Synaesthesia

[jennyRater]

Simple question: have YOU ever had this condition? From what Iv read it must be fun sometimes - hearing sounds for colors, smelling noise, feelin flashs of light...

I think I had a mild case once, with flashing colors in the corner of my eye while fire alarms were sounding. Or maybe that was a fluke painless migrain - can anyone tell me if those are connected at all to synesthsia?:bugeye:

 

[cooljayman]

strange... Sounds interesting. I wish <i>I</i> could feel..

 

[vslayer]

synaesthesia is where you associate sonuds with visual objects, and visualise certain things when you hear a sound, in exterem cases you can taste words, a doco i watched on it there wsa a guy who had to dump his gf because her name tracy made him see and taste dry flaky pastry

its not as if you cant see due to visualiseations tho, while i am reading over my post now i can read it fine but whne i stop the music i am listening to puts images into my head which are often much like music videos

 

[jennyRater]

there wsa a guy who had to dump his gf because her name tracy made him see and taste dry flaky pastry

Poor girl! Ive met the odd guy with a wacky problm myself

 

[certified psycho]

I have never heard of such thing.

 

[RubiksMaster]

I have experienced something like what this sounds like. I don't know exactly what synaesthesia is, but it sounds like what I have had.

There are a few words that actually make me taste something. The only one I can think of right now is "custard." No other food names bring such a vivid taste into my mouth.

there wsa a guy who had to dump his gf because her name tracy made him see and taste dry flaky pastry

Whenever I hear (or read) the name "Jeff," I picture a person with an antenna coming out of his head (right above the ear). It's weird. "Sally" makes me picture a leaf of lettuce.

its not as if you cant see due to visualiseations tho, while i am reading over my post now i can read it fine but whne i stop the music i am listening to puts images into my head which are often much like music videos

For some reason, when I hear a song, I can bring up a "photograph" in my head of what I was doing the last time I heard that song. I don't know if it is related. I can also do the converse (remember a song from a visualisation).

For some reason, though, it is only visual and musical memories that are tied together like that.

 

[gendanken]

This topic is nostalgic.
Nice thread.

synaesthesia is where you associate sonuds with visual objects, and visualise certain things when you hear a sound, in exterem cases you can taste words, a doco i watched on it there wsa a guy who had to dump his gf because her name tracy made him see and taste dry flaky pastry

A personal envy- an artist with this conditions is a god.
Mozart envisioned the D key as a bright yellow, orange (don’t quote me on which key, only recall the description)

Rubiksmaster:

There are a few words that actually make me taste something. The only one I can think of right now is "custard." No other food names bring such a vivid taste into my mouth.

Tamarind.
*drool*

 

[jennyRater]

For some reason, though, it is only visual and musical memories that are tied together like that.

I know that effect - when I used to filltapes with songs recorded from the radio in whatever order, each tape alwys had a sort of mental slideshow for me. A series of pictures I saw connectd to each song, based on what I saw orthought at the time of recording. So if I hear 1 of the songs somewhere else, that same slideshow still pops into my head somtime.

A personal envy- an artist with this conditions is a god.
Mozart envisioned the D key as a bright yellow, orange (don’t quote me on which key, only recall the description)

Whatevr he used to drink, I want some!

 

[vslayer]

i remember the silverchair song, "anthem for the Y2K" always maeks me see a wave in 2d form with some prison style bars in front.

the techno i am listening to now makes me see an empty room with a ball bouncing around with every beat

 

[water]

Hm.

I think this counts as a sort of synaesthesia: I constantly have music in my head. And via music, I often experience my emotions. I listen to the song playing in my head (and it's normally a classical piece, I know many), and then I figure out what mood I am in. If someone asks me how I'm doing, I must ask this myself in order to answer that question (truthfully). I listen to myself, and I hear a music, and by that I can tell how I'm doing. It isn't always so, but if I must think about how I feel, I usually get music with it.

Colours have a taste for me -- but it seems to be a combined effort of colour, shape and surface texture. I'm looking at things in my room -- pure white is bitter, off white is a dull by-taste that stalled food has, a dull red is something I don't like to eat, ... But most of all, I love greens. I've been having a craving for all green for years now. A certain kind of a thick, bright, compact green. It tastes so fresh to me.

 

[hotsexyangelprincess]

Synaesthesia is a mental condition that you're either born with, or incur as a result of a brain injury. As of now, I don't think it can be corrected. :m:

 

[vslayer]

why wolud you want to correct it, i find it is an advantage if anything

 

[jennyRater]

From what water + vslayer said, it must be what gives a real poet his talent - if images, tastes + feelings come with sound, turning sights + flavors etc into words would be natural..

 

[water]

Jenny,


Synaesthesias are a kind of metaphors, and the human mind is set to think in metaphors, even though we may not be all that aware of that.

Watch:
(a random)

Oh, you are the *sunshine* of my life, my *morning air*, your teeth are *pearls*, your lips are *rubies*, your eyes are *fountains of love*, and your hands are the *soft wings of doves* that touch my face, *schorched* by the ridiculousness of this *muddy river* of life.

Nothing wrong with this poetic flow, right?
But imagine a person who would indeed have pearls instead of teeth, rubies instead if lips, bird wings instead of hands etc.! It would be a monster!

