More about Synesthesia

I was so excited about my possible synesthetic experience last week (aural synesthesia?) that I didn't explain what synesthesia actually is. It just so happened that on last week's episode of Australia's terrific radio program All in the Mind, host Natasha Mitchell interviewed neuroscientist David Eagleman. The two talked about his new novel Sum: 40 tales from the Afterlives, and Mitchell notes that Eagleman is "also a leading researcher in synesthesia, studying people who taste sounds, hear colours, and live in a remarkable world of sensory cross-talk."

The interview is quite interesting -- for this topic, that's especially true of the second half, where Mitchell and Eagleman talk about his research into synesthesia and what we still don't know about the brain. Mitchell's blog post summarizes more of the interview and has been left open for comments from synesthetes and others.

For More Information

• Cytowic, Richard E. and David Eagleman. Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain on Synesthesia. MIT Press, 2009
• David Eagleman's lab
  
• Mitchell, Natasha, interview: David Eagleman: The afterlife, synesthesia and other tales of the senses. All in the Mind, June 20, 2009. mp3 ... print transcript available shortly.