About 4% of people have synesthesia, where one sense triggers another involuntarily, like seeing colors when hearing sounds. The condition has 60-80 variants and typically starts in childhood, though meditation, head injury, or stroke can trigger it later. People with synesthesia show enhanced memory and creativity due to stronger neural connections between senses.
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Can you imagine a world where you can taste the words you are saying, see the colors when saying numbers, or experiencing textures when you hear sounds? This is the reality of how synesthetes experience the world on a daily basis. Welcome back to the Kwik Brain Podcast. I am your coach and your host, Jim Kwik, and I'm here as always to help you to learn quickly and build better brains. Today we will be discussing a very unique and fascinating phenomenon that affects only about 4% of the population and is often widely associated with highly creative people in literature, music, and art. We will be discovering what synesthesia is, its different types, and what kind of benefits people with this phenomenon can experience and how to put them into practice. into use. Whether you find out that you are a synesthete yourself or simply learn about a new fascinating neurological condition, you will walk away with a new unique insight into our brains. So what is synesthesia? Synesthesia has been known for well over 200 years, but the precise definition of what it is and how it is caused still remains a little bit of a mystery, a little bit unclear. What we do know, however, is that it's a phenomenon that causes sensory crossovers in our brain. In practice, this can look like tasting the words you are saying. Hello. Or hearing, or linking colors to numbers and letters that you, you are thinking about or that you might be listening to. Some people describe it as having their wires crossed in your brain because it activates 2 or maybe more senses when only one sense is usually activated. Now, it's not a medical condition, and in fact, many people find it useful to help them learn and remember information better. We use a lot of these melding of the senses, this strategy, multisensory learning, in our programs, our Kwik Reading program, our Kwik Recall program, This phenomenon usually develops when someone is a child. However, in rare cases, synesthesia can also develop later in life, either temporarily from meditation, maybe sensory deprivation. We did an episode about float tanks and the power of floating, or maybe even permanently from head injuries, a stroke, a brain tumor. Some evidence suggests that everyone has synesthesia very early in life. And that it's part of the brain's natural development. However, somewhere along the line, we lose this function for unknown reasons. At least most people do. It has also been found that people with synesthesia seem to have more connections between different brain areas. This might also be a factor why people with autism are 3 times more prone to synesthesia. While there isn't an official scientific way to diagnose the condition, you can take a test like the Synesthesia Battery that will help you get an idea whether you have it. If your associations are consistent, they happen every time you invoke one of the 2 senses, and the experiences are very memorable, it's very likely that you are a synesthete. For example, Your letters are associated with the same specific shade of color every time you read, and sounds always evoke a matching visual or a texture, even months later. Because synesthesia can involve any combination of the senses, there may be as many as 60 to 80 subtypes. There isn't a lot of research on all different types, but the available research shows that taste and smell-based forms are less common, while sight, hearing, touch-based forms are more common. And many synesthetes often experience more than one type. Let's go over some of the ways of how synesthesia can express itself. Associating letters and numbers with very specific colors and sometimes colorful patterns is the most common way for synesthesia to express itself. The second most common way is for people to associate either things like sounds or maybe specific days of the week with colors. For example, Wednesday is the color blue for them. 2 less common ways are associating certain tastes with words where you can essentially taste what you are saying. Or another way of expression can be for people to have a strong spatial experience when thinking about time. Mirror touch is one of the most unique types that can be described as supercharged empathy. When the person feels as though they are being physically touched, If they witness something happening to someone else. It can be very gentle, like seeing someone else being touched and feeling it on their own skin, or more intense, like seeing someone getting CPR and feeling the same pressure in your own chest. And the last example, and probably the most unique one, is swimming-style synesthesia, which happens, as the name suggests, When people engage in swimming. Some individuals can have strong color experiences depending on the swimming style that they use or imagine. For example, they can see red when swimming the butterfly or green when swimming the breaststroke. What makes this type special is that it can be triggered simply by mental imagery, either via involuntary visualization or having Motor imagery, imagining and feeling it in your body. So are there any benefits to having this sensory phenomenon? The enhanced memory recall seen in synesthetes can be attributed to subtle changes in brain regions and their reciprocal connections. So what does that mean? It is believed that common mechanisms in memory encoding and synesthesia may strengthen the connections and therefore lead to enhanced cognitive abilities in In synesthetes, for example, better overall memory and higher levels of creativity. We use multisensory even in the memory program. We use this principle to be able to help people to recall things better, to be able to help them to solve problems. Synesthesia is also connected with unusual ways of exercising one's mental imagery, which means that synesthetes They experience a more vivid mental imagery. It is suggested that individuals experiencing this phenomenon get involved with creative outlets like art, music, or maybe writing, where they can explore their unique worldview and potential hidden talents that may run in parallel with synesthesia. While only 4%, approximately, of the population experiences this condition, it provides a very intriguing glimpse into the incredible complexity complexity and interconnectedness of our brains. Synesthesia challenges our traditional understanding of how the senses operate and reminds us that our perceptual experiences are not as compartmentalized as we often assume. As we continue to unravel the mysteries of the brain, synesthesia serves as a reminder that our senses are intimately intertwined and that the boundaries between them are far more permeable than we might have ever imagined. As always, you can find more ways to fuel your brain's potential on our YouTube channel, where we post extended versions of our podcast episodes. Or let's connect on social media @JimKwik. Make sure to hit the subscribe button and leave a comment under this episode to let us know your thoughts. This is your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Until next time, be limitless.
