Bonus Issue: Interview With A Synesthete
What is it like to experience synesthesia?
A synesthete is simply someone who experiences synesthesia - please see Issue 13 which was dedicated to that condition/gift - to learn more about it.
The following is an interview with Meg Rouje, a self-proclaimed synesthete, who connected with us after that issue on LinkedIn.
Meg is an Italian artist who lives in Valencia, Spain, and does consulting on multisensory branding, about which she explains more in the interview.
This interview was conducted over Zoom in March 2024 by Guy James from The Elevator.
GJ: Could you please describe your experience with synesthesia and how it manifests in your daily life? What particular correlations do you experience between the senses?
MR: So this question is actually pretty hard for me, because a lot of the time you can't really explain it in a very straightforward way. I do have graphene synesthesia, which is letters and numbers. That's what I actually noticed at the beginning. But also something that I've noticed as I've explored it further, is feeling and seeing colors; it's mixed with people and personalities, for example. Concepts, ideas, and emotions. So for me, I create stories, for example, and it will start from, I don't know, colors; like the ideas will just be colors, and then through those colors, I get that out. Or people's mood or personality will be felt through colors for me.
GJ: So if you meet someone, do you immediately feel that they have a color?
MR: Yes, it's like I feel colors for different people. At the beginning, I thought it was because of the name, because when I first meet them, the name can be a similar color. But then I realized that the colors will change when I start to really get to know the person. So it's more related to their personality, their energy, their vibe, their mood. If someone is in a bad mood or is detached or uncomfortable somehow, even if you don't really say it, I can feel certain colors. Or if they are influenced by someone else, I can feel different colors. They don't match that person, it's very weird to describe.
GJ: So where do you feel the colors? When you think of that person do you get a color coming up associated with them?
MR: That's the part I can't really describe - because it's it's like you feel them. You feel them in your body, but at some time you feel the color. So you see them, but you don't always really see them. I don't really know how to describe that.
GJ: So you could say that 'this person is generally purple', or something like that.
MR: I could describe it like, 'it's a cloud of bright green, and then there are some patches of orange, and then you have a gradient of something else', and so I can kind of describe it, but I can't really say it as if I was looking at a picture, like very specifically, because it's more of a feeling. You get a feeling of this, but you can't really pinpoint the details. I really have to concentrate, and then it goes away when you try to look into it.
GJ: So when you meet someone - like me for example - for the first time, do you immediately get a sense of a color?
MR: Yeah, everything and everyone has color energy. So it's more like sensing the energy through colors. So with you it could be that I have a sensation through the connection we had online; and online, for example, it's very influenced by the colors you might have in your profile. I'm a brand specialist, so to me it's very important because people perceive these associations. But then when I meet people it's more like the the energy of the person. So it can be a bit different, but usually it's sensations of colors.
GJ: And if someone for example suddenly gets angry, would you get a feeling of like a different color coming in?
MR: I could perceive the difference in colors. It's not just colors, it also can be texture. It's weird, there's texture as well.
GJ: A texture as in a fabric or like a rough or smooth thing?
MR: It's a sensation of texture. For example, if I spend a lot of time on social media and I see a lot of posts that are negative or angry, the texture is like that... the colors and the texture are repelling, so I know I need to stay out of it for a while. So it can be that.
GJ: You said it might be related to the person's name as well, so can you say more about the graphene synesthesia?
MR: Graphene synesthesia, that's the most common. It's really associating certain letters and numbers to specific colors. And for me, it's when certain letters come together, they might get different colors together, like one is more neutral, but then it changes because of the sound of it with the other letter. And I speak four languages, so depending on the language I'm speaking, it would have different colors to it. So I think it's really very much associated with the sound of the letters as well, because they are similar between the languages. That's why I think it was so easy for me to learn languages because I have these associations through colors and also images. But they differ; they have differences as well.
GJ: So for example the letter 'G', would it have a different color in different languages? Would it have a consistent color for you? Like if you just see a letter G, does it always have the same color if there is no other context?
MR: It depends on the language, first of all, because it can be slightly different. But if I think of G as like a blue color, and then I have a word like 'garden', then it wouldn't be blue anymore because 'A' is pink. So it loses its color because the vowels for me have a stronger power. And so they usually overpower the other letters, so it depends a lot on the words.
GJ: For example, like two similar words, for example, 'garden' in English and 'jardín' in Spanish, would they have a similar color or would it be just completely different?
