Mixing Senses

Sticking with the theme of senses and our experience of the world, there is one last concept I would like to mention and that is the idea of mixing senses.  I don't mean this in the sense of listening to music whilst you eat to boost the taste etc, although that is interesting in and of itself, the focus of this post will instead be involuntary experiences of one sense triggered by another.  The best example I can give of this is Synaesthesia.

Synaesthesia occurs when an individual perceives colour where it doesn't exist, triggered by other senses.  Things like hearing certain sounds can make the perceiver see colours this in particular is known as Chromesthesia.  For me personally although not documented in most resources on Synaesthesia, I experience a mixing of taste and smell.  The two senses can trigger one another for me.

These experiences are involuntary, someone without Synaesthesia cannot induce it, at least there exists no evidence that this is possible.  The reaction that occurs is neurological and does not form any part of our conscious mind, it's not something we can control.

The idea of using senses as stimuli however, to trigger feelings or experiences in others is something that has become prevalent in society.  Music has become ever more present in everything we watch on TV, shows that never had soundtracks to scenes before have jumped on this bandwagon.  There is a belief that to make any content more engaging, you have to incorporate multimedia.  Perhaps that is another reason why Audio Books have become quite popular as they take an experience that was once limited only to sight and transform it into something that incorporates sound instead.

Whilst Synaesthesia is an example of this response happening on an involuntary and in most cases unintentional level, it does raise an interesting question of whether or not this would be used as a form of entertainment if it could be triggered in people who have never experienced it in their lives.  If the growth in ASMR videos is anything to go by, people are certainly willing to experiment.  Although as someone who experiences ASMR I am acutely aware of the problem of immunity.  Like any sensation that is intended to be unexpected and sporadic, if you are exposed to it in excess you become somewhat numb to it.  This causes immunity to that feeling until you have gone without it long enough to experience it again.

If there were a way to induce Synaesthesia in people who do not ordinarily experience it, in essence "Acquired Synaesthesia" I do have to wonder whether they would develop a similar immunity, if that would even matter at all.  As far as ASMR is concerned, I believe that many people who watch it don't experience the sensation at all or they watch in excess until they no longer experience it but in both cases continue to watch purely for entertainment purposes.  How many people watch 3D movies without 3D glasses and miss out on the experience it was intended to produce?

When it comes to the soundtracks added to TV shows and Movies in an effort to evoke emotional connections, I feel I am numb to that at this point.  Such attempts are often so transparent that they fail miserably.  For me this can be likened to old comedy shows where the production was filmed in a studio without an audience and a laugh track was added later in post-production.  The only thing this managed to do was to highlight to me the disparity between what I found funny and what they producers found funny about those shows.  It's rare that I would actually laugh at the same time as a laugh track, but that was supposedly the purpose in the beginning, to tell the viewer what is meant to be funny and what is not.  For those that were more susceptible to this, I have to wonder to what extent their sense of humour is organic versus being a result of being told what to find funny.

Mixing senses is a very interesting concept for me, but it is something that I think has to remain organic.  Any attempt to induce it will eventually lead to a level of manipulation that I feel uncomfortable with, especially if it were to become as prevalent as existing attempts to manipulate people with music, not just on TV shows and Movies, but in shops and public places too, especially at this time of year where almost everywhere you go you are bombarded with Christmas music to inspire holiday cheer and encourage you to spend more.  I love Christmas but I can see how this can be too much for some people, the feeling of being reduced to that of Pavlov's Dog who was conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell.