Interview Transcript:
Emma: (00:00) Okay. So tell me a bit about yourself and, you know, your specialties within science or if you've done any research or anything, just a little introduction.
Dr. Waldbaum: (00:09) Sure. So my background is in neuroscience research, and I spent over ten years in pretty cutting edge neuroscience laboratories and running my own research programs. And my work was mainly centered on epilepsy and seizure disorders. But within that really looking at how neurological changes in the brain can occur and how those can affect different outcomes, like making the brain more susceptible to seizures, for example, and other things like how neuron to neuron connections happen and what can get in the way of that and form abnormal connections and also work on how different receptors in the brain express themselves or over express themselves and how that can lead to neurological changes like seizures and epilepsy or other conditions.
Emma: (01:23) Wow, that's really cool.
Dr. Waldbaum: (01:25) Thanks.
Emma: (01:26) That sounds amazing. What drew you to found Valley?
Dr. Waldbaum: (01:32) So after I was in sort of the higher end research world for many years, I kind of got a bit burnt out in that world. And it's very cut throat and very competitive and very money driven and very ego driven. And I'd always taught alongside my research for years and years, and that's just really where I wanted to put my energies into more of the education side and sharing what I knew and just helping others kind of launch their interests and their careers that became more important to me than publishing papers and getting grants and things like that.
Emma: (03:58) Yeah, definitely. So what is your connection to Synesthesia, even if it's just kind of like reading about it in your spare time or if you've done any type of research or anything like that?
Dr. Waldbaum: (04:11) Yeah, so I haven't done any direct research on Synesthesia per se, but it falls into a lot of the more general neuroscience research that I've done in terms of, quote, unquote abnormal neuronal connections and receptor densities and receptor expressions. Those are both big issues in Synesthesia. So even though I haven't worked on the condition itself, a lot of the work I've done sort of pertains to that and it's certainly relevant to Synesthesia. And then I've worked with some students along the way that have had Symphonia and talked to them about their experiences and sort of observed how they dealt with different things that came up academically and in class. So that's a little bit of my anecdotal and personal experience as well.
Emma: (05:11) Cool. So, like, in your how would you define synesthesia?
Dr. Waldbaum: (05:18) So synesthesia is really a condition where so normally and I use those terms normally and abnormally quotes. But normally, when someone receives some stimulation from the outside world, you've got your sensory systems at work. And typically when a person experiences some sensory stimulation that stimulates a certain specific area of the brain, like hearing or vision or sound, and they experience that, and that's how they sort of process the outside world. But in synesthesia, what happens is when one sensory area gets stimulated, at least one other unrelated sensory area also gets stimulated. So generally speaking, it's thought of as a sensory disorder where there's an overload of sensory information coming in from different areas of the brain at the same time.
Emma: (06:26) Awesome. Could you talk a little bit more on how that compares to the regular sensory experiences, like how that really happens in the brain and what causes that?
Dr. Waldbaum: (06:46) Yeah. So just tell me if I'm not getting to what you want. Let's say, for example, someone is reading a very typical example. That's often given as soon as someone is reading the days of the week Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and for a quote unquote normal person, that's where it begins and ends. Mondays, Monday, Tuesdays, Tuesday, and so on. But a common thing among people with syndica is that Monday is associated with a color they see and experience a color that is Monday. And the same thing for Tuesday, Wednesday, and all the other days of the week. Another example are numbers. Certain numbers have certain colors associated with them. Now, what we think two sort of leading theories on what causes synesthesia. One is sort of a developmental issue. So in our brains, when we're developing in utero and even after birth, the way the brain works is pretty interesting. So the brain doesn't just set up all your normal neuronal connections, and then you pop out and you're ready to hit the world. What the brain does is it's an overachiever. It sets up many more intricate neuronal networks in the brain that are going to be needed for you as a person.
