From Jeremy Bratton Sent Tue, Aug 10th 1999, 01:12
From Jeremy Bratton Sent Tue, Aug 10th 1999, 01:12
On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, eric hill wrote: <snip> } many people experience synaesthesia, a condition in which one sense } overlaps another. most people exhibit synesthesia by associating colors } with words, letters and numbers, but there's a lot of people out there } (you know, in the physical world) who hear sounds and imagine shapes, } colors, and textures in response. Be careful when talking about synaesthesia. It is a very rare condition where one type of sensation is actually experienced as something else. It is not merely an imagined or "mind's eye" type of connection between senses. Someone with synaesthesia might hear certain pitches or timbres and actually see colors or shapes...not just imagine them. Other sense combinations are possible; one might experience taste as feeling as in Richard Cytowic's book "The Man Who Tasted Shapes," which gives a great introduction to synaesthesia and what it has to tell us about the human mind. Jeremy