MR: They are similar, but because the sound is somehow different, the smoothness and the brightness of the color can be slightly different. I think it really depends on the words and also the meaning of the word because it comes a lot with, for example, images. So it can be colors: for example, 'basil'. It's green basil because it's associated with an image of basil, right? But if I think of the word 'basil', then there is some yellow and pink in it, and some gray. But the green... it's very hard to describe because it's a feeling of that green, but if I have to write it down, then I would see the pink and the yellow, you know, the other colors. And then if I have to say that in Spanish, it's 'albahaca'. Because of the sound of 'albahaca', then there is a lot more pink in it. So I can still feel the same green, but there is more pink and there's the gray of the 'H' in the middle. I know how to write it, so that's why I'm pretty good at writing things because I can think of the colors of the word. And in Italian and French, it's a different word again, and there's a lot more green to it - there's a bit more darkness in Italian because of the letter 'O' at the end: 'basilico'. But they all have this, and also this smell comes with it somehow, like a basil smell. So I can associate it with that. It's complicated because it's really a mix of things, and it's not clearly defined.
GJ: Do you think the shape of the letter comes into it or is it more the sound in your head that produces the synesthesia with the other senses?
MR: I think it's more the sound of it.
GJ: If I say 'imagine the smell of a rose', are you imagining that smell in the same 'place' in your mind as you are when you get the 'smell' of a certain word, or not?
MR: I don't know... when you said 'rose', I saw a rose, and it was pink, and I could smell it. It all happens in the same place in my head. Which is not a defined place... I couldn't even tell you because, for example, I noticed that I perceive these types of images and sensorial experiences in places that feel different in my visual sense if I'm thinking about them, or if they are really subconscious. So for example, when I go to bed, I'm just about to fall asleep, I know if I'm about to fall asleep - I listen to some relaxing music sometimes so I can experience the colors and the shapes - and I know when I'm falling asleep because they happen in a different place in my brain , I can feel that. So feels like when I'm concentrating, it feels more like I'm seeing them with my eyes, but when I'm more drifting away, I can see as if it's inside of my brain. I don't know... it's weird.
GJ: I think I know what you mean. So you actually listen to music in order to see the colors and have the synesthesia experience?
MR: I do. I didn't realize I could perceive colors through music until a while back and then I realized that if I just relax listening to music, I have this experience. But it's also something that I developed. I think I worked on my synesthesia to make it stronger somehow. And probably because of the work that I do, it's actually helpful for me to have more cohesiveness between the senses because I work with sensory or brand experiences. And so the more I meditate with music or the more I just let my brain, you know, do its thing, the easier it becomes in general; it's stronger, but it doesn't bother me.
GJ: Is there a specific type of music that you prefer in order to get synesthetic experience from?
MR: Yeah, it's mostly instrumental , specific sounds. I can listen to music with words, but then it's a lot of images, it's a lot of real references. So it's a different type of music. But when it's more like, you know, Hans Zimmer, this type of instrumental music , it's really immersive. It's really like a space, and there is a lot of happening in this space. It's not just objects, it feels good.
GJ: Have you heard the soundtrack for Dune that Hans Zimmer did?
MR: Oh, I saw the first one actually, but no I haven't.
GJ: The sounds he gets on that are really amazing, maybe listen to it, you might get a nice effect from that. So have you ever tried psychedelics?
MR: No, I haven't.
GJ: Okay, because a lot of people get synesthetic effects on psychedelics. So you can see music, for example.
MR: I know a lot of people do that and experience that. I do have that when I relax in general.
GJ: How did you first discover that you had synesthesia, and what was your reaction to this discovery?
MR: It was funny, because I was in fine arts and I was doing this course on colors, which is what got me into color consultation and all of that. We studied synesthesia and an example the professor was talking about was: you're eating yogurt and you can see these colors. I was like, 'oh, this is so cool'. So I was talking with a friend after the class and I was like, 'Can you imagine having this synesthesia and you're eating something and you can see the colors. It would be so cool.' Then I say something like, 'We only see the colors with people. We're just so boring'. And she looked at me like...(!) and that's when I realized that it wasn't normal.
And I thought, 'Oh, maybe it's another type of synesthesia. Maybe there's a lot more than that, right?' Because we didn't really learn about the whole range of synesthesia, this was just one example. But I didn't really look into it because I thought this is just the way my brain works. It's the normal thing, so I didn't pay attention to it.
And then a few years later, when I started to really study colors I discovered that it was a type of synesthesia and there was a lot more to it than I thought previously, because I hadn't paid attention to it. Then I started to realize that I had different types of synesthesia, and I started to explore them a bit more as well, to better understand how they worked. So the more you concentrate on having it, the more evident it becomes to you that you do have it. I started to pay attention. Before it was just like: you have ticks and you keep doing something without ever realizing you actually do it, it's the same thing. You just do something and you don't even know that you do it.
