Anyone who has been to art school has heard at least to some degree about synesthesia and met at least a handful of people who identify as synesthetes.

Synesthesia is technically a neurological disorder where the brain confuses and cross references empirical input in the wrong way. While hearing sound and perceiving color or shape is the most commonly discussed form of synesthesia, it can occur between any of the senses and even other abstract concepts like experiencing color with letters or numbers. Mild synesthesia is often undiagnosed since such people often take their experience for granted. For others, it can be a debilitating condition. Consider being unable to remain in a colorful room because it is unbearably loud.

Perhaps related to synesthesia, and common among musicians, is a metaphoric association between particular keys and pitches with specific colors, shapes, or moods. This isn’t necessarily the involuntary sensation of another sense when a pitch or chord is heard, which is a central definition of synesthetic experience, but rather an abstracted feeling of connection between the two events.

While some have looked for connections of universal meaning through these associations, there’s almost no consistency between people for their various associations. Each of these associations, as well as neurological synesthetic confusion is unique to the individual. There’s one exception to this: children who grew up using the Fisher-Price alphabet refrigerator magnets tend to have the same color/letter associations.

And yet, these associations between different empirical experiences exist prevalently, and while they may seem nonsensical to other people, there is an internal logic to them for the person experiencing it. I myself have associations between food and sound; a rich acoustic bass is reminiscent of milk chocolate, whereas higher pitch sounds, like string harmonics, are more reminiscent of a sour invert sugar. The question we are confronted with is: why do these associations exist, and might there be meaningful connection between these experiences?

Our senses, of course, don’t give us a full picture of the world. As we know from color, the world of light and color around us is much grander than the three cones in our eyes can detect. If we were a butterfly with nine photoreceptors in our eyes, or a mantis shrimp with 16 cones, there would be a new visual world in our awareness. What our senses detect are not the thing itself, but they give us a sense of it, a partial representation. By combining our senses we gain a greater understanding of the world around us.

There is an ancient parable, famously re-told by the 12th century poet Rumi, about an exhibit where an elephant is put in a dark room and people must feel it to understand what it is. Depending upon where they touch it, they believe the elephant to be like a water spout (trunk), a fan (ear), a pillar (leg) and a throne (back). Rumi uses this story as an example of the limits of individual perception. He says:

“The sensual eye is just like the palm of the hand.
The palm has no means of covering the whole of the beast.
The eye of the Sea is one thing and the foam another.
Let the foam go, and gaze with the eye of the Sea…
You behold the foam but not the Sea.
We are like boats dashing together;
our eyes are darkened, yet we are in clear water.”

The senses are only one way we come to understand the world. We also use our reason, imagination, and intuition. Each of these modes of perception are one facet of a diamond, expanding our understanding outwards and upwards towards a greater sense of the capital T truth of our surroundings.

During this event we invite you into silence, creating a space away from words and conversation, so we can more fully put our attention to, and perhaps even indulge in the sensual luxury of our senses, exploring where we find connection and dissonance between our modes of perception. What might our senses be trying to tell us about the interconnected nature of the world, both the one we perceive, and the one beyond perception?

I am not suggesting you shut off your mind and engage exclusively with the physical sensations of the body, though you are welcome to do so if that’s what you need during the event. I am suggesting there is an opportunity to bring your awareness to both of these worlds, not splitting your attention between the intellectual and the sensual, but being wholly immersed in both at once. I am suggesting that you may find an inexplicable completeness and joy at the intersection. I hope to meet you there.