But to keep it more everydayish:

Some colours are said to be *warm*, some *cold* -- but we certainly can't measure their temperatures!
A bright red can *scream*, but we can't hear it!
An off-white is *dull*, but there is nothing we could meausre it's sharpness/dullness with.
A sound is *cheerful*, another one *sad* -- but how, when they aren't human and don't have emotions!
I am writing this post in the *frame* of the Contemporary Theory of metaphor by Lakoff and Johnson -- yet there is no frame for anyone to see.
Yesterday, Tony *crossed the line* of good taste with his racist jokes -- but how, when there is no line to be seen?!

And so on we *spin* our thoughts and this *thread*-- even though they are not made of wool or cotton or something that could be spun ...

 

[invert_nexus]

There were circles within circles and colors that tasted like music.


It may sound pretty, but dealing with it in an everyday life would be another matter indeed.

 

[water]

Invert:

"There were circles within circles and colors that tasted like music.


It may sound pretty, but dealing with it in an everyday life would be another matter indeed. "

You are being circularly cryptical.

 

[gendanken]

Water:

Nothing wrong with this poetic flow, right?
But imagine a person who would indeed have pearls instead of teeth, rubies instead if lips, bird wings instead of hands etc.! It would be a monster!

But to keep it more everydayish:

So true.

Trying to remember.
Hmm.
Oh well, we'll say it was a Simpson’s episode where Homer finds a magic lamp.

The poor imbecile wishes for eternal wealth where his food and teeth are all made of pearls
You see him sit down on a throne made of pure gold, to a meal made of pure pearls, sticks his fork in and takes a bite with his pearly teeth only to have them all smash to pieces.
And he's smiling sheepishly because he is rich.

Reminds one of Midas, made pathetic by his taking a poet too seriously.
One poet wrote of 'kisses sweet as nectar', Milton heard it and repeated it. So did every last romantic in Victorian England.

But has anyone ever tasted nectar? Taste it- its bitter and smells like urine.
Specifically the kind of urine one smells in subways.

 

[invert_nexus]

Water,

You are being circularly cryptical.

Cryptic? How so? My first sentence was a poetic elucidation of synasthesia and my second was a statement on it not being as pretty as it seems.

Now, if someone was born with this condition, and it wasn't /too much/ cross-modality, then I suppose that they would know how to deal with it and would lose something were they 'fixed'.

But, in the case of a 'normal' person suffering brain damage which caused the senses to cross, then life would become another matter entirely. They'd spend a good deal of their time trying to make sense of this strange new sensory data. They'd go about in a state of confusion.
Think of Homer Simpson with no teeth or Midas mourning his golden daughter.
(With the mention of crumbling teeth, I can't help but remember the Nerve Ending Fairy episode of Ren and Stimpy.)


I should think that this is not an entirely uncommon experience. At least to a limited extent. The brain is a multimodal sense organ. We combine our senses all the time. Touch with vision. Vision with sound. Proprioception with touch. Much of the brain is taken up by these cross-modal integration areas. So, it shouldn't be a shock to have the occasional error. But to have a permanent defect would invalidate much of our sensory data and leave us unrooted in a strange world. Until you learn to cope that is. And that's just it. It would be a handicap you'd have to cope with. There might be some benificial side effects but the detrimental effects would far outweigh them.

 

[gendanken]

Invert:

But, in the case of a 'normal' person suffering brain damage which caused the senses to cross, then life would become another matter entirely.

I think she's looking at it from a purely artistic perspective.
What you're describing is a migrane.

And that's just it. It would be a handicap you'd have to cope with. There might be some benificial side effects but the detrimental effects would far outweigh them.

This is true.

If you use the word 'cope' when it comes to something like synasthesia then it is true.
If you think of it clinically, or react to it clinically, you will experience it clinically as a 'condition' not an albeit tormenting blessing.

 

[invert_nexus]

Gendanken,

I think she's looking at it from a purely artistic perspective.
What you're describing is a migrane.

I can understand that. However, life isn't a poem.

If you use the word 'cope' when it comes to something like synasthesia then it is true.
If you think of it clinically, or react to it clinically, you will experience it clinically as a 'condition' not an albeit tormenting blessing.

It all depends on the depth of the cross-modality. The sense that you're able to make of the world. There's a huge difference between Mozart's ability to envision music as a specific color and being overwhelmed with seemingly random sensory information that tells you nothing about the world in which you live.

As I said, the brain is multi-modal and thus is the poetry aspect of this discussion. We can make of the world a synasthetic wonderland. But, suffering a hit to the head and smelling rotten meat or shit in place of seeing the color blue or some such is another.
It's poetically beautiful to think of things like colors for music, but consider the example of the guy who had to leave his girlfriend because of what her name translated through his cross-modal circuits as.
It would take a huge adjustment. And it may not be pretty at all.
It would still be interesting though.
And there would certainly be some cases where it is a blessing. A tormenting blessing.
But sometimes it would be only torment.

I suppose I'm thinking of a worst-case scenario mostly as a reaction to posters like vslayer who are saying things like: "why wolud you want to correct it, i find it is an advantage if anything."
It may be somewhat of an advantage in certain situations. But the odds are more for it being a hindrance than a blessing.