‘Was Marilyn Monroe a Synaesthete?’

In ‘Tasting the Universe: Synaesthesia from the Inside Out’, a regular column for Psychology Today, Maureen Seaberg poses an intriguing question: Was Marilyn a synaesthete?

Synaesthesia, as defined by MedicineNet.com, is ‘a condition in which normally separate senses are not separate. Sight may mingle with sound, taste with touch, etc. The senses are cross-wired…People with synaesthesia often report that one or more of their family members also have synaesthesia, so it may in at least some cases be an inherited condition.’

Seaberg was approached by Dr John Michael Lennon, whose authorised biography of Norman Mailer will be published later this year. Dr Lennon brought to Seaberg’s attention this detail from Mailer’s 1973 book, Marilyn:

‘There, on p. 47, he found Mr. Mailer describing what can only be understood as Ms. Monroe’s synesthesia. In recounting her first husband, Jim Dougherty‘s recollections of her, he said:

“He recounted evenings when all Norma Jean served were peas and carrots. She liked the colors. She has that displacement of the senses which others take drugs to find. So she is like a lover of rock who sees vibrations when he hears sounds…It also provides her natural wit…she did not have a skin like others.”

It didn’t disturb me that Mr. Mailer did not refer to Ms. Monroe’s displacement of the senses specifically as synesthesia — no one was using that word in 1973. I decided to follow up with her survivors and spent months seeking them until an email arrived from her niece, Mona Rae Miracle, who with her mother, Berniece Baker Miracle, wrote a well-received biography of her famous aunt herself, titled My Sister Marilyn.

“Synaesthesia is a term Marilyn and I were unaware of; in the past, we simply spoke of the characteristic experiences with terms such as ‘extraordinary sensitivity’ and/or ‘extraordinary imagination’… Marilyn and I both studied acting with Lee Strasberg, who gave students exercises which could bring us awareness of such abilities, and the means of using them to bring characters to life. As you know, the varied experiences can bring sadness or enjoyment…Marilyn’s awesome performance in “Bus Stop” (the one she was most proud of) grew out of the use of such techniques and quite wore her out.”

Ms. Miracle believed that not only was her aunt a synaesthete, but that she, too, is one. The trait is known to run in families.’