A mental condition exists that causes people’s brains to mix up their five senses.

This condition is called synthesia and it causes sufferers to simultaneously perceive multiple senses. Another form associates objects such as letters, shapes, or numbers with a sensory experience such as a smell, color, or a flavor. The most common type of synesthesia involves associating letters or numbers with a certain color. Which colors and letters are linked varies from person to person, but the connections are consistent on an individual basis. For example, one synesthete may see the color green in response to the letter C, while another may associate purple with C each time! The important and interesting thing is that the mental linkages do not change for each person - if they see orange in response to M, they ALWAYS see orange in response to M. The connections are not by choice, either. Each synesthete’s brain is hard-wired to form these relationships! Scientists do not know for sure what causes synesthesia, but they suspect neurons intended for one sensory system get “crossed” and are utilized within another system. It has also been theorized that everyone starts out with this condition at birth, and synesthetes are just people whose “wires” never got “uncrossed.” Estimates for the number of synesthetes out there are not very precise, varying from 1 in 200 to 1 in 100,000. Much of the reason for this is because many people are not even aware they have the condition. However, synesthesia is thought to be more common in people who are neurologically normal, female, and/or left-handed.