What Does A Metaphor Look Like?

I asked a friend what a metaphor looks like to her, explaining that for me, a metaphor has four compartments. She said her metaphor has just two, like a room with a window, which made no sense until I had this dream. We entered a cottage and immediately the door flew shut. When I touched the handle, the door dissolved and became the wall. So, I tried the window, but it too dissolved and became the wall. Sealed inside, I said, “Well, I guess we are inside your metaphor now.”

Why does my metaphor have four compartments? Does hers have only two because as a non-synesthete, one plus one equals two? For me, one plus one equals four because everything I experience comes with a built-in second version. I live my life in metaphor, which accounts for my eidetic memory. I could not create my artwork without it.

After noticing that reflections trigger my synesthetic responses, I began to photograph them on water. I used my synesthetic responses to teach myself photography. I click the shutter when I hear a chord of color, experience motion, or feel texture on my skin. Also, from extreme empathy, I briefly become what I am looking at and cannot help but personify what I see. My pictures of houses become pictures of people because the windows are eyes. Are partitions within the non-synesthetic mind like bearing walls whereas my own are mere curtains easily set aside? My photographs document my synesthesia.

The Language of Synesthesia

I am a bi-directional synesthete who experiences multiple forms of synesthesia. I photograph reflections on moving water and click the shutter at the moment I experience a texture or sound response. For that reason, a researcher asked for my input on his invention to convert images of one's surroundings into sound to help blind people see.

I sent him photographs of sounds which I selected from the thousands of photos I have taken in the last twenty years that document my synesthetic responses. However, he explained that as no two synesthetes perceive the same way, my images were most likely not universal enough to be useful for his purposes. But that planted an idea in me. Were there any universals? I sorted my images into two piles, putting the sound pile in front of me, shoving the texture pile to the side because I didn't expect to use it. Suddenly, I heard the sound of chimes, only it was coming from the wrong place: peripherally seen, the top image of the texture pile was eliciting the chime sound. When this happened a second time, I found my eureka moment.

To test my hunch of universality, I began an experiment in which I asked non-synesthetes to match sounds to the images I presented. No one had difficulty matching the image to the chime sound. So, now I am considering: first, could my two senses have traded places in the layers of conscious awareness; and second, am I more likely to find universal shapes for sound amid my texture images where they may be hidden even from me; and third, do these images elicit similar responses in both synesthetes and non-synesthetes alike. I wish to share the results of similar experiments at the conference in the hope of learning more about the language of synesthesia.