Synesthesia: do you know how a word tastes?

Published: 14 May 2021 Tagged: neurodivergentneurodiversitysensessensory overloadSpeakableSynesthesia

The human brain is an extremely complex and fantastic system that processes body and environment stimulus to present proper reactions, allowing us to survive, socialise and innovate. However, sometimes the brain is wired in an unexpected way, giving some people advantages and disadvantages in various situations. This is simply what neurodiversity means. Some neurodiverse conditions are better understood and already have some therapies to help the neurodivergent individual cope some challenges, though not every condition is easily understood to receive any customised support. That’s the case of Synesthesia.

Synesthesia is a curious condition in which a synesthete experiences a crossed processing of senses, having a surreal experience describing something through an unexpected sense. For example, someone who says that some song is very yellow, a perfume has a pretty melody, or that some carpet tastes like chocolate by stepping on it. While it might seem amazing to be able to cross senses like this, sometimes it can become a barrier for the synesthetic person because expressing and interpreting other people might become impossible. Along with social challenges, sensory overload can affect the synesthete in a very negative way, since many stimuli are using two or more senses – imagine yourself unable to close your eyes because sounds or the very touch of your bed projects colours and shapes directly int your brain.

Some tips that our team of experts from Speakable have to help synesthetes are:

• Educate yourself about your synesthetic condition. The more you understand about your brain and your senses, the more effective will be your efforts to help yourself.
• Accept this condition. Don’t feel like an alien, a cursed person or anything negative. In fact, you can even perceive the world in fantastic ways that most of us only dream of.
• Develop sensory overload coping techniques. Sometimes, the excessive sensorial input might overwhelm you, so you need to keep trying more and more strategies to supress such excessive sensory stimuli.
• Share your perception to the world. It’s not uncommon to see synesthetes becoming great artists in so many kinds of art, because Synesthesia was explored as an extra layer of perception about the world. You can amaze us with your different ways to express this, use that!
• Synesthetic networking. Try to find and meet other people with their unique synesthetic experiences, they will understand you and both of you will have the chance of giving support to each other when needed.
• Check whether you need a therapist. Synesthesia itself is not usually something disruptive enough to need therapists. However, if you feel you’re not succeeding in your efforts to cope sensory overload, self-esteem, self-expression and other issues, always go to a therapist to better know what you might need as extra support.

If you need to better understand about your neurodiverse condition and how to cope with it, feel free to contact Speakable and have our team of speech-language therapists and special education specialists to give you the needed support!