What is synesthesia, the condition that Joaquín Reyes has to live with every day: "It is a crossing of meanings"

Joaquín Reyes is one of the most celebrated comedians in Spain in the last 25 years.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
22 April 2024 Monday 05:04
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What is synesthesia, the condition that Joaquín Reyes has to live with every day: "It is a crossing of meanings"

Joaquín Reyes is one of the most celebrated comedians in Spain in the last 25 years. The co-creator of projects such as La Hora Chanante, Muchachada Nui, Museo Coconut and Retorno a Liliput has managed to make millions of people laugh with his particular sense of humor. From Enjuto Mojamuto to Celebrities, passing through the little voices and accents, the man from Albacete has earned himself among the most seen and listened to.

However, a detail that was revealed in El Hormiguero was little known. The comedian has attended Pablo Motos' program to present his leap into classical theater through La Paz, a comedy by Aristofanes adapted by his countryman Francisco Nieva. During the round of questions, Reyes was able to talk to the presenter about synesthesia, a phenomenon by which more than one sense can be experienced simultaneously.

“This whole interview is to get to this question,” Motos admitted, wanting to give special interest and relevance to his condition. “It is a crossing of meanings, to put it simply. With numbers I see colors. When I think of a number it has a color. One is black, two is blue…”, listed the man from La Mancha. Likewise, he gave other examples of synesthesia and dropped possible uses for these crossovers.

“Others see the music. There are people who locate time in space, or places, there are people who savor words. What's the point of this, nothing. To liven up a dinner,” she expressed with some forcefulness. Likewise, he claimed that his synesthesia had only one direction: he could assign a color to a number, but for him colors are not numbers. By way of comparison, he assured that all the Madrid metro lines were poorly aligned.

The only well-configured line in his head was Line 4, brown. In another vein, Reyes also confessed to having suffered a hydrocele in 2020. “I ended up with a very fat egg. One egg was like an avocado, the other normal,” the Albacete native described about the scrotal swelling that he had to go through for two years. Likewise, he was somewhat dissatisfied with the break in symmetry that he had to endure.

“It was an aesthetic issue, it ruined my still life. I gave him a name, Don Emilio, and I had two wonderful years,” he explained, confirming that it fit him well after an operation. The only thing he could not explain to Motos was the procedure after being anesthetized. “I couldn't go down stairs, for Easter I had to paint it,” he added.