Fictional works that have main characters with synesthesia and non-fiction books to non-specialist audiences reflect the condition's influence in popular culture and how non-synesthetes view it. Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which one or more sensory modalities become linked. However, for over a century, synesthesia has also been the artistic and poetic devices that try to connect the senses.
Not all depictions of synesthesia in the fictional works are accurate. Some are highly inaccurate and reflect more the author's interpretation of synesthesia than they do the phenomenon itself. For example, Edgar Allan Poe physiologically incorrectly explained synesthesia via a connection between tympanum and retina.[1][2] Scientific works are intended to accurately depict synesthetic experiences. However, as research advances, subsequent studies may supersede or correct some of the specific details in older accounts.
In addition to its role in art, synesthesia has often been used as a plot device or as a way of developing a particular character's internal states. Synesthetes have appeared in novels including Vladimir Nabokov's The Gift and Invitation to a Beheading.
With the increased research into synesthesia from the 1990s into the twenty-first century, more novels have appeared with synesthete-characters. Since 2001, more than 15 novels featuring synesthete-characters have been published. Author and synesthete Patricia Lynne Duffy in her presentations on "Images of Synesthetes in Fiction" has described four ways in which synesthete characters have generally been used in modern fiction: (1) synesthesia as Romantic ideal; (2) synesthesia as pathology; (3) synesthesia as Romantic pathology; (4) synesthesia as health and balance for some individuals (Duffy 2006, 2007).