Last updated 21:20, Tuesday, 25 March 2008

Friday is kipper-coloured, the number six is green – but a paler colour than the letter “a”.

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Helen Hutchinson

Helen Hutchinson is lucky, gifted, or suffering, depending on your point of view, from a condition where sounds can be “seen”, numbers are coloured and words “tasted”.

We all use the phrases “loud shirt” or “warm hue” or “morally disgusting”, but not many of us can actually experience any of this.

Synaesthesia is a relatively unknown condition which causes a merging of the senses and according to a new report, as many as 500,000 children in the UK may experience it.

Synaesthetes experience together two or more of the five senses that are usually experienced separately.

Some experience colour when they hear sounds or read words.

Helen Hutchinson sees colours for days of the week, numbers and letters and pictures shapes when she thinks about time or dates.

“It is not an easy thing to put into words,” she explains. “It is almost like having a dream and you wake and try and remember it and as soon as you use language, it goes.

“It takes different forms in different people, I see numbers, days of the week and letters as colours and time and dates as shapes.

“March, in terms of where I am, is going forward a bit, then bending to the right. Summer is a curve. The date 1962 is behind me, to the left and downhill. I’m sitting on 2008 and that is the same shape as an eight which is dark blue.”

The tantalising quality of the shapes and colours she experiences during everyday conversations is revealed when she tries to explain the colour of numbers.

She races through them, trying to capture the fading snapshot before it disappears from view.

When asked to slow down she protests: “I have to go this fast, it is really hard!”

Listing the numbers from 1-10 sounds like a commentator at the end of a photo-finish horse race, but the result is as follows:

“One, two and three are a creamy pink colour; four is green, like the letter ‘a’; five is kipper-coloured, like Friday; six is green, I think paler than four; eight is dark blue, the colour of a ‘b’ – blacky-blue.

“Seven is a sort of yellowy colour; nine is brown, the same as Thursday; 10 is nothing, it is transparent.

“I have no concept of zero at all.”

Sunday and Monday are both light blue to Helen, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday “a kind of brown” Friday is “orangey kipper-coloured” and Saturday “sparkly black”. The colours don’t mean any emotional state, they are all a bit translucent, apart from Saturday, which is shiny, like wet coal.”

Some letters are colour-coded, though not all, and she adds: “The alphabet is a shape, a snakey squiggle.”

Time is another thing she can see with her mind’s eye.

She says: “Most people would have some kind of concept of 8.30 tonight, some people might see a clock face, but to me it is like a time-line, though it is 3-D and not linear.”

But there’s no chance of Helen drawing a picture of what she experiences. She says: “I’m not a very good artist and it is all in 3-D.”

According to the UK Synaesthesia Association: “Synaesthesia isn’t a disease or illness and is not at all harmful. In fact, the vast majority of synaesthetes couldn’t imagine life without it.”

Helen, of Castle Carrock, admits she has not done much research into the subject and does not know if any of her relatives experience it.

She reckons the numbers of us experiencing the condition will be much higher than expected, we just don’t mention it.

“I’m not embarrassed about it, but I don’t go around telling people I see colours from numbers or letters,” she says.

“I’m absolutely sure lots of people have this in different forms, I think it is reasonably common.”

As she gets older, the effect of the colours and shapes does not diminish, though she admitted: “I have a feeling that it was stronger when I was very young, younger than six.

“I don’t know when I first realised I had it, I have always had it.

“I realised not everyone else had it when I was in my 20s.”

She does not feel that parents or teachers of youngsters with the condition should be concerned.

The 48-year-old is course leader for the BA Honours journalism course at the University of Cumbria and says the condition has never affected her studies.

She says: “I don’t think it is a gift and I certainly don’t think it is something to be described as something you ‘suffer’ from.

“From what I have read, it is more prevalent among talented visual artists, not that I’m one.”

Recent scientific reports have claimed that as many as one in 100 people is synaesthetic.

Some studies suggest that synaesthesia may be more common among artists, poets and musicians.

This has led some scientists to argue that synaesthesia and creativity may share a similar basis – that both may be down to brain processes that involve linking two seemingly unrelated areas.

Among the famous artists that have been synaesthetes are jazz legend Miles Davis, composer Olivier Messiaen, author Vladimir Nabokov and the painters David Hockney and Wassily Kandinsky.

Academics at the University of Edinburgh have discovered that the average UK primary school has at least two pupils with this type of synaesthesia.

Six hundred children from 21 primary schools took part in the two-year study.

Based on their findings, psychologists at the university estimated around 500,000 children in the UK had some form of synaesthesia.

They found that only five per cent of head teachers had heard of synaesthesia and less than 15 per cent of learning support teachers could provide an accurate definition. They also discovered there was enthusiasm among the teaching profession for a greater understanding of the condition, despite a lack of information.

The study also revealed that for children who experienced colours from numbers, power of memory could be boosted by showing numbers in their “correct” colours.

Mark Toomey, Cumbria County Council principal educational psychologist, says: “We are always looking to celebrate the diversity of experiences people bring to the classroom and this could boost learning theory.

“Sometimes awareness-raising is important, but there can also be a risk in elaborating on classroom implications and taking it to a level that may do more harm than good.”

The findings of the study will be discussed at the meeting of the UK Synaesthesia Association in Edinburgh on March 29 and 30.