Affective Mood Disorder and Synaesthesia

Today, I’m going to look at two more mental phenomenon that produce a life experience that is, when peeling away all negative connotations, ‘abnormal’. These are Synaesthesia and Affective Mood Disorder.

I will start will start with Affective Mood Disorder. This is an umbrella term to cover many disorders that, quite simply, effect the mood of the individual. This can be mild-severe, though however much it affects an individual, it is disruptive to life. AMD encompasses three main disorders: depression, bipolar, and anxiety disorders.

   Depression is not an unexpected phenomenon in life, though perhaps dysthymia, a milder form of depression, is better for the description of this period in one’s life. Depression is characterised by extreme sadness and hopelessness where there is a lack of energy, interest and concentration. Feelings of guilt and even suicidal thoughts are not uncommon.

   Bipolar is not just the new term for manic depression: it is a condition from which an individual swings from one extreme to another. This is termed as ‘chronic mood swings’. Manic depression is of course the most common with an extremely high majority, so it is easy to understand from where the synonymy developed. Mania is not just when someone is extremely positive and active, as it can make the sufferer impulsive, delusional, irritable and even aggressive.

   Finally are the anxiety disorders. As with anything, there are many different types, though all include anxiety, fear and nervousness. Other symptoms include nausea, rapid heart rate, restlessness, shortness of breath, sweating, and trembling. Some of the more common types are social anxiety, general anxiety, panic disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. When people first hear OCD as a anxiety disorder, they instantly deny it, though there is no doubt in the matter. OCD is when an individual obsessives over something that causes them worry, anxiety etc., and they are compelled to do something to solve/sort out/stop the anxiety. For example, if someone is anxious about dirt, they will obsess over dirt and they would be compelled to clean, as this ends the source of anxiety because the dirt has been cleared so it is gone.

Synaesthesia is when an individual’s senses are mixed, in that one sense will automatically initiates another sense. As the senses can be mixed in many ways, there are consequently several types of synaesthesia.

   The most recognised type is grapheme-colour, in that when people perceive words, letters and numbers, whether by sight or sound, there is a perception of a distinct colour. One of my friends has this: my voice is royal blue with streaks of salmon, and my name written is a mixture of royal blue and grey. When she listens to music, the sounds of the instruments and voices produce a myriad of colours. How the colours are ‘seen’ is varied. Some are projected, with the word/letter/number itself becomes its associated colour, whether others will see the colour purely in their mind’s eye, so they experience both the actual colour and the mind’s eye colour simultaneously. My friend is an example of this. This mind’s eye seeing can be autonomously induced: stare at a single coloured wall (say, pale blue) and imagine any colour (say, bright red); you will be able to perceive both simultaneously.

   Another type is word-taste, or lexical gustatory, which is when a word is perceived, again by either sight or sound, a taste is also experienced. Yet another type is mirror-touch, which is less common and not as well studied as the rest. In this, when the synaesthesiac perceives others being touched, they too sense that tactile experience.

   People with synaesthesia often have brilliant memories. They dual-perceive the world, by having two or more senses activated by the same stimulus simultaneously, so this creates many more connections in the brain than someone without synaesthesia. The more connections the brain has for a specific bit of information, the easier it is to recall that bit of information.

   Another interesting observation is that people on the autistic spectrum are more likely to have synaesthesia than non-autistic people. Now, as people on the autistic spectrum have superb memories, this may make synaesthesia itself as producing a good memory questionable, though perhaps autistic people with synaesthesia have the best memories. That’s a question for researchers.

   Finally, how synaesthesia is scientifically observed brings great joy to people who study phenomena of humanity, so scholars of religion, psychology, sociology and anthropology. As synaesthesia involves the mixing of the senses, it is a highly private and thus subjective experience; because of this, people need to report their experiences. There is no objective way to test or measure synaesthesia, yet scientific study of synaesthesia is accepted. This therefore makes subjective study of people’s personal experiences, whether it be a religious experience or some other internal feeling, more valid and acceptable. Hopefully this will allow natural scientists to not discredit the social sciences, which are vital in helping humanity’s understanding of itself.