Hearing Colors

Imagine you are listening to your favorite song. You’re singing along and see different colors when you hear different notes. Later, you check the baseball box scores in the newspaper and each number is a different color – the ones are red, the twos are blue, the threes are green, etc. You aren't crazy and you aren't on drugs. This is just what happens when you listen to music or read numbers.

What was just described is called synesthesia. It occurs in about five people out of a thousand (around 1.5 million Americans). The most common type of synesthesia is number-color where you see numbers in different colors. Other people see colors when they hear sounds. Some even experience different tastes when they hear sounds. Synesthesia was once thought to be a made up problem. Reports of people seeing numbers as colors just weren’t believed. Controlled studies have shown that synesthesia really exists. So, what could cause this to occur?

Well, there happens to be a juncture in the brain where sound, color, and number information is processed. When this area develops normally, we experience these sensations separately. However, if a genetic mutation occurs while this region is developing, our senses can get crossed. The result is that we might see colors when we hear music or see numbers in different colors.

Synesthesia does not cause any adverse health problems. Many people with synesthesia are drawn to creative things like painting or playing music. They find that they can channel their unique perceptual experiences into their chosen art. Synesthesia is yet another example of how the brain creates our experience of the world. Depending on how your brain is wired, you can experience the world differently.