I’m fascinated by this article in New Scientist about the discovery of the first cases of touch-emotion synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is when you experience a concurrent sensation along with the sensation you’re supposed to be feeling. So in this case, these two subjects feel emotions along with tactile sensations. So AW feels denim and gets depressed. HS touches dry leaves and feel disgusted — not disgust for the dry leaves, but a general feeling of disgust.
I’m always interested in how the brain processes its input. This sort of cross wiring is fascinating. And as a writer, is pure poetic fodder. I just read a novella about a color-sound synthaesthete in the current issue of Santa Monica Review called “Time Trials” by Gregory Spatz which was great so finding this article felt especially timely.
The thing is, that it’s something we all do — combine sensations. The proximity of those brain centers helps faciliate this. Those connections between the part of the brain that processes emotions and the part that processes tactile sensation are in our brains too, except ours are dulled and pruned away. Most of us have a fear of sharp objects, cuddling of soft pillows feels good, and silk feels sexy. But for us, these are just metaphors.
Can you imagine though, having some piece of fabric or some other material that you can just touch and it would make you happy. Not just feed good because it’s soft or pretty, but actually make you feel emotionally happy. That would be a hell of a rabbit’s foot.