I Have It, Too.
When researching Shane’s synesthesia, I kept seeing things that said it’s likely that synesthesia is genetic. There was even some debate about whether the gene is found on the X chromosome.
I find the whole thing fascinating – probably even more so than Shane does – so I read and read about it.
I was just finishing up my reading when I caught this out of the corner of my eye:
Auditory-tactile synesthesia (a.k.a. hearing-touch synesthesia) is one of the rarest of all types of synesthesia. It (occurs) when sounds heard by the synesthete produces a tactile sensation on certain areas inside and outside of the body.
And suddenly, I knew: I have it, too.
I just have a different kind of synesthesia than Shane does. He has Colored grapheme synesthesia, and I have auditory-tactile synesthesia.
When I was young – as far back as I can remember – I had a tactile response to music. Some songs caused a reaction of actually painful goose bumps on my legs. I was young, and it was odd, but it was how my body reacted. Other than its being painful, I didn’t give it much thought until I got older.
I got more into music when I was 14. In high school, I scoured the earth looking for someone whose legs reacted to music the way mine did. When a song would come on and I would get those bumps, I would look around and ask my friends: “Does this happen to you?”
As a teen, I wanted to be like everyone else. But most people thought I was nuts, so I learned to keep quiet about it. And I never found a single person who got tangible bumps on their legs the way I did.
I grew accustomed to the bumps, and learned that if I didn’t freak out when they appeared, they weren’t painful anymore. In fact, they started to only appear when I heard songs to which I had a positive emotional attachment – and I didn’t mind the bumps anymore.
Other people got “warm fuzzies” when they liked a song, but my body nearly burst with goosebumps whenever my favorite songs played.
Somewhere along the way, I learned that those bumps would be especially prominent when I was in a large group of people, so it was even more obvious in college when I went to parties. Loud music and large groups were my life. As I grew older and went to concerts, even more bumps would appear.
Then one day, well into my forties, I was at a baseball game with my dad. “We Will Rock You” – a crowd favorite at sporting events – came on over the stadium loudspeakers. The whole stadium started stomping along. Naturally, my legs burst into goose bumps.
I looked next to me and there, on my dad’s legs, were the exact same bumps.
“You get them too?” I nearly screamed. How could I never have noticed before? I had asked every friend and colleague I’d ever known – but it never occurred to me that it might be genetic!
“Yeah,” my dad said. “It just happens.” He was almost apologetic. Like me, I doubt he’d ever found anyone else who had that reaction.
But it’s genetic.
… one of the rarest types of synesthesia.
My dad has it; I have it; Shane has it. Three generations of synesthesia.
Shane’s type of synesthesia just manifests itself differently. He sees the alphabet in a multitude of colors, and I hear music with my legs.