Spanish singer-songwriter Miguel Bosé recently announced that he suffers from a neurological condition known as “synesthesia”.
During the cover night talent show he is a coach on, one of the contestants mentioned that he suffers from “synesthesia”, after which Miguel Bosé told him in his speech that he also suffers from this condition.
Despite his revelation, the “Morena Mía” performer didn’t give any details about the condition, what it’s like to live with “synesthesia” or how long he’s had the neurological condition.
What is synaesthesia, the disease afflicting Miguel Bosé?
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the first thing to do to fully understand what synesthesia is is to consider that humans have five senses: sight, taste, smell, touch, and hearing.
With this in mind, it’s important to remember that most people perceive their senses individually, but when a person has synesthesia, they can experience multiple senses at the same time.
“In synesthesia, one sense can be experienced simultaneously with another. For example, a person with synesthesia might feel like something rough is brushing their hand every time they smell a flower.” explained the NIH.
Therefore, synesthesia is a condition in which the affected person can perceive and experience one sense at the same time as another.
It is so much the sensory information they can feel that some people with synesthesia can see letters or numbers in a specific color.
Synesthesia is not very common, in fact it affects only a fraction of 4% of the world’s population and can run in families, leading researchers to believe it may be linked to genetics.
“Synesthesia is harmless and rarely causes problems for people. Most people with synesthesia say they enjoy their special senses.”clarified National Institutes of Health.
Despite the fact that it is a condition that only affects 4% of the world’s population, experts in the field point out that a person who is under the influence of a psychoactive substance can also feel and experience synesthesia.
Synesthesia has 4 types which are:
- Grapheme Color: This type of synesthesia is one of the most common and is based on the fact that humans basically associate every character (number or letter) with a colour. For example, a person with this type of synesthesia might associate the letter A with the color green when they see it.
- Lexical-gustatory: based on the appearance of an involuntary taste sensation when pronouncing a word.
- temporal-spatial: It is one of the most complicated and consists in the person assigning a specific representation to the time, either in shape or color.
- Music Color: It is similar to that of grapheme color, except here the person visualizes a color when hearing a song, tone, note, or musical sequence.
Experts have pointed out that synesthesia is very common among people who have committed themselves to the artistic world.
As a matter of fact, Artists such as Lady Gaga, Olivia Rodrigo and Pharrell Williams suffer from it, as does painter Vincent Van Gogh, who suffers from synesthesia. Something many point out has helped them further advance their artistic careers.