Dr. Waldbaum: (08:14) And then over time, those connections get what are called pruned, like pruning a rose Bush. And those connections get pruned back to what is what we consider normal in the synesthesia brain. A lot of those connections do not get pruned back. So there's this initial overconnection that happens and then not enough pruning to sort of isolate each sensory experience. So there's cross linking between the auditorial area of the brain and the visual area of the brain and the language area of the brain. So these people experience two or more sensory inputs at a time, whereas a quote unquote normal person would only experience one, the other leading theory about synesthesia is what we call receptor density. So all the neurons in your brain communicate with one another and they do that by releasing chemicals called neurotransmitters. And those neurotransmitters get picked up by other neurons in the brain and that's how they talk to one another. And the way that works is neurotransmitters get released and then they bind to receptors on the neurons that are around them. If those neurons have a high density of receptors, then they're going to be overstimulated. So another idea is that sympathy, the brain have this really high density of neurotransmitter receptors compared to normal people and that causes over sensory stimulation. and cross stimulation between different modalities.
Emma: (00:05) And what happens in the cases of, like, psychedelics or LSD, where synesthesiasque responses are, like, induced, at least for a temporary time. How does that work?
Dr. Waldbaum: (00:18) Yeah, so absolutely. Particularly hallucinogenics can produce symptoms that are very similar to synesthesia or temporary synesthesia. And the idea there, again, is sort of back to what we were just talking about. So in things in psychedelic drugs and hallucinogenic drugs like LSD and psilocybin and things like that, you can have an overproduction of neurotransmitters. So instead of having, like, extra receptors, you now have extra neurotransmitters that are in the brain, and those are over stimulating sensory areas of the brain and overstimulating multiple sensory areas of the brain at the same time. So you can get hallucinations and visuals and cross modality sensory experiences like hearing colors, for example, and things like that. So there's a lot of ideas about what comes out of a psychedelic experience and trying to learn more about synesthesia through that experience.
Emma: (01:30) Do you personally think that that counts as genuine anesthesia since it is a similar process in the brain or not?
Dr. Waldbaum: (01:42) I missed the beginning part of your question. Sorry.
Emma: (01:45) No worries. I was just asking if, in your opinion, you think that those drug induced synesthetic experiences would count as, like, genuine synesthesia.
Dr. Waldbaum: (02:02) Genuine? Probably not. I think they're going to be a little bit different. So with synesthesia, you've got very specific sensory modalities that are sort of cross talking. And in a psychedelic experience, it's more of a general brain phenomenon and experience. So while I think there are similarities, I don't think, for example, using psychedelics as a model for synesthesia is perfectly accurate.
Emma: (02:33) Right.
Dr. Waldbaum: (02:34) I think you can get some ideas about what might be happening, but those drugs are going to produce such a general different experience where cynesia I mean, that person is in reality, they're functioning normally. They just have some sensory cross talk, basically. But the psychedelics produced a whole other range of things going on as well.
Emma: (03:04) What about in cases where I've read a few studies where they'll kind of teach people synesthesia, if that makes sense? Like, they'll grow the associations over time. And how does that kind of differ, again, from people who are born with synesthesia?
Dr. Waldbaum: (03:23) Yeah. So you're talking about people that sort of develop it along the way.
Emma: (03:27) Yeah.
Dr. Waldbaum: (03:30) That's an interesting scenario. And honestly, I don't know much about that or how that would even really work because typically with neuronal pruning, all that stuff happens during development.
Emma: (03:43) Right.
Dr. Waldbaum: (03:43) And it's done by a certain age. Now, acquired synesthesia is certainly a really interesting phenomenon. And I think there's some evidence that traumatic experiences, sort of like a PTSD brain, can rewire itself. So our brains in general are living things that grow and shrink and we form new connections. And all that stuff happens in a normal brain as we learn stuff. And as we mature and have experiences and certain experiences can induce certain types of connections to be pruned or to overgrow. But sort of a normal person developing synesthesia is certainly an interesting scenario to me, but it's been reported for sure and it exists, but I'm not sure what the sort of neuroscience is behind that.
