Synesthesia

So, I am positive that I am not a synesthete, which is disappointing now that I am aware of this "gift." This sounds like a fascinating ability to possess, yet it seems that the percentages of people that have this is low. This makes me wonder what artists that we cherish today may have possessed this ability, but they kept it to themselves. I guess this might not have been seen as an ability in the past, but maybe as some sort of mental issue if someone were to tell anyone about what they felt or saw. I would be interested in seeing one of those organs that emits light with each music note (mentioned in the article). I would really like to feel or see what this kind of experience is like. But, at the same time, I guess these would all be a false sense of this ability, because I would assume that every experience is extremely different for every person and the same sorts of things trigger it for one person and something completely different does it for another person. So, even though these artists try to recreate these experiences for others in their art, it is probably not as exciting to us as it was to them, because everyone's perception and stimulation triggers are different. Therefore a person who is not a synesthete will probably never get a TRUE taste of what these people are able to experience. This is disappointing for sure. This is not to say that their works of art are not worth anything, because they still may have the ability to stir emotions and feelings in people. I am just saying that it would be a stretch to believe that these artists have truly shown us what it is like to have one of those episodes. We are only getting an insight into their individual perceptions of those moments. I wonder if there are some people that have this ability, but they are too afraid to tell others because they think that there is something wrong with themselves. Because, truly, before I read about this, I had never known anything about it. So, I could easily see why some people might keep it to themselves. But, I think that it is a gift that should be utilized, just as the article explains some people use synesthesia.
I am curious to know why it is more likely for people that have had a stroke or who experience temporal lobe epilepsy to have one of these experiences. Yet, I think I can grasp how a person on psychedelic drugs can have these moments. The article briefly explains that synesthesia has been linked to chromosome 2, but that isn't too specific. It seems that the stroke, along with deafness and blindness, are all things that take away certain senses from a person. I wonder if there is something about a lacking in certain sensory areas that heightens the others. Just like people that are blind have the tendency to have a heightened sense of hearing and such. Thus, the people that don't lack any of the 5 senses truly have a sort of sixth sense in a matter of speaking.
I found it extremely interesting that Kandinsky is a known synesthete. I wonder if all people that have this synesthesia become artists and musicians and such? Do some just take on regular careers and try and keep those experiences personal. I wonder what my work and films would be like if I was a synesthete? It would just be interesting to even think in this sort of manner of relating things to other unrelated things in the way that this ability works to make a film. This thought process is kind of how you do have to think when are making or even watching an experimental film, although I understand that TRUE synesthesia is something that is not thought about, but something that comes naturally. But, it could be a helpful mindset to stand on the outside and and look at your film in a retrospective manner. I'm not sure if this makes sense in the words that I have written, but in my head it does. I feel like merely knowing how you are bringing about certain feelings and senses from other completely unrelated images and sound could be helpful in an experimental filmmaker's filmmaking process. Although, just like synesthesia, I think that in many cases films can trigger all sorts of unintended senses and feelings involuntarily. Things that the filmmaker may not have ever meant to portray.