Synesthesia
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
Synesthesia (also Synaesthesia) is what happens when your brain mixes up your senses. For example, synesthesia might cause someone to hear colors or see sounds.
This can happen to people with autism or people taking drugs, or it could happen to perfectly normal people. People taking drugs experience a slightly different sensation, as though they were surrounded by the sensation. People with synesthesia normally have it from birth, and as though it were just a background thought, not as though everything were different. Just as when a person without synesthesia may see an apple when the word is said, a person with synesthesia might see the color orange, taste sugar or hear a flute. It does not seem odd to them that they have synesthesia. It seems like something that's always been there. Most synesthetes (the term for those who have the condition) do not know it's odd until they express the feelings that they have to someone else.
Synesthesia can really be a cross between any of the five senses as well as emotions.
Some musicians and composers have a form of synesthesia that allows them to hear music as colors. Mozart is said to have had this form of synesthesia. He said that the key of D Major had a warm "orangey" sound to it, while B flat minor was blackish. A major was a rainbow of colors to him. This may explain why he wrote some of his music using different colors for different music notes. Also, why much of his music is in more major keys.
Another composer who had color-hearing was the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. In 1907 he talked with another famous composer, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and they both found that some musical notes made them think of certain colours. Scriabin worked with a man called Alexander Mozer who made a color organ.
