What is Synesthesia? Synesthesia occurs in as an experience where one sense picks up data from another (seeing texture, for example 1). I maintain that synesthesia is the basis of building significance.
Signification is constructed out of signifiers. A signifier is any thing that points to something else. Signification occurs because human beings love to learn; and what's more, we love to associate data or an experience with something in order to use that information later. This is either a survival technique, or something that is innately part of being human; whatever the case, this seems to be a universal experience 2.
Having a favorite song helps us make sense of the world, or how the world ought to be. In listening to a favorite song, we find that our emotions are stirred, and that we begin to associate imagery (or experience) with what we are hearing. This is a level on which we all participate in synesthesia.
But is synesthesia really the process of building significance? It can be argued that because we don't have the language to describe a new thing when we first see it, we borrow other words and ideas to help us explain to someone else (or ourselves) what we have just experienced.
Even if synesthesia is not the basis of building significance, it nonetheless is in integral part of the process of signification.
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Sources cited: Williams, K. Why I [Still] Want my MTV
1 - On page 184, Williams describes the senses that are activated when watching Music Videos. Many of the phrases that come up in reviews of music video are expressed in terms that line up with synesthesia.
2 - On page 175, Williams discusses how the phenomena of synesthesia is a universal experience, but how the scientific and cultural community has rejected it for some time; however, research has been done to conclude that synesthesia is, in fact, universal.
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