The question of distinguishing between multimodality and synesthesia has not been problematized so far, as it seemed to be self-evident. The aim of this article is to distinguish between these two phenomena from a psychophysiological point of view, and to show that each of them requires different semiotic means, as well as different methods of working with them, for their representation in a verbal text. In addition, the symbolization of multimodal experience is discussed separately on the basis of French Symbolist poetry (Ch. Baudelaire and A. Rimbaud),
since the phenomenon of “correspondences” turns out to be the key to the construction of the so called “philosophical symbol”, which determines the specificity of the “new” poetic text for that
epoch.