of Joan Manuel Serrat: "Your name tastes like grass to me."
- In the verses of Rubén Darío: "Hail the celestial sonorous sun!" or "From our sad minds the dark ideas."