Emma: (04:44) What about people who lose their synesthesia, like with head trauma or stuff like that?
Dr. Waldbaum: (04:52) Yeah. It's also sort of a similar scenario. Neural connections can turn themselves back based on life experience and things like that and receptors and sort of the neurochemistry. Those changes occur in most people's brains, regardless of whether they have syndicizia or not. So someone that might have synesthesia or syndesthesia symptoms as their brain sort of develop and mature and change due to life, it's very possible that those symptoms would lessen over time just based on how the brain behaves.
Emma: (05:33) Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that you say that because I don't know if I mentioned I think I did, but I have graphene color synesthesia, but it's weird. Most of my associations have stayed consistent throughout time, but the number nine has gone from a really orangey Brown to almost like a grayish black color. And I remember that being kind of like, I don't know, like a piece of bread Brown, but now it's like faded. I've always wondered about why that happens, but I guess it makes sense, like how you explained it. Dr. Waldbaum: (06:19) So with that, for example. Right. So if you talk about the number nine or see the number nine written down, you experience it as a color as well. Is that somewhat accurate?
Emma: (06:31) Yes.
Dr. Waldbaum: (06:34) Okay. And how do you experience that color? You see it? You feel it?
Emma: (06:40) No, I just see it. I would say I never know how to explain it very well, but it's like there's like a curtain almost. I know that it's written in black text or whatever it is, and I can physically see that, but it's like almost my mind. I will see it in fuchsia or yellow or whatever it is. And it's like no matter how hard I try, I always know. And I always see it, like in the back of my mind, like an S is always yellow or an M is always fuchsia. It just is. But it's not so much physical.
Dr. Waldbaum: (07:23) Okay. Yeah, it's really interesting.
Emma: (07:26) Yeah. And how would you say synesthesia? Do you know any other types of conditions or anything like that that have a connection kind of neurologically to synesthesia?
Dr. Waldbaum: (07:44) Well, certainly neurological conditions that are based on neurotransmitter communication and receptor densities. And those are things like anxiety and depression, really. Drugs that treat anxiety and depression go after either up regulating neurotransmitters. So you want more neurotransmitters in the brain for some people or trying to decrease those neurotransmitters in the brain or in parallel, increasing or decreasing the receptors for those neurotransmitters. And that's the same mechanics of how we think synesion might work too much too many receptors means too much sensory information coming into the brain in one or more areas at the same time. So in that sense those conditions are related. I don't know if there's a clinical correlation between people that have syndhesia and anxiety or depression, but I know mechanistically they work in a similar way and epilepsy too. So seizures in the brain basically occur from Overexcitation so a brain that's neurologically too excited and that can happen one of two ways too many neuronal connections or too many neurotransmitters or receptors. So syndiciza actually mechanistically fits in with many other neurological conditions it's just such a unique one because it's contained within the sensory system and it's so experiential and so individualized and personalized to that person yeah.
Emma: (09:38) That'S really interesting with the connections to other mental disorders I had no idea I feel like I did read an article ages ago that it was pretty interesting. I think someone with OCD had synesthesia they would always struggle with, like English assignments because they needed. The color of the colors of their words to, like, coordinate to each other or something like that. So, yeah, I think that's pretty interesting. And how does synesthesia enhance other abilities, neuroscientifically like memory or creativity, things that happen in the brain?
Dr. Waldbaum: (00:25) Yeah. So there's certainly been work on how it affects memory and creativity. I mean, it's pretty obvious that it creates the scenario for these people where creativity is different and enhanced from a normal, boring person. Right.
Emma: (00:43) Right.
Dr. Waldbaum: (00:44) I mean, you're experiencing the world, the senses in a very unique and sort of convoluted way. And there's no doubt it's led to some great art in various forms, be it music or visual arts. So that, I think seems like a pretty obvious thing how that would happen.
