HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY ARTICLE published: 14 October 2013 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00660 Training, hypnosis, and drugs: artificial synaesthesia, or artificial paradises? Ophelia Deroy 1* and Charles Spence 2 1 Centre for the Study of the Senses, School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, UK 2 Department of Experimental Psychology, Crossmodal Research Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Edited by: The last few years have seen the publication of a number of studies by researchers Roi C. Kadosh, University of Oxford, claiming to have induced “synaesthesia,” “pseudo-synaesthesia,” or “synaesthesia-like” UK phenomena in non-synaesthetic participants. Although the intention of these studies Reviewed by: has been to try and shed light on the way in which synaesthesia might have been Beat Meier, University of Bern, Switzerland acquired in developmental synaesthestes, we argue that they may only have documented David Luke, University of a phenomenon that has elsewhere been accounted for in terms of the acquisition of Greenwich, UK sensory associations and is not evidently linked to synaesthesia. As synaesthesia remains *Correspondence: largely defined in terms of the involuntary elicitation of conscious concurrents, we suggest Ophelia Deroy, Centre for the Study that the theoretical rapprochement with synaesthesia (in any of its guises) is unnecessary, of the Senses, School of Advanced Study, University of London, Senate and potentially distracting. It might therefore, be less confusing if researchers were to House, R 276, Malet Street, WC1E avoid referring to synaesthesia when characterizing cases that lack robust evidence of a 7HU London, UK conscious manifestation. Even in the case of those other conditions for which conscious e-mail:
[email protected] experiences are better evidenced, when training has been occurred during hypnotic suggestion, or when it has been combined with drugs, we argue that not every conscious manifestation should necessarily be counted as synaesthetic.