Reality is not something we merely observe; it is something we continually compose.
Every sound, every colour, every scent that touches our awareness is shaped by the brain’s silent choreography — a dialogue between perception and imagination. Neuroscience, art, and philosophy converge here, revealing that what we call “the world” is in fact a symphony of the senses, orchestrated within us.
Table of Contents
1. The Multisensory Simulation — When the Brain Creates the World
Modern neuroscience tells us that the brain does not record reality; it recreates it. Every colour, sound, or sensation we perceive is not a faithful copy of the external world, but an interpretation — a living simulation.
Anil Seth, professor of neuroscience at the University of Sussex, calls this a controlled hallucination: a delicate equilibrium between the brain’s predictions and the information it receives through the senses. Similarly, David Eagleman of Stanford University reminds us that “the brain is not an organ of recording, but of construction.”
In other words, to see, to hear, to touch — none of these are passive acts. They are forms of neurobiological art. Vision speaks to touch; hearing converses with the body; scent awakens memory.
All of this converges in the brain’s multisensory associative cortex, where perception and emotion blend to create what we call experience. It is within this invisible yet tangible space that music, poetry, and the very sense of beauty are born.
2. Synaesthesia — A Language Between Body and Emotion
Our senses are not separate channels. The brain, and perhaps consciousness itself, thinks in connections, not in boundaries. Perception is a silent dance between sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.
When that dance intensifies, synaesthesia arises — a state in which a sound becomes a colour, a colour takes on a scent, and a word vibrates within the body like music.
Studies by neuroscientists V.S. Ramachandran and E.M. Hubbard (University of California, 2001) have shown that during synaesthetic experiences, multiple sensory areas of the brain activate simultaneously, generating new neural pathways. It is as if the brain, for a brief moment, forgot the grammar of perception and invented a new language: pre-verbal, universal, where the senses become symbols and emotions take form.
3. From Synaesthesia to Emotional Regulation
This sensory language is not only aesthetic; it is also therapeutic. When the brain’s sensory regions communicate more freely, the limbic and prefrontal networks — responsible for emotion and self-awareness — also become engaged.
In other words, what we perceive through the senses finds an echo within our inner world, creating coherence between perception and emotion.
Multisensory experiences such as art, music, and aesthetic contemplation foster synchrony between sensory and emotional regions, promoting balance between feeling and thought.
Neuroscientific research shows that aesthetic pleasure activates the amygdala, insula, and orbitofrontal cortex — areas associated with emotional evaluation and reward. When the brain perceives harmony among the senses, it activates circuits that reduce stress and strengthen the link between emotion and awareness.
From this perspective, synaesthesia becomes a natural model of integration: perception itself becomes an instrument of inner equilibrium.
Art and music thus offer a universal language through which senses, emotions, and mind can harmonise — as numerous studies in neuroscience have shown (Blood & Zatorre, 2001; Koelsch, 2014).
4. The Opening of Awareness
Synaesthetic experiences often emerge in expanded states of consciousness — during deep meditation, mystical ecstasy, or moments of absolute creativity.
Contemporary neuroscience reveals that, in such conditions, the brain’s default mode network — associated with self-reflection and our narrative sense of identity — tends to quieten down. Its reduced coherence allows wider communication between brain regions that are normally segregated, enabling a unique integration of perception, emotion, and intuition.
This condition has been described as one of harmonic entropy — a paradoxical state in which the brain becomes more flexible, more creative, and, at the same time, more unified.
In spiritual terms, we might say that the soul begins to speak the language of the brain, and the brain begins to speak the language of the soul.
When the senses merge, consciousness opens. Emotions cease to be automatic reactions and become frequencies of awareness.
Every colour, every sound, every fragrance reminds us that reality is not outside us — it is born from the way we live it.
5. The Art That Is Felt with the Whole Body
Many artists of the past decades have intuited what neuroscience is now able to demonstrate: art is not something we look at — it is something we feel. It is not an external reality, but an event that unfolds inside the nervous system of the beholder.
Studio Azzurro — Images That Breathe
The Milanese collective Studio Azzurro, pioneers of interactive media art since the 1980s, were among the first to explore this terrain. Their installations respond to movement, warmth, and the human voice.