Emma: (01:14) Yeah.
Dr. Waldbaum: (01:16) What was the beginning part?
Emma: (01:17) Not just creativity, but what was the other memorization or memory?
Dr. Waldbaum: (01:23) Yeah, memory. I don't know a lot about the research for synesthesia and memory, but it's certainly out there. Part of that has to do with the potential genetic link and inheritance of synesthesia. So let me ask you, do you know anyone in your family that has synesthesia Besides you?
Emma: (01:48) Yes, but it's my mom's half sister, which is weird because I don't know anyone on the side of the family that she came from with synesthesia, but I don't know.
Dr. Waldbaum: (02:04) Okay, so synesthesia affects, you probably know these stats, but affects around 4% of the human population. And within that 4%, about 40%, we think there's a genetic inheritance pattern. So while there is a strong genetic component, it's certainly not a for sure thing that it happens every time or how that pattern works. But there has been some connection with the gene that we think is associated with synthesizer and then enhanced memory capabilities. But honestly, that's sort of what I know, and I don't know the details beyond that.
Emma: (02:55) I don't know if you can explain this or not, but genetically or with regards to heredity, how or why would synesthesia be passed down? Is it that kind of survival of that the fittest type of thing, like if it proves to be an advantage for humanity in some way?
Dr. Waldbaum: (03:24) Yeah. There's a lot of debate about why synthesis occurs in the human population. And does it have any evolutionary advantages or not? And there's opinions all over the board about. No, it's just a random thing that occurs or it somehow enhances the ability to process the outside world and enhance survivability. So there's definitely no leading thought or idea on that. As far as I know. It's just a lot of opinions. And no one really knows why it's been maintained in the even population and what advantages it may give someone. Or it could be actually a disadvantage. And maybe it's in the process of being taken out of the human population based on evolution or enhanced. We're not sure. But certainly it's been present throughout human history and there's a lot of speculative cases about individuals throughout history that, based on their art or writing, have seemed like they have Symbo. Seizure.
Emma: (04:43) Do you think like the of disadvantages could look like for the individuals who have synesthesia?
Dr. Waldbaum: (04:49) Well, I think reading people's experiences and reports a lot of people with synesthesia report.
Dr. Waldbaum: (05:00) Feeling, like, somewhat isolated in their experience. A lot of people don't like to share that experience because they feel isolated about it. They can't they know people can't relate to them, and I think that's an issue. And what else was the question?
Emma: (05:27) No, just like talking about any possible disadvantages.
Dr. Waldbaum: (05:30) Disadvantages? Yeah. I mean, look, certainly if you look at it in a survival type of discussion. Right. Where we're just biological beings trying to survive out there, cross talk between senses could get dangerous. If you're running away from a lion and your auditory and your visual are getting mixed up, that could be confusing. It could be a disadvantage. But if it was a true survival disadvantage, it probably would have been weeded out through natural selection. So that's an argument for the fact that it may have an advantage. No one can really pinpoint what that might be in a discernible way.
Emma: (06:21) Yeah. That's interesting. I hadn't really thought of it like that before. And why do you think that it took so long for synesthesia to be recognized as, like, a legitimate neurological condition?
Dr. Waldbaum: (06:39) Yeah. If you look at human society and history, anything that was sort of out of the ordinary for a long time became taboo. And the explanations to understand it were usually pretty esoteric and ridiculous from a scientific perspective. Right. So identifying yourself as being sort of different in that way was not advantageous throughout many societies, although I would say in more Indigenous societies, someone with Synesthesia could find themselves as a medicine man or a healer or something like that. So a lot of it has to do with the society you're in the other part is neuroscience is a pretty new science, relatively, and a lot was unknown for a long time. And synesthesia is such a personal, individual experience, there's no way for someone who doesn't have it to understand anything about it. So that's seen with speculation. And to really believe and understand that it exists as a phenomenon, we had to collect data, or at least anecdotal data that many people across cultures, across sexes, across nations experience the same condition. And it's not just one or two people who are really unique. So that took time to put together, and then the science really took time to understand.
