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Do synesthetics experience greater satisfaction from sex? And what is the difference between their sexuality and ours? Psychologists have tried to make sense of things that are almost impossible to put into words.
Synesthesia is a phenomenon in which the same phenomenon is perceived by two or more different senses. For example, people with the ability to “color hearing” can remember the note “C” as red, and the note “B” as purple, and those who have taste synesthesia can hear one or another melody every time they drink. glass of lemonade or try chocolate. This phenomenon has been known for more than three centuries. Synesthesia is not a mental disorder and occurs due to the fact that one part of the brain that processes the action of a stimulus is able to transmit excitation to other parts of the brain that are responsible for other sensory organs.
Synesthesia occurs in about 4% of people. In total, there are about 50 different types of it. Among them are such amazing phenomena as mirror synesthesia, in which a person feels touching the skin of other people as if it were his own, and misophonia, in which certain sounds can “turn on” various emotions in the individual’s psyche (usually negative ones – anger, anger, fear, disgust). The American psychologist Charles Osgood even suggested that people’s ability to metaphor, which is the basis of poetry, is closely related to the phenomenon of synesthesia: the ability to perceive and describe one’s impressions in images that belong to other areas of the senses is one of the unique abilities of a person. as a species1.
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- “I see music in color”: what is synesthesia
One of the most interesting variants of this phenomenon is sexual synesthesia: during sexual intercourse, some people have vivid visual or auditory images, special taste and smell sensations. Sexual synesthesia is not yet good enough, so psychologists at the Hannover Medical School tried to establish with the help of a study – how does this phenomenon affect the sensations of sex and the scenario of sexual intercourse? For this task, 19 volunteers were selected who had a sexual form of synesthesia (17 women and 2 men), as well as 36 participants who did not have the ability to experience such sensations. To study their feelings, psychologists used two questionnaires – one was about how strong arousal is, the other was about states of sexual trance.2.
The fundamental difficulty of studying sensations is obvious: it is quite possible that there are no two identical people in the world who had the same sensations from sex. Especially when it comes to synesthetics: the fact is that most of the sensations that they experience are extremely difficult to verbalize – after all, we are not talking about the “pink sound of her voice” or the “ringing taste of her skin”, but about extremely complex “extra sensations”. ”, consisting of many different components.
However, the questionnaire concerning trance states turned out to be very appropriate here. It turned out that synesthetics experience these states much more often – for example, they are well acquainted with sensations that the average person would envy – “the vastness of the ocean” and “visual change of reality.” Both of these sensations are commonly associated with altered states of consciousness, for example, they are often described by drug addicts who have taken hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD. Synesthetes also experience stronger attraction to partners. However, the researchers found that, paradoxically, this does not affect their level of satisfaction with sex: on average, it is even slightly lower than that of ordinary people. It is also more difficult for synesthetics to feel solitude – they are more likely than ordinary people during sex to be distracted by extraneous thoughts related to problems, work, etc.
The general conclusion is that synesthetics find it easier to achieve sexual trance, but they do not feel any deeper satisfaction from sex than ordinary people. The authors of the study would like to understand the reasons for this paradox, but the methodology that would allow this to be done has not yet been developed.
1 R. Cytowic, F. Wood «Synаesthesia. A review of major theories and their brain basis», Brain and Cognition, 1982, vol. 1.
2 J. Nielsen et al. «Synaesthesia and sexuality: the influence of synaesthetic perceptions on sexual experience», Frontiers in Psychology, 2013.
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