In works such as Il Giardino delle Cose (1992) or Sensitive City (2011), the image comes alive: it listens, reacts, and participates.
Neuroscientifically, these experiences embody the concept of embodied simulation developed by Vittorio Gallese and Giacomo Rizzolatti at the University of Parma — the discoverers of mirror neurons.
These cells fire both when we act and when we observe an action: the brain lives the artwork as if performing it. Art, therefore, is not contemplated — it is inhabited.
Anthony McCall — Sculpting with Light
Anthony McCall turned light into substance.
In installations such as Line Describing a Cone (1973) and Solid Light Works (2007), a luminous beam cuts through mist-filled space, becoming a three-dimensional body. The viewer enters it, touches it, dwells within it.
Light becomes solid; time takes form.
From a neuroscientific point of view, such experiences activate the visual, vestibular, and somatosensory systems simultaneously, producing an embodied illusion: the brain feels the light as if it were tangible matter.
As studies published in Frontiers in Psychology (Gallese, 2018) demonstrate, even observing an object that implies a gesture can activate pre-motor and visuoparietal areas. The brain, in essence, moves within the light.
Yayoi Kusama — The Infinity That Contains Us
The Infinity Rooms of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama remind us that to perceive is to dissolve the boundaries of the self. Within her immersive environments, the body becomes part of a luminous geometry; deprived of spatial reference, the mind enters a state of expanded perception.
Kusama shows us that consciousness is not a viewpoint but a vast space that holds everything.
Neuroscience explains that such experiences can produce a temporary dissolution of the self — akin to meditative or flow states.
Research by Robin Carhart-Harris (Imperial College London) and psychiatrist Judson Brewer (Yale University) shows that in these conditions, the brain’s default mode network deactivates, allowing consciousness to expand beyond the confines of the ego.
Kusama translates this phenomenon into visual art, inviting us to lose ourselves in order to find ourselves again — to dissolve identity so that unity may emerge.
6. The Language of The Vermilion Bridge
Il ponte vermiglio (Italian edition) was born from a vision of unity.
Its language, intensely visual, evokes a vast sensory dimension where images, sounds, scents, and tactile impressions rise within the reader’s mind, blending into a narrative that engages every sense. Through the protagonist’s stream of consciousness, the reader enters into direct contact with his sensations and emotional states; words become images, images turn into sounds, and every perception transforms into emotion.
The novel seeks to move beyond fiction, offering a metascientific reflection — one that begins with science but ultimately invites us to reflect on science itself, through an immersive narrative of awareness.
Rather than merely telling a story, it guides the reader through an experience in which science and poetry intertwine to restore a total way of feeling — a language that is not only read but lived with the whole body.
An artistic corollary to this synaesthetic journey is the song Dragon’s Eyes — the sonic extension of Il ponte vermiglio.
Inspired by the novel’s themes and universe, the piece, performed by Naomi Banks and co-produced with acclaimed British jazz artist Guy Barker, translates its emotional architecture into music.
Rich and powerful in sound and interpretation, Dragon’s Eyes expresses the interplay of perception and inner state that animates the novel, unfolding in harmonic structures that mirror the book’s own language of sensation.
Author’s Note
An English edition of Il Ponte Vermiglio is currently in preparation and will be released in 2026, inviting readers to cross the same bridge in a new language.
Bibliography
- Anil Seth (2021). Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. Faber & Faber.
- David Eagleman (2011). Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. Pantheon.
- Vittorio Gallese & Giacomo Rizzolatti (1996). Mirror Neurons and the Simulation Theory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
- Vittorio Gallese (2018). The Empathic Body: Embodied Simulation, Art and Aesthetics. Frontiers in Psychology.
- V.S. Ramachandran & E.M. Hubbard (2001). Synaesthesia — A Window into Perception, Thought and Language. Journal of Consciousness Studies.
- Robin Carhart-Harris et al. (2014). The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by Neuroimaging Research with Psychedelic Drugs. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
- Judson Brewer et al. (2013). Meditation Experience Is Associated with Differences in Default Mode Network Activity and Connectivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Blood & Zatorre (2001). Intensely Pleasurable Responses to Music Correlate with Activity in Brain Regions Implicated in Reward and Emotion. PNAS.
- Koelsch (2014). Brain Correlates of Music-Evoked Emotions. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.