Learn something new everyday

A helpful distraction from personal thought - I learned a new word today from a student. Synesthesia.

Once you know what it means, you'll understand my surprize/ disappointment that I didn't know it already.

Synesthesia is a perceptual condition of mixed sensations: a stimulus in one sensory modality (e.g., hearing) involuntarily elicits a sensation/experience in another modality (e.g. vision). Likewise, perception of a form (e.g., a letter) may induce an unusual perception in the same modality (e.g. a color)


It's much more involved than that, and I am having some fun reading about it. The student brought it up as we were listening to a piece of rather abstract music that is about a modern work of art. He said that he couldn't describe the music using words as he was trying to become a synesthetic and experience the music that way.... and he was serious. I asked what synesthetic was and he gave an "ok" definition as it is somewhat difficult to define. I humorred him but had no idea what that was. I have heard that people with perfect pitch can tell a note by the color they see in their minds eye when hearing it, but that's the closest I could get. But, as I researched the artwork which the music was about, someone had described the artist as a possible synesthetic. So, it was there I ended up learning how to spell it and then began a little research.

It's a common attritubute associated to artists - visual, musicial, even theatrical. Other than that, I don't have much to say about it other than it's intriging. I will say it's almost as abstract as the condition it refers to. :-)

I do know I learned about something new today. Always a plus.

Always a plus to have healthy distraction too !