Synesthesia

Basic Information

Synesthesia is a neurological phenomena in which impressions affecting one sense trigger secondary effects involving another sense. Possibilities include:

• Seeing letters or numbers as inherently colored.
• Numbers, months of the year, and/or days of the week might have distinct locations in space (i.e., one year might be perceived as being "further behind" another year).
• Hearing sounds in response to visual motion.

Synesthesia is largely an involuntary process.

Sources

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia entry

Game and Story Use

• Sufferers of synesthesia might actually channel higher dimensions such as astral space.
  • And perhaps their awareness of these dimensions will attract attention from creatures living there. After all, if you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares back into you…
• This can also be a good way for someone with a wider sense range to describe what they are experiencing - for example Delphine Von Angua's tenedency to use synesthesic terms (mostly related to colour) to explain to humans (and other non-scenting species) what she can detect with her far superior sense of smell (she, after all being a spoiler werewolf /spoiler). Apologies to anyone who has not yet read Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms or its various sequels.