Dr. Waldbaum: (08:22) And like I said, neuroscience is not an old science. It's pretty new, and it's based on a lot of modern technologies and all of those things in combination. I think sort of kept syntaxes under the rug for a long time.
Emma: (08:39) But now you can do, like, scans. Right. Where it'll show actual, like, lighting up in two different areas in the brain in response to that stimuli.
Dr. Waldbaum: (08:54) Absolutely. And that data is just completely convincing. I mean, you see it happening in, like, a functional MRI. Amazing.
Emma: (09:04) Yeah.
Dr. Waldbaum: (09:04) And then you can go to those areas that are lighting up and you can do studies on receptor densities. Do they have a higher level of receptors? Do they have higher than normal concentrations of neurotransmitters do they have abnormal neuronal connections happening there? So you can really once you know where to look, you can start to do all sorts of other molecular and neurological studies.
Emma: (09:29) Do you think it would be possible to kind of determine whether someone has a really high amount of synesthesia or low amount of synesthesia like dependent on those brain scans or some other type of test?
Dr. Waldbaum: (09:46) Yeah, so you kind of cut out in the beginning part, Emma:, but I think you were talking about the range of experience synesthesia. Yeah. Okay. So certainly there is no one size fits all and it's a range because its a receptor thing and a neuronal connection thing and different sensory experiences. I think there's literally hundreds you might know this better than me, but hundreds of types of citizens in terms of the sensory connections that are being made and the experiences that people have. So it's definitely a range. It's very individual. And as we talked about in the beginning, some people will develop more symptoms and other people those will lessen over time. So there is definitely no one size fits all scenario here.
Emma: (00:37) Yeah. Right. And how do you think synesthesia has affected different, like, cultures and art and music and literature, like around the world?
Dr. Waldbaum: (00:50) I think it's an absolute gift to the world of art and creativity. If you Google, like, famous people with synesthesia, you might be surprised.
Emma: (01:03) Right?
Dr. Waldbaum: (01:04) Like a Kanye West, for example.
Emma: (01:06) Yeah. Like, I don't want to be associated with him, but.
Dr. Waldbaum: (01:14) In terms of art, I can't imagine a greater gift as a particularly like a visual artist of ways to think and express reality and abstract ways and new original creative ways. I would love to have a little bit of that more in my life musically. To be able to experience music in different sensory modalities can only enhance your expression of music and experience of it. So in terms of art, what an amazing thing. Van Gogh was another example. And then culturally, I think, like we talked about a few minutes ago, and this again would be more Indigenous native cultures, but these types of experiences in those cultures were held in high regard, with high respect, and those people were really gifted and blessed in Native American cultures where vision quests were something that everyone did as a rite of passage.
Emma: (02:27) What is a vision quest? Sorry, what is a vision quest?
Dr. Waldbaum: (02:32) A vision quest is and I don't know if this was with females in Native American cultures, but certainly young males, as they transition from boyhood to manhood, would be sent out on their own for a day or days with little to no food, maybe some sort of psychedelic drugs on board. And they would experience have a completely individual experience of their place in the world and how they relate to nature. And a lot of Native Americans, their names would come out of their vision quest. So whatever experience they had that was related to whatever the sun, the sky, an animal that would evolve into what their adult name would be based on their vision quest. So those types of experiences are similar to synesthesia, and someone that has synesthesia would go on a vision quest or take some sort of psychedelic experience would only enhance that experience. And I think those people were really in those cultures were really respected for having spiritual insight and things like that, where in more Western cultures those things were so misunderstood and so put in an incorrect box, in my opinion.
