Abstract
Synaesthesia is an experience in which stimulation in one sensory or cognitive stream leads to associated experiences in a second unstimulated stream. People with color-graphemic synaesthesia experience vivid, reliable color upon viewing achromatic alphanumeric characters.
Recent evidence indicates that synaesthetic color experiences are as perceptually real as actual colors are for non-synaestetic observers, even in internally generated stimuli. It has been also suggested that individuals with synaesthesia may show hightened creativity as a result of being able to form meaningful association between these disparate stimuli.
The present paper summarizes our current knowledge concerning synaesthesia including the personal experiences of some synesthetes with this peculiar gift.