One lucky man seems to experience the most colorful sex in the world. His rare form of synesthesia is triggered by an orgasm, causing him to briefly see the world in shades of pink. And as a teenager, bouts of pain caused by a heart condition manifested as white sensations, as his doctors describe in a case report.
Doctors in Mashhad, Iran, first reported the medical curiosity in 2022 in Iranian Journal of Psychiatry. Her patient was a 31-year-old married man nicknamed “Mr. R” who was admitted to her psychiatric clinic after having bizarre experiences following his orgasms. Shortly after his climax, his vision changed dramatically; it became sharper, brighter, and pinker. In his own words, he suddenly had “high-contrast vision with dominant pink color everywhere.”
The man’s color vision and neurological functions were found to be completely normal, and he had no other relevant health problems. Doctors told the man that he probably suffered from synesthesia, a condition in which the perception of the world is guided by different or more senses than usual. This confusion in the brain’s information processing can cause someone to perceive certain tastes when reading words or to feel colors associated with certain sounds. After hearing this explanation, the man remembered another time in his life when he had unusual color perception. In his younger years, he had experienced intermittent severe chest pain due to heart valve disease. During these periods, the man felt “white.” This feeling never occurred when he was injured by other things, and as the chest pain episodes subsided in adulthood, this feeling also disappeared.
Synesthesia is not particularly rare. An estimated 4% of the world’s population suffers from some form of it. But the male form seems to be particularly novel. According to doctors, an “orgasm in color is one of the rarest forms of synesthesia.” The male pain-color synesthesia is also stranger than usual, as it was only triggered by a certain type of pain.
As confusing as this condition may have been at first, it doesn’t seem to have had a negative impact on him. Doctors report that he had no erectile dysfunction and was happy with his sex life. Seeing colors after sex may not be the superpower I’d ask for if I had the chance, but it still sounds pretty cool.
