Salinas has a trait called ‘Mirror Synesthesia’.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: For Joel Salinas, a 33-year-old in neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, empathizing with his patients is not a problem. If he says, “I feel your pain,” his charges can rest assured that he means it, since Salinas has a trait called mirror synesthesia that allows him to experience the same sensations as other people.
“When I see people, I have the sensation of whatever touches their body on my own body as well and it’s kind of reflected as a mirror,” he told CBS Boston.
He doesn’t really feel it as pain, per se, but says the sensations can still be unsettling.
When asked if it makes him a better doctor, he said, “I think it’s empowered me to really connect with my patients. There’s a wall that’s torn down when you feel a lot of the sensations that your patients feel as well. It’s like being aggressively put in somebody else’s shoes.”
However, for other not so fortunate individuals, mirror synesthesia is a burden instead of a boon.
“They’re kind of crushed by those sensations because it’s too much and it’s overwhelming and they develop issues with anxiety and depression and essentially become shut-ins at times,” said Salinas, who has learned to focus his mind so the cues he’s constantly bombarded with don’t distract him.
An unusual facet of Salinas’ mirror-touch synesthesia is that it extends to inanimate objects.
According to the Pacifi Standard, “When he looks at a light pole, he might feel his body stretching, elongating, and narrowing. When he sees the headlights and bumper of a car, he might feel his face contorting into the shape of the vehicle’s front end. And so as he grew older, Salinas learned that inert physical objects, too, could be a refuge for his attention when other stimuli were overwhelming.”
New York Magazine reported Salinas also sees letters and numbers in colors, a condition known as grapheme-color synesthesia. Furthermore, he associates these colored characters with personality traits and feelings, which in conjunction with his mirror synesthesia allows him to experience his patients and their conditions in a way most doctors simply cannot.