So I started to pay more attention when I actually would have the colors or sensations. I realized that it was in a lot of things. It was in the names of people, and in numbers. That's when I realized why I was so good at remembering numbers. Like when I was a kid, I would remember all the phone numbers of everyone - we didn't have mobile phones. And people were always like, 'How do you remember all these numbers?' I would say, 'I don't know, it's just easy. And then, much later, I was like, 'Oh, now I see why, because they're all colors. It's just visual'. I didn't even know I was seeing colors because it's just there. It's like, you speak your language. You never really question it.
It's probably a similar thing with synesthesia that you just don't question it; something you've always had. So you don't even wonder if other people experience the same because it's just the way it works. When you discover that other people don't, because somehow it comes out - I think: 'how can you not?' It's like people with aphantasia - they don't visualize at all and they're shocked to learn that people actually see things in their mind's eye.
GJ: And also people who don't have an internal monologue.
MR: So it's like when people say, 'No, I don't listen to myself speaking'. I'm like, 'So how do you think?!' You know, what do you think?
GJ: I don't know how they know what they're thinking. It must be an images or something.
MR: I mean, I do think in images, but it depends, you know.
GJ: Do you play a musical instrument?
MR: I don't, I do art, but not music. I'm very good at listening to music and recognizing if there's something off, like I feel it right away. Yeah. I can feel it in my body or just as a sensation or as colors, but I can't play for the life of me. I'm just really bad.
GJ: Because I was wondering if you actually learn to read music, you might learn it a lot quicker, because you would probably see each note as a color and so on. You probably would be able to remember it like the numbers.
MR: I think I did play music when I was a kid, I played piano for a few years. I think I could be very good at it, but I keep feeling when things are off and I keep getting it wrong. And it's not just getting a note wrong, it's getting the color, and the note, and the sensation wrong, so it's really annoying. I was very nervous when I was a kid about music, because I couldn't get it right, so I stopped. But I do arts; I've been painting for many years, and I do work with a lot of material. So I'm not playing just with paint, but I use textures and materials and all of that. So it's more satisfying.
GJ: Are you familiar with Kandinsky?
MR: Yes, for me, it's always been a reference.
GJ: And when you look at a Kandinsky, can you tell that he was a synesthete?
MR: I didn't know, I discovered it later - in Italy, you study art since you're born, pretty much. I was studying Kandinsky for many, many years. I was very young, and I never knew that he was a synestheste. I didn't even know what it was back then. But I always had this fascination for his paintings. I was obsessed with it because of the colors. It was speaking to my soul, and I never knew why. Then I discovered about synesthesia, I discovered that he had it; I was like, 'Oh, maybe that's why.' Because it's a kind of harmony between the colors - that maybe without synesthesia, one wouldn't be able to see or generate, I don't know. But the use of colors, and also the composition of the colors and the forms and the shapes, all of these things are in harmony. I t feels good in your body, like soothing music. It feels very good when you look at it.
GJ: If you look at AI art, do you have a different feeling? Can you tell it's AI just from a synesthetic perspective or not?
MR: It depends because a lot of AI art is obvious, you can spot it. I'm usually pretty good at spotting things visually, and also it's my job, working with branding. So I can spot right away if a color is off or a shape or something doesn't match with the vibe, or something like that. Usually I'm pretty good at spotting AI right away because it has a different feeling: like the colors are more 'plasticky'. It feels faker, you know, it misses that life to it. I don't know how to say it, but I can feel it. There isn't that emotion behind the creation.
GJ: I think a lot of people don't have that perception - or maybe they do, but they're not connected to it in some way.
MR: I'm not sure they do, because - I'm in marketing, and social media marketing - I see a lot of people using AI to write posts and from the second word, I can tell they're using it. So they probably don't realize that they sound like a lot of other people; they all look the same and sound the same. And to me, it looks the same. It gives it all the same colors and patterns. I don't know if they actually notice.
GJ: It seems like a lot of people don't notice. Because I'm a writer, I can notice as well. I know what you mean, there's the 'music' of the sentence, and you can tell it's AI. It's dead - even if it's all correct and there's nothing wrong with it as such.
MR: It's just the way the words come together, the types of words. It's the patterns, the vibes of the words they use, the colors that words form together, like in the whole post, the colors are always the same.
