Sensory Overload

Sensory perceptions are a tad misleading.

I bought a painting today (well, just a mounted print) - its not this accompanying picture, the one I have bought is deeply red, with blue figures, scratched with yellow, anyway, and I can't stop looking at it - gorgeous - makes me want to pick up a brush. Funny how some art makes you reminisce, other pictures are simply decoratively beautiful, some give me the urge to feel and smell paint, smear it, touch it, lick it., some makes me angry or mournful... I don’t know what Art with a capital A is SUPPOSED to make me feel but I love that types of visual stimuli really float my boat. Even this deeply purest green pic stirs an emotional response in me.

Allegedly, a trained salesperson who knows the Dark Arts of Salesmanship can pick up clues from your voice, body language, gestures, expression and certain facial clues to know how to pitch to you. If you lean towards the tactile, or visual, or verbal, or perhaps are that weird combo a ‘kinesthete’ who prefers to engage physically, the sales guy will have to put his whole body and movement into the equation – speaking, touching and moving to engage your attention. Is there a word for people who interpret the world through all five senses simultaneously – some kind of overload freak? That’s me – I have to smell and touch vegetables in the supermarket, smell, feel and read books in bookstores, try on, walk, smell and touch clothes in boutiques.

However, I do not actually possess synesthesia. Apparently, 1 in 23 of the population possesses this extra sensory gift, in which letters and numbers also appear specifically coloured, or days or months display personalities. Synesthetes may find that visual flickers seem to have a sound. Basically, two or more senses are inextricably linked. Wikipedia says ‘Synesthesia can occur between nearly any two senses or perceptual modes.’ And goes on to detail those that have been studied, which is surprisingly few. One of rarest variations is lexical-gustatory, in which a person hears certain words which invoke certain tastes in their mouth. Commonly synesthetes have no idea that everyone does not experience the world this way.

I met a girl once who could ‘see’ musical notes, in a range of colours. She even wrote a poem about it. I think her name was Lavinia Greenlaw, but I could be mistaken. I shall Google her and get back to you.

Meanwhile, any synesthetic moments you have could be recorded here for posterity. Cheers.