My Own Private and Public Synesthesia
I’m not talking about my ability to read thoughts and I’m not talking about telepathy, but I’m speaking of a way that I’m now going to reveal has been part of my life from day one, and can be identifiable to many, many people, and that indeed there are those, such as yours truly, who can hear the sound of color, or will see waves of color when they hear music.
Thousands of times I’ve been asked in interviews and in conversations, how do I think when I’m performing on stage? On some occasions, I’ve been more explicit in explaining, but very often I “hear” people’s thoughts, but at the same time, I am heavily influenced by color, and I’ve always found black and white movies more visually appealing. I get much more color out of them. Technicolor movies have sometimes proved too limiting for me. I can “feel” a person’s energy and yes, I am heavily influenced by color. But then my mother exuded tremendous energy and positivity which she reflected in wearing her favorite color, yellow.
I sat for a few hours with journalist Maureen Seaberg, as she was preparing to make me a part of her book. The common denominator that she found in us was this gift of synesthesia. It doesn’t surprise me that it is more common in artists, actors, and musicians, since I’ve spent so much of my life demonstrating how reality can be altered through the power of suggestion, and often potentials can be brought out of a human being through this force, which I don’t consider to be hypnosis or a trance, but suggestibility. In fact, I find that a person who responds to suggestion or is suggestible is often as well empathetic… able to feel the feelings of others… and may tend to be more prone to have one’s senses overlap so that they might hear music from a rose, or taste a series of words. After all, don’t some of us unconsciously describe an idea as delectable? Yes, tasty! Many of us in everyday life embrace something we enjoy because it just “sounds good”. Even in a setting that could be distasteful or threatening, we have encompassed in our culture the phrase “it just doesn’t smell right to me”. It’s not farfetched to think that those who originated these phrases have this gift of synesthesia and were reflecting the way they have blended their senses so that one overlaps the other.
So it’s exciting for me to be part of Maureen Seaberg’s new book, Tasting the Universe. I look forward to discussing and sharing my thoughts about this delectable, appetizing, and colorful phenomena as it affects the lives of millions of people in a very personalized way.
