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I always thought my unique word associations were testament to my being an English Major and a writer. I had only ever heard of the word "synesthesia" in an English course talking about cross-sensory metaphors. The root of the word is Greek meaning roughly “union of sensation” and until last week’s Neurobiology and Behavior course, I had never in my life considered my personal habits to be a neurological symptom of a condition. After further reading I discovered that most synesthetics are never formally diagnosed because their thinking isn’t wrong or weird to them and thus no cause for alarm. There is a distinction to be drawn between genetic synesthetics and event related causes. For example, if I had dropped a lot of acid in the 60’s, there would be good reason for me to associate colors with numbers and tastes with words. Stroke survivors and others involved in traumatic events often report synesthetic responses.

I am intrigued by the behavioral differences between synesthetics and non-synesthetics in life and in the rest of the nervous system. How is someone who associates – no joke – the word “choose” with the taste and smell of french toast wired differently than the person next to her in class? Has it made a major difference in my life? Is that why I am inherently creative because I cannot conceive of thinking differently? This condition is fascinating and I wonder just how prevalent it is.