Synesthesia is the technical name given to the psychological phenomenon of being able to see colour as the result of sounds. For example, some individuals are able to see certain colours when they hear a specific note in music and will associate that tone of sound to red for example. While it remains to be ascertained whether people are genuinely producing the photo neurons of colour in their brains when the tone, pitch and volume of a sound forces their brain into producing a specific coloured image or whether their brain is forcing them to imagine it, scientific evidence has proven that this does indeed force the brain into at least creating the perception of colour. Ramifications of this range from the ability to open oneself up to ‘deep listening’- a process brought up in Pedro’s deep listening, open ears Mook, to being able to have a significantly better and more sophisticated grasp of sound, resulting in an increased ability to create melodies and harmonies.
It is often said that Beethoven unwittingly had synesthesia after he described his colourful thoughts abilities, which was only furthered by the fact that he was 60% deaf by the end of his career. His partial deafness is likely to have been the foundation from which his synesthesia arose and subsequently enabled him to maintain his abilities by filling the partial void in his hearing with a more creative alternative. His creativity and musical genius is a manifestation of the power of synesthesia and subsequently the power of sound.