The Colorful Eye

NPR

A select group of synesthetes can truly “taste the rainbow.”

Red tastes like fire.

Gray sounds raspy.

Green feels smooth.

Purple smells like feet.

But blue, blue just looks blue.

 

We can see colors but we cannot taste them.

We can see colors but we cannot hear them.

We can see colors but we cannot smell them.

 

No one knows why.

Why we can only see colors visually and with the human eye.

No one knows why they can’t be smelt through the nose.

Why they can’t be heard through the ears.

No one knows why we can’t taste them with the tongue.

Why we can’t feel them with our fingers.

 

Maybe our eyes know why.

Maybe there is a way all the senses can see a color the way that sight can.

Maybe the eyes can see what the others just can’t.

Maybe the eyes are the only ones that understand.

Sight is the only sense that has an aptitude for colorfulness.