Sherrill Joseph – On Synesthesia

Today I bring you a very special post on The Creator’s Roulette! We are going to learn about a neurological condition known as synesthesia. I have Sherrill Joseph with me who has this super-power condition (you’ll see why I call it that in a bit). Sherrill Joseph is a retired teacher and will be forever inspired by her beautiful students in the San Diego public schools where she taught for thirty-five years.

She is now a published author. She has peopled and themed her mysteries with characters of various abilities, races, cultures, and interests, strongly believing that children need to find themselves but also others unlike themselves in books if all are to become tolerant, anti-racist world citizens. The author patterned her detectives after her fifth graders and young twin cousins to be mature, smart, polite role models for her readers.

This post would be especially useful for teachers and parents, and for those curious about the world and our abilities as humans. 🙂

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Welcome to The Creator’s Roulette, Sherrill. I did a quick search on ‘synesthesia’ and learned that it “is a neurological condition in which information meant to stimulate one of your senses stimulates several of your senses”. How did you first learn about it?

I stumbled across an article about it online about five years ago and said, “This is me!” I no longer felt that I was “weird” or alone since there were many others, including some famous people, with the condition. (Supposedly, Van Gogh, Duke Ellington, Plato, and Socrates had it though did they know it at the time, or was it “diagnosed” recently via a set of criteria? I don’t know! I also don’t know what type(s) of synesthesia they had.) As far as I know, I was born with the ability since I remember it occurring during my earliest childhood memories.

I have lexical-gustatory synesthesia (sound/word-taste), which is very rare and naturally occurring. In other words, I can’t “turn it off” or control the responses I get. When I hear a word or name, I taste and/or smell something. Sometimes, the taste/smell is pleasant; sometimes, revolting! For example, the name Paul is chocolate with coconut. But the name Michael is vomit. My responses are very stable, meaning that what I tasted/smelled previously will very likely be the same thing now and in the future. As a kid, it helped me learn my classmates’ names even though I didn’t have a name for the ability! I assumed that everyone tasted something when they heard a name until, as I grew, I discovered my uniqueness in this. Still, I remained silent about it, which is typical, so as not to be ridiculed or ostracized. My fraternal twin sister might have it though it’s unclear. It can be hereditary, especially among females. I don’t know of any ancestors with it.

That is fascinating, Sherrill. I love how you used it as a way to remember things. Apart from remembering names, are there other ways in which you have used this ability?

Well, it lets me enjoy food without eating it or ingesting the calories! I think it also heightens my sense of taste and smell under as I go through my day. For example, I seem to be able to smell aromas others can’t. I can smell a fig tree from many yards away, for example! I’m not sure if that’s an offshoot of synesthesia, though.

I think it’s helped me as a writer since I see and experience life on a very different level.

You are a retired K-12 teacher. Which grades did you teach during your teaching career? How common was synesthesia in the classes that you taught?

I taught every grade K-12 during my 35-year teaching career (1978-2013). My favorites were 4th and 5th because the kids still liked school for the most part and were mature enough to understand my dry sense of humor. 

I never met any students who claimed to have synesthesia. I didn’t know at that time that my condition had a name, however, and I suspect many others didn’t, either. I have since discovered a kids’ book called A Mango-Shaped Space, by Wendy Mass (2003) about a girl with synesthesia (not my type). Some of my students could have read it, but none came to me to tell me that they saw themselves in the book. 

Apart from A Mango-Shaped Space, have you found any other books?

There are some other children’s books, which I haven’t read: The Noisy Paint Box by Barb Rosestock; The Girl Who Heard Colors, by Marie Harris; The Boy with Seventeen Senses, by Sheila Grau; The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender, and others. And of course, there are The Botanic Hill Detectives Mysteries series books, by Sherrill Joseph! My character Rani Kumar has the same kind I have (what a coincidence!).

According to masterclass.com, here are five famous writers who used synesthetic devices: Dante in The Divine Comedy; Keats in “Ode to a Nightingale”; Frost in “Fire and Ice”; Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and Wilde in Salomé.

It shows up in writing in general when writers write synesthetic idioms like “bitter cold,” “feeling blue,” “in the pink,” “an icy gaze,” “a scorching glare,” etc. Basically, it’s just combining two sensations to form an idiomatic term that makes sense in whatever language is being used.

Once you learned the name for your ability, did you try to find out if others around you had them? Where there any specific questions that one could ask themselves to find out if they are synesthetic?

I asked my fraternal twin sister if she remembered us as kids talking about what names tasted like, but she said no. I asked her if she experiences a taste when she hears a word or name. She said no. If she had synesthesia, she might have lost it or never really had it to begin with. It can be temporarily lost if a synesthete has a traumatic experience. I also asked my mother, but she looked at me askance! She also said that she had never heard her parents mention it if they had it.

I think specific questions to ask could be something like, “Do you experience a taste/color/music/personality trait/shape/sensation when you hear or see the word/piece of music/object  _________?”

You know how during reading we are asked to visualize things? I learned recently that there are people who cannot visualize. Would this be considered not being able to use one of the senses? The condition, in this particular case, is called Aphantasia.

I don’t know much about it, but it seems like the opposite of synesthesia. It’s living with no “mind’s eye.” So, people with aphantasia can see the world around them but not picture something when they close their eyes. I wouldn’t want to have aphantasia. Making a movie in my mind as a write seems critical to my story arc.

Did you have any students with synesthesia? If yes, did you have to adopt lessons for them? Learning disabilities and special needs are coded to provide additional support to the students. Does synesthesia get categorized as well?

No adapting since I didn’t have any students who claimed to have synesthesia. 

That being said, I understand some color-graphemic synesthetes (those who see/experience numbers, letters, music, and sounds in colors) sometimes have trouble if the colors are too distracting; for example, colors of numbers, symbols, and shapes interfering in solving math problems or in performing music. If a student was having trouble with, say, math, and it was found to be caused by synesthesia, an individual educational plan (IEP) might have to be written for adapting lessons just as it would for a disorder or deficit, I would imagine. As with both synesthesia and a learning disorder, the student would not necessarily “get over” the cause as much as learn strategies to deal with or circumvent it. Is there a learning disability code for it in education? I don’t know. Synesthesia isn’t considered a disability generally speaking. There wasn’t such a code at the time I retired in 2013 as far as I know.

What else can you tell us about synesthesia?

Some synesthetes like having the condition: some don’t. It depends, I guess, on whether or not a person experiences it as fun and unique or troublesome and challenging in their life, learning, and social interactions.  I actually enjoy my condition. It’s like tasting food or other things (usually pleasant) without actually eating it or ingesting calories. But I did stop dating a guy some years back because his name made me taste something very unpleasant!

Synesthesia is not considered a disease or a mental illness. Synesthetes are not considered schizophrenic, psychotic, or delusional. Synesthesia is considered a mental ability or gift, not a disability or impairment. In fact, according to “The Synesthesia Project” conducted at Boston University, some synesthetes perform higher on certain cognitive, intelligence, and memory tests than non-synesthetes. It is also not the result of psychotropic drug use!

Reading about your experience has helped me see it as an ability! It is quite unique and adds more dimensions how you experience the world.

Yes, it does! I’m glad I have it—unless the name or word makes an unpleasant taste in my mouth!

It sparks my writing, too.

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 In children’s fiction, main characters can be role models/heroes, like the reader, unlike the reader, or the villain. Which do you think is the most important character type for kids and why?

I hope this interview gave you some new information! You can connect with Sherrill on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Learn more about her on her website.

Banner image on Unsplash.