In this article, a discussion about memory in exile is presented that takes up the thesis that exile is a condition of post-existence and afterness. The main claim is that exile is not only existence after a cut and separation but is an existing as afterness, in a “present tension” of being with the without and without a with. It reveals a sense of the present and of presence as multi-directed movements, as clusters of echoes and delayings. In exile, memories (...) are not the continuous simultaneity of double images but are rather “photisms,” shimmering between images, the coming and going between languages, experiences, a longing back and forth. Exilic memory is the experience that bears witness to the present as the movement of presencing, of appearing while sliding away. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect (delayed response due to interference) elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

This paper develops the case for the representation of high-level properties in visual experience from synesthesia. I draw on a special variety of number– color synesthesia to argue that we can visually experience graphemes (like ‘4’) to have numerical values (or to represent numbers). A small subset of number-color synesthetes seem to have a heightened ability to perform mental arithmetic in virtue of their synesthesia. How can we explain the apparently facilitative effect of synesthesia on mental arithmetic in synesthete savants? (...) I argue that only the view that synesthete savants visually experience graphemes as having numerical values can account for the role that their color photisms play in facilitating their performance of mental arithmetic. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

En 1928 la théorie des form constants par Klüver catégorisait les hallucinations visuelles en quatre grandes catégories. Alors que la notion de form constants venait à s’appliquer virtuellement à toutes les figures entoptiques, comme l’avait prévu son auteur, dont les photismes synesthésiques, Cytowic a décrit et Carol Steen représenté ce que voient réellement des synesthètes visuels. L’une des caractéristiques d’œuvres de peintres synesthètes serait justement la présence de ces formes classées par Klüver. L’anthropologie avec la thèse de l’externalisation a montré (...) que certaines cultures ont repris les form constants perçues dans le premier stade de l’intoxication pour en faire les patterns de leur art. Les modèles physiologico-mathématiques permettent de localiser en V1 l’origine de production des photismes et d’expliquer leur morphogénèse. Mais une explication des circuits neuraux empruntés pour passer des différents types de déclencheur sensoriel à l’apparition de photismes synesthésiques reste aujourd’hui au stade de l’hypothèse. La synesthésie est l’objet de recherches alliant les sciences les plus contemporaines dont la génomique. Il est possible que les études sur la synesthésie transforment son statut de phénomène marginal en un élément essentiel dans la compréhension du système physiologique sous-jacent à l’esprit humain. In 1928, Klüver’s theory of form constants placed visual hallucinations into four broad categories. Whereas, as predicted by its author, the notion of form constants was virtually applicable to all entoptic figures, including synesthetic photisms, the very notion of entoptics was definitively extended. Cytowic has described and Carol Steen has represented what visual synesthetes actually see. The presence of these forms, as they have been classified by Klüver, is precisely one of the characteristics of the works of synesthetic painters. With the thesis of externalization, the field of Anthropology has shown that some cultures have adopted the constant forms perceived in the first stage of intoxication as patterns for their art. Physiological-mathematical models allow us to locate the origin of photism production in V1, and to explain these photisms’ morphogenesis. But, even today, an explanation of the neural pathways used to pass from different types of sensory triggers to the appearance of synesthetic photisms remains at the hypothesis stage. Synesthesia is a research topic that combines some of the most contemporary sciences, including genomics. Studies on synesthesia may just transform its status as that of a marginal phenomenon into that of an essential element in understanding the physiological system underlying the human mind. (shrink)

In a variety of synaesthesia, photisms result from affect-laden stimuli as emotional words, or faces of familiar people. For R, who participated in this study, the sight of a familiar person triggers a mental image of "a human silhouette filled with colour". Subjective descriptions of synaesthetic experiences induced by the visual perception of people's figures and faces show similarities with the reports of those who claim to possess the ability to see the aura. It has been proposed that the purported (...) auric perception may be easily explained by the presence of a specific subtype of cross-modal perception. We analyse the subjective reports of four synaesthetes who experience colours in response to human faces and figures. These reports are compared with descriptions of alleged auric phenomena found in the literature and with claims made by experts in esoteric spheres. The discrepancies found suggest that both phenomena are phenomenologically and behaviourally dissimilar. (shrink)

When I was seven years old I discovered that I had been seeing the world differently from other people. My senses were joined. I was a synesthete. Over the years, I learned quite a bit about my synesthesia, but I was surprised in 2013 when I suddenly began to have another kind of vision, hypnagogic images. At first, I thought these new visions were part of my synesthesia, that I was seeing a new form, one I didn’t have a name (...) for. But synesthesia needs a trigger, a trigger that causes us to see what we see. This form did not have a trigger, and that concerned me. In this paper I will explore the visual similarities and differences between my synesthetic photisms and my hypnagogic visions. I will compare the triggers or lack thereof, where I see the images, the ways in which the shapes I see appear, their colors, and their commonalities. I will discuss how the hypnagogic visions have changed, along with the fact that now both synesthetic and hypnagogic visions occur during the same experience, and that I have found other synesthetes who also have both synesthesia and hypnagogia. À l’âge de sept ans j’ai découvert que je voyais le monde différemment des autres. Mes sens étaient reliés. J’étais une synesthète. Avec les années, j’ai beaucoup appris sur ma synesthésie mais j’ai été surprise en 2013 quand soudain j’ai commencé à voir une autre sorte de vision, des images hypnagogiques. Au début j’ai pensé que ces nouvelles visions faisaient partie de ma synesthésie, que j’en voyais une nouvelle forme, dont j’ignorais le nom. J’ai commencé à être préoccupée par cette forme qui n’avait pas de déclencheur. Dans cet article j’explorerai les similarités visuelles et les différences entre mes photismes synesthétiques et mes visions hypnagogiques. Je comparerai les déclencheurs ou leur absence, les espaces où je vois les images et de quelles manières apparaissent les formes que je vois, leurs couleurs et leurs points communs. J’examinerai comment changeaient les visions hypnagogiques et le fait que je vois des visions à la fois synesthésiques et hypnagogiques se produire dans la même expérience, et que j’ai trouvé d’autres synesthètes qui eux aussi ont à la fois la synesthésie et l’hypnagogie. (shrink)