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'The UnXplained: Superhuman Senses' Review: Sense athletes walk among us who perceive world in radical ways

Exploring conditions like "synesthesia" and "brain plasticity", this episode of 'The UnXplained' gets into how some people perceive a lot more than usual or experience the world in a dramatically different way
PUBLISHED JUL 19, 2020
Host William Shatner (A+E Network)
Host William Shatner (A+E Network)

'Superhuman Senses', the latest episode of 'UnXplained', starts with well-known 'glitches' of the brain before investigating sensory perceptions that alter our commonplace understanding of perceiving 'reality'. Host William Shatner first introduces us to Daniel Kish, a man who learned how to echolocate when he was just a baby.

Echolocating is a form of perception usually attributed to bats and dolphins, who emit high-frequency sounds and listen to the pings as the sound waves hit surfaces to accurately form a 3-D map of the world around them.

Humans have used this system to create sonars for submarines. But Daniel Kish says that all humans have the latent ability to echolocate -- it is only that he was fortunate enough to develop his. Having lost his eyes to cancer as a two-year-old baby, Daniel intuitively just knew how to "see with sound". He makes clicking noises and taps around with his cane, which helps him form a geometric 3-D map of the space around him, even if he hasn't visited the place before.

If this sounds too Daredevil-like to you, it may surprise you to know that Daniel teaches his skill to other blind individuals with varying degrees of success and also draws what he sees in his mind to help others understand how he perceives the world. He is only the first of the "sense athletes" the episode introduces to us, who push the boundaries of senses in the way athletes push beyond the physical limits of the human body.       

The next segment of the episode explores "synesthesia" that shatters another common perception we have about our senses. Our brains, depending on the number of interconnections it has formed, tend to use all the senses in a more unified way than we imagine. For most of us, a sound will only fire our auditory components of the brain linked to the ears, or we will 'see' colors depending on how light refracts off objects and into our pupils and the eye's nerve endings.

But some lucky people have more connections than usual so they may 'hear' color or 'see' sound  -- the most common forms of synesthesia. There are 70 different types (permutation and combinations of senses) among the recorded instances of synesthesia. Ninety percent will experience these additional sensory stimulations only in their mind, but a rare 10 percent actually experience it as projected on to the world. The show interviews one lady for instance who sees the world 'tinted' orange when she is in pain.

But the more astounding and contrary case study is that of Lidell Simpson, deaf since birth but immersed in a world of sound ever since. Every one of his senses -- his sight, his taste, what he feels -- instantly get 'translated' to sound in his mind. For instance, when he sees a bowling ball been thrown down a lane, he hears a high-pitched sound receding in volume as the ball moves away from him. Then, when the ball hits the pins, he aurally perceives the sight as "shattering glass". He also describes eating a "good meal" as hearing an orchestra playing. It is the same with colors or lights -- he essentially hears all the time despite being deaf.

His case is described by scientists, who imaged how his brain works, as a form of "brain plasticity". When the auditory conduits in Simpson's brain were not receiving any input, it started taking data inputs from his other senses. Brain wiring has obviously helped Lidell Simpson but there are also cases where 'gaining' something has come with the loss of something else.

The episode presents the case of Steve Pete, who has "congenital analgesia" -- a gene mutation that makes him immune to pain. While that sounds great, it essentially means Steve never knows when he has hurt himself and has been in and out of hospital since birth because he always discovers his injuries too late. Another case is that of blind Derek Paravicini, whose autistic brain has compensated his loss of sight by giving him "perfect pitch". Even if you play 10 notes together on a piano, he will correctly play back every one of those notes to you. Known as the "human iPod", he is a musical savant, but also needs help with basic day-to-day activities. 

Lastly, the episode dives into sensory perceptions that seem a little out of the world -- from children reading books blindfolded, to others seeing color by touching them. These cases challenge what we know about how we sense the world and opens up a Pandora's box about how much we are missing out because we use our senses in such limited ways.

'The UnXplaned: Superhuman Senses' aired on July 18 at 9 pm on the History channel.

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