Everyone thinks I named him Mango because of his orange eyes, but that’s not the case. I named him Mango because the sounds of his purrs and his wheezes and his meows are all various shades of yellow-orange, like a mango in different seasons.
from A Mango Shaped Space
Wendy Mass
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2008
For me, and most people, too, a sunset is a beautiful experience of colors brilliantly or gently mixing in swirls, lines, and bottom-lit clouds. Or the surprise of the first daffodil or dandelion or encountering Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.” It’s visual.
When I hear a symphony, or jazz, or a folksong, the melody could be raucous or harmonic or an interesting or maybe grating combination. Or the delight of a baby’s giggle or the lyrical tune of a birdsong. It’s auditory.
Even those two descriptions “stay in their own lanes” in my brain’s pathways. A picture forms when I read about the sunset, but sound is evoked by the description of the music.
Since I watched and read about Pharrell Williams in Piece by Piece, his new biopic, I learned about synesthesia. According to healthline.com, “[s]ynesthesia is a neurological condition in which information meant to stimulate one of your senses stimulates several of your senses. People are usually born with the condition, but some people develop it later.” Research is showing that synesthesia may be genetically inherited.
The word itself comes from the Greek words synth (together) and esthesia (perception). Like Pharrell and others, sounds, especially music are visual as well as auditory.
Each of our five basic senses is processed in a different part of our brain. Synesthetes, though, simultaneously process one stimulus in different parts of their brains. While listening to middle C, for example, the auditory cortex will light up, but so may the visual cortex, showing the listener a color or shape. The parietal lobe, that part of the brain that distinguishes one taste from another, may also activate, associating the sound with a particular taste.
All this is to say that people with synesthesia have brains that are hyper-interconnected in unusual and unexpected ways. Although synesthesia presents differently in different people, sensory triggers are consistent for each person. The main character in today’s quote tells us that all of her cat's sounds were shades of mango. Each time he purred or wheezed or meowed. it looked the same.
There is no known treatment for synesthesia, but most synesthetes enjoy experiencing the world in their expanded, if unusual way.
Pharrell Williams’s particular form of synesthesia mixes sound and colors. He has been intrigued with LEGOs since he was young and his interest in “the infinity of space” was the catalyst for his collaboration with LEGOs designers to create a new spaceship set. As sometimes happens, one thing led to another and his biopic included not only Pharrell’s synesthesia but also his LEGO creativity.
How the creators used Pharrell’s story to show the development of LEGO’s new Over the Moon set is its own example of creativity. The whole movie set is made of LEGO bricks, and then animated. The story opens with Pharrell’s discovery of sound images as he sits, fascinated, by the colorful music bursting from his turntable speakers.
Mixing senses to create surprising and unusual images is often the work of poetry. Unexpected juxtapositions of familiar items help us think in new ways.
But it’s not only the job of poetry. Sensory images appear in our common vernacular, too. How about sharp cheddar? We don’t usually describe our food as a shape. Or the sweet sound of success. What does that even mean? And the whole genre of music: the Blues?
So could our senses be connected to our emotions? The short answer is yes. According to NeruoLaunch.com, “[o]ur five senses…are like gatekeepers to our emotional realm. Each sense has its own unique way of influencing our mood and triggering emotional responses.”
When a piece of sensory information enters our brain, it creates its own unique pathway across our vast and complex neurological system. And at the center of it all is a collection of structures, the limbic system, our “emotional brain.”
Our limbic system acts as a bridge that uses our memories to connect our senses to our emotions. It taps into our vast mental library and compares the current experience with ones in our past. We feel the emotional response.
And it’s not all unique to each individual.
Exposure to the color red can increase our heart rate and blood pressure. Blue calms us down. Studies have shown that even a brief exposure to nature can reduce stress and improve our mood. Most of us respond favorably to a hug. Music really can soothe our souls.
Even though my own experiences do not include mixing actual colors with the emotions evoked by the music, science has shown that
listening to or singing the Blues helps us process our loneliness, sadness, and grief.
On this last day of 2024, I’ll turn on the radio and sing along.
I’m reading The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (Grove Atlantic, 2023). It’s a three-generational saga that’s set in South India. A young girl (12 years old) travels across the water for her wedding, where she will meet her husband, a 40-year-old man, for the first time. According to the publisher, it is a “hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding… one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.
