S Y N E S T H E S I A

Carol Steen has an unusual ability. The 62-year-old Manhattan artist doesn't just hear sounds; she sees them in brilliant colors.

The ringing of a doorbell, for instance, causes her to see a splash of bright blue. A piano concerto produces a burst of pink. And what she sees in her mind when her 99-year-old mother raises her voice lets her know immediately that she is in trouble.

"Her voice gets this amazing terra-cotta orange color," Steen said. "That's when I know Mom is unhappy with me." Steen has an obscure but not so rare neurological condition that causes a person's senses to blend together, such that hearing certain words might produce "Fantasia"-like visuals, smells can elicit explosions of colors and experiencing pain may tint the world pale hues.

Known as synesthesia, (some spell it synaesthesia) - which literally means joined sensation - the condition has been documented since the 1700s. For decades, it had been dismissed as little more than the product of an overly vivid imagination.

I have always seen colors for letters and numbers, but I thought it was just something only I did so I never mentioned it. I may have some synesthesia behavior, but not as predominantly as many others do. I really didn't think too much about it until I was painting and a very sassy and invasive blue upper case "E" kept appearing in my artwork; those times being psychedelically absorbed notwithstanding. He had a face and arms and legs and was RCrumb-like and I embraced it. But I'm sure people were saying, "Bless her heart" behind my back when they saw those paintings.

If you see colors when a trumpet blows or if your steak tastes like a rich blue hue, you are deeply imeshed in synesthesia and that must be pretty cool.

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