Synaesthesia
Offline I've just come across a condition called Synaesthesia. It is where ones senses get confused, for instance one can see sounds, or hear colour. Apparently 1 in 1000 people suffer from it, according to an article I just read:
The research field has grown from grapheme-colour synaesthesia to include other forms of synaesthesia in which flavours are evoked by music or words (lexical-gustatory synaesthesia), space structures by time units, colours by music, etc. Experts on Experimental Psychology from the University of Granada are studying this phenomenon. The results of this research have been published by the following scientific journals, among others: Cortex, Experimental Brain Research and Consciousness and Cognition.
Surprising as it may seem, there are people who can smell sounds, see smells or hear colours. Actually, all of as, at some point in our lives, have had this skill (some authors affirm that it is common in newborns). This phenomenon, called “synaesthesia” – from the Greek “syn” (with) and “aisthesis” (sensation) – consists of the pairing of two bodily senses by which the perception of a determined stimulus activates a different subjective perception with no external stimulus (in science, the evoker stimulus is called inducer and the additional experience concurrent).
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-12/udg-opo122107.php
I'm thinking this could perhaps explain some of the supanatural things that people report - auras, ghosts and so on.
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This is dubious considering how rare it is. What synaesthesia is normally associated with is extremely proficient memory retainment capacity. Often the memory prodigies who can retain pi to several million digits or recite the entire Bible backwards turn out to be synaesthesiacs. Liszt, who memorized entire sonatas was one. A lot of synaesthesiacs turn out to be idiot savants on the autism spectrum, and have trouble interacting with other people.
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Hi Cam,
Synaesthetes don't generally suffer the condition, its actually mostly pleasant beyond some initial prejudices. Synaesthesia doesn't really rob you of normal cognitive function and in general a synaesthete is able to clearly understand numbers as values or sounds as measures of frequency without impediment, some even have the ability to do synaesthetic operations, for example with numbers, and get accurate results. Richard Feynman did this, it is also believed that Nikola Tesla was also able to compute complexity synaesthetically, a living person who has demonstrated this ability is a high functioning savant named Daniel Tammet.
Thats probably not the case. Auras are reputed to be body surrounding fields of light unique to animate beings. I'm not sure that corresponds neatly to any synaesthetic grouping. however I could be wrong, of course, and there may be a connection.
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I know 2 people that have this, 1 was in a car accident he other had something called a "fetal artery block" I'm assuming its a low O2 thing. I can see how extreme cases can do what your saying but I feel very low blood sugar or intoxication would cause the same things in most people. I'm an RN and people say weird things when thier unstable.
I see what you're saying.
It's a right brain thing. Injuries to the brain can force the body to compensate function by relying more heavily on areas that aren't often developed in our civilisation. Synaesthesia seems to be the result of activity in the right (global) hemisphere.
Intoxication is known to have synaesthetic effects, especially with psychotropics. When someone is hypoglycaemic their brain is starving, such a condition could cause temporary synaesthesia, but there is a huge difference between that and a person with a seemingly normally functioning brain who is able to remember 50 digit sequences by recalling the melody.
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Shit, I done all that, I even laughed with god,
Yup , we've been friends ever since,
No it wasn't god of abe .... Hey but big J was there and old Buddha too ,
Wish you'd all been there,
anyway, that's when I quit psychedelic drugs, about 35 yrs ago,
hell, I've still never come down .....
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Ramachandran speaks quite a bit about synaesthesia in this year's Beyond Belief 2 conference. He speaks mainly about number-color synaesthesia, which he says is by far the most prevelant. According to him, it is most likely the result of crossed neuronal pathways between the number and color centers which are 'neighbors' in the brain. The presentation is worth watching if you are interested in the phenomenon. I don't have a link, but it should be easy to find with a search.
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Doesn't Jacob Cortingley have this condition? Hey - where is Mr. Cortingley?