Be curious! (and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy!”)
from A Mango Shaped Space
Wendy Mass
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2008
For me, and most people, too, a sunset is a beautiful experience of colors brilliantly or gently mixing in swirls, lines, and bottom-lit clouds. Or the surprise of the first daffodil or dandelion or encountering Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.” It’s visual.
When I hear a symphony, or jazz, or a folksong, the melody could be raucous or harmonic or an interesting or maybe grating combination. Or the delight of a baby’s giggle or the lyrical tune of a birdsong. It’s auditory.
Even those two descriptions “stay in their own lanes” in my brain’s pathways. A picture forms when I read about the sunset, but sound is evoked by the description of the music.
Since I watched and read about Pharrell Williams in Piece by Piece, his new biopic, I learned about synesthesia. According to healthline.com, “[s]ynesthesia is a neurological condition in which information meant to stimulate one of your senses stimulates several of your senses. People are usually born with the condition, but some people develop it later.” Research is showing that synesthesia may be genetically inherited.
The word itself comes from the Greek words synth (together) and esthesia (perception). Like Pharrell and others, sounds, especially music are visual as well as auditory.
Each of our five basic senses is processed in a different part of our brain. Synesthetes, though, simultaneously process one stimulus in different parts of their brains. While listening to middle C, for example, the auditory cortex will light up, but so may the visual cortex, showing the listener a color or shape. The parietal lobe, that part of the brain that distinguishes one taste from another, may also activate, associating the sound with a particular taste.
All this is to say that people with synesthesia have brains that are hyper-interconnected in unusual and unexpected ways. Although synesthesia presents differently in different people, sensory triggers are consistent for each person. The main character in today’s quote tells us that all of her cat's sounds were shades of mango. Each time he purred or wheezed or meowed. it looked the same.
There is no known treatment for synesthesia, but most synesthetes enjoy experiencing the world in their expanded, if unusual way.
Pharrell Williams’s particular form of synesthesia mixes sound and colors. He has been intrigued with LEGOs since he was young and his interest in “the infinity of space” was the catalyst for his collaboration with LEGOs designers to create a new spaceship set. As sometimes happens, one thing led to another and his biopic included not only Pharrell’s synesthesia but also his LEGO creativity.
How the creators used Pharrell’s story to show the development of LEGO’s new Over the Moon set is its own example of creativity. The whole movie set is made of LEGO bricks, and then animated. The story opens with Pharrell’s discovery of sound images as he sits, fascinated, by the colorful music bursting from his turntable speakers.
Mixing senses to create surprising and unusual images is often the work of poetry. Unexpected juxtapositions of familiar items help us think in new ways.
But it’s not only the job of poetry. Sensory images appear in our common vernacular, too. How about sharp cheddar? We don’t usually describe our food as a shape. Or the sweet sound of success. What does that even mean? And the whole genre of music: the Blues?
So could our senses be connected to our emotions? The short answer is yes. According to NeruoLaunch.com, “[o]ur five senses…are like gatekeepers to our emotional realm. Each sense has its own unique way of influencing our mood and triggering emotional responses.”
When a piece of sensory information enters our brain, it creates its own unique pathway across our vast and complex neurological system. And at the center of it all is a collection of structures, the limbic system, our “emotional brain.”
Our limbic system acts as a bridge that uses our memories to connect our senses to our emotions. It taps into our vast mental library and compares the current experience with ones in our past. We feel the emotional response.
And it’s not all unique to each individual.
Exposure to the color red can increase our heart rate and blood pressure. Blue calms us down. Studies have shown that even a brief exposure to nature can reduce stress and improve our mood. Most of us respond favorably to a hug. Music really can soothe our souls.
Even though my own experiences do not include mixing actual colors with the emotions evoked by the music, science has shown that
listening to or singing the Blues helps us process our loneliness, sadness, and grief.
On this last day of 2024, I’ll turn on the radio and sing along.
I’m reading The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (Grove Atlantic, 2023). It’s a three-generational saga that’s set in South India. A young girl (12 years old) travels across the water for her wedding, where she will meet her husband, a 40-year-old man, for the first time. According to the publisher, it is a “hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding… one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.
Be curious! (and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy!”)
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