Emma: (04:04) That's so interesting. Do you have any more kind of cultural examples of different communities either like celebrating or rejecting Synesthesia or those types of experiences.
Dr. Waldbaum: (04:18) Really? I think probably what we've talked about already, native cultures, Native American from South America all the way up to Alaska. These are cultures that really look for spiritual experiences by connecting nature with oftentimes hallucinogenic drugs, to be quite honest. But those experiences were seen as life enhancing, not recreational or anything like that that were taken very seriously. And the ability to mix your sensory modalities and would only be seen as more of an insight into the world and maybe the spirit world communicating with you more. So it's just a matter of cultural perspective on how those things are looked at in the Western world. This plays into why Syndicizar was so under the rug for so long, because those experiences weren't given any credence or any respect. And we're just seeing as you were being cursed, not being blessed, and that's just a matter of cultural perspective.
Emma: (05:34) That's really interesting. Wow. I think that's all my questions.
Dr. Waldbaum: (05:46) Did we get to the bottom of the list?
Emma: (05:48) Yeah, pretty much went through a lot of things. No, that was awesome. You have a lot of knowledge and talked about it very eloquently.
Dr. Waldbaum: (05:59) Well, thank you. I hope it's going to be helpful towards your project and you can listen back to it and grab what you want and get rid of what you don't.
Emma: (06:09) Yes, for sure. Do you have anything else you'd like to say to the podcast before I end the recording?
Dr. Waldbaum: (06:17) Synesthesia is really an amazing phenomenon, and I can't speak as someone that has that condition. And I know that there are challenges that I don't appreciate and understand. But from the outside, as a neuroscientist and as someone who values spiritual experience and a broader understanding of our experience in the universe, the brain is wired the way it's wired in each individual, and the brain is limited based on how your brain is wired and how you can experience sensory information. All we have to go on is how our brains process sensory information. I mean, we live in this dark box of our brain, and there's no light, there's no sound, there's no color in there whatsoever. Everything we experience comes through our sensory system. So to enhance that system, I think it's an amazing thing to be able to experience in this world. And I think probably produces insights that, quote, unquote, normal people don't get to experience. And I think that's such a great gift in many ways.
Emma: (07:37) Do you think Synesthesia has a bright future in neuroscience, or do you think it might kind of get swept up under the rug again?
Dr. Waldbaum: (07:49) I think it's a wonderful condition to research and investigate as a neuroscientist, and it could lead to all sorts of insights into PTSD and anxiety disorders. A big thing right now is treating individuals with those types of conditions with micro doses of hallucinogenics, particularly LSD or psilocybin. So allowing these people's brains to just loosen their grip just enough and enhance their sensory experiences just enough where they can sort of step out of whatever trapping them as a person. And I think Cincinnati in many ways does that in a person without the need for hallucinogenics. So I would love to see scenes are brought in to that type of research and as an effort to help people who are sort of trapped in certain patterns in their mind and experiences, I think it can only enhance our understanding of those conditions.
Dr. Waldbaum: (01:53) Well, it's like any change in perspective. If you're standing on the ground and you're looking at sunset over the mountains and the sun is down like you don't see the sun anymore. Right. But if you slightly change your perspective and go up 100ft in elevation now all of a sudden you can see the tip of the sun still setting. So by just a slight change in perspective, you can see something that you didn't think was there before. And with something like a microdose of psychedelics, it changes the brain chemistry just enough to allow you to step just slightly out of your normal everyday self. You're still completely functional. I mean, you're not like having major hallucinations whatsoever, but it's sort of enough of a chemical change where you can sort of allow your brain and yourself to relax out of your normal pattern. So we're all tracked in these grooves and patterns in our minds from our conditioning and prior experiences. But if you could step out of that slightly and look at it, you might be able to figure out, oh, I'm acting that way because this happened to me and now that I can see it, I can deal with it and move on from it.
Dr. Waldbaum: (03:23) So it's just a matter of a slight subtle change in perspective.