A type of visual-olfactory or conceptual-olfactory synesthesia
- although
this type of synesthesia is highly consistent (same stimulus = same smell), it
doesn’t occur every time the synesthete sees or thinks of the colour in
question. This “part-time” nature actually seems to be quite typical of
synesthesias with an olfactory concurrent.
- fruity smells are relatively common.
-
alternatively, they are often smells that are difficult to describe, not
matching any known smells in real life.
- smells
can be triggered in conjunction with tastes, and some synesthetes even have
difficulty in distinguishing whether the perception is a smell or a taste.
Colour-to-taste
synesthesia also exists, either coexisting together with colour-to-smell in the same synesthete, or separately.
Go to the page on colour-to-taste synesthesia
Here are
some descriptions written by people with this type of synesthesia:
“I can
sometimes smell them better than other times, and the smells are always
something I’ve never smelled before.”
“They (the
colours) usually have to be accompanied by a texture or pattern to make it
happen. I sometimes smell and taste abstract art.”
“The purer
the colour was and the larger the space it filled the more likely it was for me
to smell it.”
(Source: Pau 365, my own experience with colour-to-smell synesthesia which consistently occurred when I developed hyperosmia during a period of my life, greatly heightening my sense of smell)
The
correspondences between colours and smells are idiosyncratic and vary according
to the person in question. Here are the pairings of some synesthetes:
Dark blue =
rain / Pink = Bubblicious gum, strawberry yoghurt / yellow = fruit, autumn /
Light blue = clean clothes / Violet = fruit punch
Light blue
= a smell of silk, dry late afternoon air / Yellow = the smell of the sun on a
summer afternoon / White and also light grey = spaciousness, freedom, very
neutral / Black: a dark, dry, square, low smell / Lilac = very synthetic, high,
happy, like cheap yoghurt / Bright pink = like a perfume, hard to describe,
roses and violets perhaps?, deliciously diagonal, a beautiful smell but strong
(Source: Pau 365, my own experience with colour-to-smell synesthesia which consistently occurred when I developed hyperosmia during a period of my life, greatly heightening my sense of smell)
A few curiosities:
People who
smell (or taste) objects after being blindfolded and “use synesthesia” to identify their
colours are not synesthetes, or at least what they claim to do has nothing to
do with synesthesia … for the simple reason that a person with this type of
synesthesia needs to be able to perceive the colour in question (i.e. see it)
before they can smell or taste it.
A few years
ago, aerospace engineer Zachary Howard invented a “synesthesia mask” that lets
people smell colours. It’s an interesting experiment that would be fun to try out, even though there are
differences from what a colour-to-smell synesthete would actually experience!
Related types of synesthesia:
Colour-to-taste
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