Look after your mind – What Colour is that Sound?
It is said that when Mozart heard sounds he perceived them as colours, and that when music played, rainbows streamed across his vision. This phenomenon is known as Synaesthesia, the word deriving from the Greek meaning a ‘coming together’ or ‘union of the senses’. Synaesthesia takes many forms,(although sound-to-colour is reported to be the most common). Some people perceive sounds as textures, (auditory-tactile), while others experience words as tastes,(lexical-gustatory). It was once thought that Synaesthesia was a pathological condition. However it’s now recognised as a natural ability that some people, like Mozart, possess to a high degree.
The idea of cross-matching senses is something that can be done in the imagination and brings several benefits. Many children are particularly good at playing such ‘mind games’. If you practise it yourself, you may well find yourself looking at the world in a fresh and enjoyable way.
When I want to play the cross-matching game, I write each of the five senses on a card; sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. Then I turn them face down and scramble them up. Turning up two ‘takes the mind by surprise’, which promotes spontaneous creative thinking. Suppose I turn up hearing and sight, my task is to make a sound and imagine it as a colour. For example, I tap the coffee cup here on my desk with a pen. Immediately the hollowish dull ‘clunk’ flashes up as mid-grey in my mind.
Now I tap two glass paperweights together: the smooth glassy ‘clack’ strikes me as silvery-blue. As a writer, playing what might be considered as a frivolous activity, creates new, and hopefully, original ways of expressing myself.
Cross-matching sensory impressions is more common in the language than many people think. Take a look at these words; austere, big, crisp, earthy, firm, flabby, green, high notes, grip, lean, sharp, silky, soft, steely, undertones. It’s easy enough to identify terms relating to size, shape, mood, colour, feel etc. Notice too, how a word like soft, can apply equally to touch and to sound. All of them, however, are used by wine tasters to describe the aroma and taste of wines – go to: londonwineacademy.com/wine-tasting-terms/ to find dozens more.
We can use the idea of imagining and cross-matching senses to work on our emotions. Take a pleasant emotion such as happiness. Either choose a sensory mode yourself or turn up one of the cards. I see happiness as a bright golden-yellow, (maybe because of associations with sunniness). Now I turn up the brightness and vividness of the golden-yellow, and, in conjunction, think of things that have made me happy to further enhance the colour. By repeatedly imagining and turning up my golden-yellow, I can re-experience the feeling of happiness.
Working with negative emotions, I want to turn down or change my cross-matched sensory impression. Anxiety for me is greenish-grey. I can either switch it in my mind to a different and more ‘up beat’ colour, or shift it into another sense – say the ringing of a bell – and ‘shrink’ the sound until it’s a tiny distant tinkle.
Steve Bowkett
Songbirds Ladies Choir
