Carol Crane can really feel the music...and not in a groovy, this band moves me kind of way. The sound of a trumpet tickles her neck, violins brush her face, and guitar music touches her ankles.
Carol and Sean have a rare condition called synesthesia where their senses cross over one another. There are many forms of synesthesia with any number of sensory combinations. The most common form it takes is perceiving color in numbers, letters, or concepts such as time. Some people hear a name and taste chocolate while others feel pain and see yellow. Researchers believe that one in a thousand people are synesthetes and possibly as many as one in three hundred. There have been many studies proving that synesthesia is a legitimate condition with elevated brain function in certain sensory spots of the brain. No study has found the root of what causes synesthesia but there is no shortage of theories. My favorite is that all people are born without the barriers between senses and as they age barriers between the neurons grow. This would mean that babies who hear their Mother's voice can also taste, feel, and sense color in the sound. How beautiful would that be? I can't imagine a life where I would be able to connect music with color. The whole world would be art. At the same time how strange would it be for a synesthete to loose that connection. How would I feel if I lost any of my senses? Seeing the world in gray, eating but not tasting, touching and not feeling. How blessed we are to have the senses that connect us to each other. I hope that Heaven is a place where all human barriers are broken and our senses come together again so every move and sound is complete with a full range of senses.
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