“Your voice tastes like salted caramel”: Exploring synesthesia in the Philippines

Synesthesia is a neurological condition wherein stimulation of one sensory modality automatically triggers sensation in another sensory modality (Cytowic, 2002) however, narratives are mostly drawn from Western populations and the recording of the condition and experiences of Filipino synesthetes are minimal if not non-existent. To help address this gap, purposive sampling was used to recruit five Filipino synesthetes who were then interviewed in-depth. Qualitative Heuristic Analysis (Kleining & Witt, 2000) was used to analyze the transcribed data. Among the five participants, synesthesia manifested as sound→color, music→color, number→form, sequence→space, grapheme→color , grapheme→pattern, subject & days of week→color and voice→taste. Although some shared similar synesthetic conditions (e.g. grapheme→color) they differ in associations and how these change with different stimuli. Similarities of experiences were discussed (late identification, condition as not disadvantageous, and desire to get to know other synesthetes) as well as the role of culture and the local setting. Idiosyncratic benefits of the synesthetic condition were also seen, such as how the synesthetes have used it to create recipes, poems or as study guides and memory cues.