A study in Frontiers in Psychology asked people who have emotional synaesthesia – they see colours when they have certain emotions – about what they experience during sex.

There is a particularly lovely table that illustrates these experiences through the different stages of the sexual response cycle:

Appentance phase

“This phase has an orange character” Excitement phase

“it’s getting more intensive, starting with a few colours at the beginning and getting more and more intense” Plateau phase

“The greater the excitement becomes the more thoughts are canalized” “The initial fog transforms into a wall” Orgasmic phase

“In the moment of orgasm the wall bursts… ringlike structures… in bluish-violet tones” Resolution phase

“The resolution phase varies between pink and yellow”

It’s worth bearing in mind that emotional synaesthesia isn’t the only thing that can turn sex into a slightly unreal experience.

Some people with epilepsy have seizures triggered by orgasm which can affect both males and females.

All cases reported in the medical literature are people who lose consciousness or have observable movements during the seizure, but this is probably because they are the ones most likely to go to the doctor.

People who have simple partial seizures during orgasm – where they just have unusual experiences but don’t lose consciousness – are probably more common than we think but are less likely to be aware they’re having seizures and so just assume it’s normal for them.



Link to study on synaesthesia and sexual experience (via @Neuro_Skeptic)