false 4591996 1 A person with synesthesia might feel the flavor of food on her fingertips, sense the letter "J" as shimmering magenta or the number "5" as emerald green, hear and taste her husband's voice as buttery golden brown. Synesthetes rarely talk about their peculiar sensory gift—believing either that everyone else senses the world exactly as they do, or that no one else does. Yet synesthesia occurs in one in twenty people, and is even more common among artists. One famous synesthete was novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who insisted as a toddler that the colors on his wooden alphabet blocks were "all wrong." His mother understood exactly what he meant because she, too, had synesthesia. Nabokov's son Dmitri, who recounts this tale in the afterword to this book, is also a synesthete—further illustrating how synesthesia runs in families.<br /> <br /> In <i>Wednesday Is Indigo Blue,</i> pioneering researcher Richard Cytowic and distinguished neuroscientist David Eagleman explain the neuroscience and genetics behind synesthesia’s multisensory experiences. Because synesthesia contradicted existing theory, Cytowic spent twenty years persuading colleagues that it was a real—and important—brain phenomenon rather than a mere curiosity. Today scientists in fifteen countries are exploring synesthesia and how it is changing the traditional view of how the brain works.<br /> <br /> Cytowic and Eagleman argue that perception is already multisensory, though for most of us its multiple dimensions exist beyond the reach of consciousness. Reality, they point out, is more subjective than most people realize. No mere curiosity, synesthesia is a window on the mind and brain, highlighting the amazing differences in the way people see the world. 4641526 24 6 2009 Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia total:10|5:5|4:2|3:2|2:0|1:1| 10 40 85 3 4 0 false false Sun Oct 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 10:42:30 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 10:56:31 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu May 14 20:13:18 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 11 19:23:58 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu May 07 06:22:21 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 28 19:31:17 -0700 2009
A bit too much science for me at the moment. Still it's cool to know that research has been done on synesthesia. Perhaps I'll come back to it.]]> 0 0 false false Fri Nov 06 13:36:45 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 06 13:36:45 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Tue Nov 03 12:45:19 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 12:45:19 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Tue Oct 27 22:04:24 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 27 22:04:24 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Oct 27 20:23:57 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 27 20:23:57 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Oct 23 01:03:00 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 23 01:03:00 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Oct 20 16:35:26 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 20 16:35:26 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Oct 11 00:03:16 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 11 00:03:16 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Sep 08 16:34:24 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 16:34:24 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Sep 04 16:21:58 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 04 16:21:58 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Sep 03 22:06:53 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 03 22:06:53 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Aug 29 11:34:50 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 29 11:34:54 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Aug 23 12:59:43 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 23 12:59:43 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Aug 16 09:25:24 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 16 19:08:06 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Aug 08 11:15:49 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 08 11:15:50 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Aug 07 02:19:19 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 23:04:07 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Aug 06 15:33:19 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 06 15:33:19 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Aug 06 03:43:52 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 27 17:52:16 -0700 2009