Within the same type of synesthesia, the experience of one synesthete is different from another this phenomenon demonstrates how incredibly complex the human brain and neural circuitry are. Other than grapheme-color synesthesia, there exist other forms of synesthesia such as chromesthesia, spatial sequence, number-form, auditory–tactile, lexical-gustatory, ordinal-linguistic personification, misophonia, and, of course, MTS. It is important to note that, in many cases, the synesthetic experience is unidirectional, meaning that, for example, the letter “A” can cause the synesthete to experience red, but the color red likely does not cause the person to visualize the letter “A.” Hearing the word “Thursday” might cause a synesthete to simultaneously see the color orange, while another person might experience the taste of strawberries when listening to the sound of the letter “I.” It’s cool and crazy at the same time! So many individuals with synesthesia don’t even know their beautiful experiences of the world are unique. Grapheme-color synesthesia is the most common form of synesthesia to be positively linked to autism. For example, a person with grapheme-color synesthesia will experience letters or numbers as colors. Synesthesia is a neurological condition where two senses are inherently crossed, causing stimulation from one sense to lead to an automatic involuntary experience in another. Photo: Adobe Stock/gballgiggs What is synesthesia? Mind-blowing, right? Well, before we delve into more detail, let’s break down synesthesia and then look into what research has to say about the prevalence of mirror-touch synesthesia (MTS) in relation to autism. Another fun fact: it’s also believed synesthesia could be linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It’s one of eight forms of synesthesia.Īlthough synesthesia is not as rare as it was once believed, synesthetes (people who experience synesthesia) typically don’t realize their unique abilities are not common to everyone. Like the feeling of a gentleman stroking his beard or the painful tumble of a child who has just fallen-imagine feeling every physical sensation that you can observe someone else feeling.Īs crazy as it might sound, this phenomenon is real, and it’s known as mirror-touch synesthesia.

Imagine being in a crowd and suddenly, frozen in the moment, you can feel every tactile sense around you. The idiom “before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes,” takes a whole different turn when, by some miracle, you can literally walk in the shoes-or feel the sensations-of another person. Guest post by Andréas RB Deolinda, BA, BSc

Auditory tactile synesthesia