Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia [Hardcover]

A person with synesthesia might feel the flavor of food on her fingertips, sense the letter "J" as shimmering magenta or the number "5" as emerald green, hear and taste her husband's voice as buttery golden brown. Synesthetes rarely talk about their peculiar sensory gift--believing either that everyone else senses the world exactly as they do, or that no one else does. Yet synesthesia occurs in one in twenty people, and is even more common among artists. One famous synesthete was novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who insisted as a toddler that the colors on his wooden alphabet blocks were "all wrong." His mother understood exactly what he meant because she, too, had synesthesia. Nabokov's son Dmitri, who recounts this tale in the afterword to this book, is also a synesthete--further illustrating how synesthesia runs in families. In Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, pioneering researcher Richard Cytowic and distinguished neuroscientist David Eagleman explain the neuroscience and genetics behind synesthesia's multisensory experiences. Because synesthesia contradicted existing theory, Cytowic spent twenty years persuading colleagues that it was a real--and important--brain phenomenon rather than a mere curiosity. Today scientists in fifteen countries are exploring synesthesia and how it is changing the traditional view of how the brain works. Cytowic and Eagleman argue that perception is already multisensory, though for most of us its multiple dimensions exist beyond the reach of consciousness. Reality, they point out, is more subjective than most people realize. No mere curiosity, synesthesia is a window on the mind and brain, highlighting the amazing differences in the way people see the world.

"No one has done more than Richard Cytowic and David Eagleman to bring a careful neuroscientific attention to synesthesia, grounded in decades of research and reports from thousands of patients. Their work has changed the way we think of the human brain, and Wednesday Is Indigo Blue is a unique and indispensable guide for anyone interested in how we perceive the world." --Oliver Sacks

"A fascinating survey of the enormous variety and creativity of the synaesthetic mind."--Daniel Tammet, synesthete and author of Born on a Blue Day

"A fascinating survey of the enormous variety and creativity of the synesthetic mind." Daniel Tammet , synesthete and author of Born on a Blue Day

"Filled with detailed tables, clarifying illustrations, and instructive chapters, this title, which includes an afterword by Nabokov's son Dmitri (also a synesthete), should be required reading for teachers and anyone who works with children." Library Journal

"This is a clear, clever book that will appeal to synaesthetes in search of explanations, and to all with a passion for neurology's wild territory." Liz Else New Scientist

How the extraordinary multisensory phenomenon of synesthesia has changed our traditional view of the brain.

Richard E. Cytowic, M.D., founded Capitol Neurology, a private clinic in Washington, D.C., and teaches at George Washington University Medical Center. He is the author of Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses and The Man Who Tasted Shapes, both published by the MIT Press. David M. Eagleman, Ph.D., is a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Center for Synesthesia Research.