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THE CO-OCCURRENCE OF SYNAESTHESIA AND BLINDNESS

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Can blindness and synaesthesia go together? Of course my first answer would be: "Of course they can and if not, then I'm simply the first blind synaesthete." But in this article I'll try to give some information on the co-existence of the two conditions.

There's probably no doubt about the fact that blindness can co-occur with for instance sound-smell or touch-taste synaesthesia. Sight is not involved in these synaesthesiae, so why shouldn't they be able to co-occur? More research is going on about the co-occurrence of blindness and synaesthesiae involving sight.

Some researchers believe that blindness has a causal relation with acquired synaesthesia - meaning that blindness may trigger synaesthetic perceptions. It's thought that a progressive eye condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa may have a relation with acquired synaesthesia (aka synaesthesia occurring later in life). I think there's some logic about the relation between adventitious blindness and acquired synaesthesia, when one compares the situation with people's loss of other functions: for instance, when one loses a hand in an accident, one might still "feel" the hand while for example the nose is touched. This occurs because the part of the brain responsible for processing stimulation of the hand is not damaged and takes over the stimulation of for instance the nose. My theory (and it's indeed nothing more than a theory) is that the same occurs with people going blind later in life and then experiencing acquired synaesthesia: sight may be lost, but the visual cortex (the part of the brain that processes visual stimuli) still works.

There are also congenital synaesthetes who later become blind or whose vision decreases. I for example already had a severe vision impairment when I was born, but had good colour perception until I was around 12. Now I have only a little colour perception, but ny synaesthesia never disappeared. I've heard of one man going totally blind at age 12 from a degenerative eye disease, but never lost his synaesthesia.

Indeed I'm not sure how synaesthesia and blindness are related. There are various theories and there's no certainty yet - as there's not even certainty of what causes synaesthesia. I'ts at least true that the two conditions CAN co-occur.