GJ: So this is related to the next question - which you've mostly answered anyway - but in what ways does synesthesia influence your perception of the world around you. And do you find it advantageous in certain situations?
MR: For me, it's very, very beneficial with the work that I do. That's probably also why I do this work, that's my 'genius' if you want, because it's easy for me to spot things. And I realized years ago that I'm really good at spotting when the different senses are not cohesive between each other. There's no congruency. It's really useful for me, because I do have synesthesia, but I also have a higher sensorial sensitivity. I'm very sensitive to inputs in general. I can spot things right away. And they can be overwhelming when it's noisy places, for example, a lot of inputs are very overwhelming. But in certain contexts, it's really helpful, because I have a higher sensitivity to it. So arts, the creation of art, branding, you know, all of these things. When you're creating a brand you're feeling into the experience as a whole; of keeping it harmonious, in a way. I do strategy, so a good strategy with the clients - based on what they're trying to convey - the essence of the brand, and the type of clients they're talking to, and what branding is all about is what you want people to feel. And then translating those concepts and ideas into an immersive experience, an immersive storytelling. Then from that you extract the colors and the wording and all of this sensation - what type of smell is the brand, what type of space is the brand? You know, all of these things.
GJ: Are you a fan of ASMR?
MR: I'm not really into it, to be honest. There are certain sensations that really are satisfying to all my senses. For example, something that I love doing is cuddling my cat, because she's very soft. The purring of my cat, that's my ASMR.
GJ: Are there any things you like to watch, like, videos or things that are particularly pleasing to your synesthetic sense?
MR: I do love looking at colors and arts. So going to exhibits, looking at beautiful art, art that's really appealing to the eye, certain colors, certain compositions. I have tons of books on color; I love to just look at them, you know, I don't need to read them all the time, I just look at them because of the colors. It gives me a lot of sensations and emotions.
GJ: How has your experience with synesthesia impacted your relationships with others, particularly when it comes to communication and understanding their perspectives?
MR: I think it helps with me understanding and perceiving how they actually feel and what they're actually *not* saying, right? There's the communication they convey through their energy and body language and whatever: I can spot if they're not saying something, they're somehow uncomfortable. Usually people say that I can read them like an open book. And that's probably the reason, I don't know. I think it really allows me to see through people, let's say.
GJ: Can you find the world can be overwhelming when other people don't have the same sensitivity that you do?
MR: No, I don't, I don't usually think it's overwhelming. I just can perceive. I can, for example, perceive if they're lying or if they're, hiding their actual mood, if they're in a bad mood and pretending not to be - I always can spot those things. It's not necessarily overwhelming, it's just revealing.
GJ: Can it actually be an advantage?
MR: Yeah, I usually say it's an advantage. Sometimes it can be not a very good advantage because when they're trying to hide something, or lying, or whatever... but at least I know, right? It's better to know than not know.
GJ: What advice would you give to someone who's curious about synesthesia, but has not yet experienced it themselves?
MR: I have a different view on synesthesia because I think it's something that we all have, it's just that certain people like me are more aware of it. It's more present for us, if you want. But at the end of the day, synesthesia is an interconnection between neurons. It's synapses coming together and interacting with each other. So it's just like any other brain function. I think we all have this interconnection of senses - because if I show you an image and I put a very different sound to it, even if you don't have synesthesia, we know they don't match. Like you can feel it, right?
So I think we all have the ability to recognize when senses match or they don't, even if it's subconscious, which is a lot of the work that branding is about. You're not aware why, but for some reason, you just don't like the brand, or you don't trust it. That's because subconsciously, you can feel there's a disconnection between something. So it's just about bringing more awareness. It's just practice; the more you practice, the more you become aware of it, the more you can recognize the patterns and can recognize how the senses come together. Even if you don't necessarily see things - but you can experience it to some degree. It's really just a matter of degree of how much synesthesia someone has, rather than 'some people have it and some people don't'. I think it is because we all have senses, and we all recognize when something is off. And I think you can experience it even on a more rational level somehow - you know, the brain has synapses and they function in the same way. We all have more synesthesia when we're kids, we just lose these connections. All brain function is just a matter of practicing and putting them together again. I think it's possible for people to experience it to some degree.
GJ: So in your opinion, it would be like someone could become more synesthetic by practicing these connections and allowing the brain to make more connections between the different parts?
MR: I think it would be possible to raise your sensitivity to it.
GJ: Okay, that's brilliant. Thanks a lot, it was really interesting.
MR: Thank you for the interview; it brings a lot of awareness for me too, so that's very cool.
You can contact Meg via her website, on LinkedIn or by email.
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