Synesthesia?

Posted by: Deane F on 03 October 2005

Is it synesthesia to "see" music and sound, in one's mind, as colour, shape and movement? Or is it a common experience?
Posted on: 03 October 2005 by 7V
If you're genuinely interested, read Houston and Masters, particularly their "Varieties of Psychedelic Experience".

Are you getting this experience or are you talking hypothetically? Definitely be careful with the old 'Mellow Yellow'.

Regards
Steve M
Posted on: 03 October 2005 by Deane F
Oh, I definitely have the experience. I see drum sounds, for instance, as mostly rods and triangles (brown, a lot of the time) shooting up out of a field that is coloured by the whole piece of music.

That is just the beginning of my visual experience of the world. I "see" every word I speak in black typescript on a white background and concepts have shape, as do numbers. But that is eidetic as far as I understand. What I wonder is whether the visual experience of music is eidetic or synesthetic.

"Mellow Yellow"? I couldn't possibly comment - other than to say I was always careful...
Posted on: 03 October 2005 by 7V
quote:
Originally posted by Deane F:
What I wonder is whether the visual experience of music is eidetic or synesthetic.

That sounds like synesthesia to me. It's probably more common than you think.

Does it cause problems or can you enjoy it?

quote:
"Mellow Yellow"? I couldn't possibly comment - other than to say I was always careful...

Smile
Posted on: 03 October 2005 by Deane F
No, it doesn't cause me any problems at all. I know no other way of being. I wondered if it was a common experience of music, especially, is all.

So how does a speaker designer come to know of the room with no doors...
Posted on: 03 October 2005 by 7V
Actually I don't get your reference. Who?

But I guess that the answer would be that I've had and have interests other than hi-fi. And shouldn't speaker design be a search for truth and beauty?
Posted on: 03 October 2005 by Deane F
quote:
Originally posted by 7V:
Actually I don't get your reference. Who?



Looks like I lost the thread of the subject first.
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by garyi
Provided it causes no pain or makes you walk into buses etc it sounds like a very nice experience, no need for drugs!
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by Deane F
garyi

Can you describe your own experience of music? I'm interested.
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by andy c
....this is defined as 'the transposition of sensory modes' - medically it's linked to the use of hallucinogens like Lsd... apparently Winker
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by Deane F
Perhaps I need to make one thing clear - I've always thought visually and experienced music visually. Ever since childhood. It has nothing to do with hallucinogens like LSD.

I thought to post this because of reading in the Hifi Room how the system "shapes" the note etc. I thought others might see music like I do. Oh well.
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by Deane F
Better than seeing dead people I suppose...
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by Roy T
The BBC offer a few links that have been run in conjunctions with Radio and TV offerings about Synesthesia (give the listen again link a click).

HEARING COLOURS, EATING SOUNDS
Derek Tastes of Earwax

May be of some use.
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by 7V
I'm interested. Do you perceive a change in the clarity or quality of the 'visuals' depending on the quality of the hi-fi system?

Regards
Steve M
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by andy c
quote:
It has nothing to do with hallucinogens like LSD.



sorry deane, I'll clarify...
it says that 'sights become sounds, sounds become smells' etc on the stuff i had to learn - that was the link I'm making and that this is what LSD's users referred to... soz for the confusion...
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by JeremyD
The main synaesthetic phenomena I experience are seeing sounds and hearing movements. And yes, I can sometimes see the "sounds" of movements!

This is not troublesome in any way. In fact, I'm sad that my synaesthesia has become weaker as I've got older - I think my brain's signal to noise ratio has seriously declined...

Sounds have shapes and colours, and there's some degree of blur between synaesthesia and imagination: I don't really know where one ends and the other begins.

A long time ago, I noticed a correlation between different types of distortion in hi-fi and what I could hear:
2nd harmonic distortion: white or blue
3rd harmonic: gold
5th harmonic: red.

I also see spoken words as printed words but I think I started doing it deliberately when I was very young, so in my case it doesn't really count as synaesthesia. Interestingly, if heard words seem unintelligible I can sometimes make them out by seeing them, which strikes me as quite bizarre!

I'm fairly certain that a relative of mine said that he smelt words - it sounds horrible! [I do see and smell sh*t when someone says the word but, again, that's purely association rather than synaesthesia].

Unfortunately, my memory isn't very clear but I think it's been proved that almost everyone experiences synaesthesia to some degree.
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by Deane F
quote:
Originally posted by 7V:
I'm interested. Do you perceive a change in the clarity or quality of the 'visuals' depending on the quality of the hi-fi system?

Regards
Steve M


Oh yes indeed! It's all cleaner, sharper and clearer when the system is better. Music "rises" from a field that is canted slightly from the horizontal - maybe twenty degrees. When I listen to a muffled sound or a crappy radio it's smaller, less colourful, and asserts itself less on my experience.

I have to force myself to notice it all though. Because it is my normal mode of experience if I start actively "watching" it I lose concentration on the music and hence my emotional connection to it.
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by and
Deane. Are you able to use this unusual? ability to see differences between similar pieces of kit. Could be a useful tool at audition time and would love to see the dealers face when you tell him it don't look right Big Grin
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by Deane F
I well remember hearing the Nait3 against the Nait5i. The Nait5i was "flatter" and appealed to me far less.
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by garyi
I do not experience the sensations that you do.

My experiences no doubt echo most peoples. I enjoy new music, but for me the biggest emotions come from music that I know, this is significantly enhanced with drink or dope. The feelings involve a sense of breathless sometime stupid grinning and even laughter. I don't cry or sing I am very quiet.
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by Deane F
My visual experience of music is not the core of the experience.

The core of my experience of music is transcendent. Beyond description. I'm sure I'm like everybody else here in that respect.
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by JeremyD
quote:
Originally posted by Deane F:
quote:
Originally posted by 7V:
I'm interested. Do you perceive a change in the clarity or quality of the 'visuals' depending on the quality of the hi-fi system?

Regards
Steve M


Oh yes indeed! It's all cleaner, sharper and clearer when the system is better...

...When I listen to a muffled sound or a crappy radio it's smaller, less colourful, and asserts itself less on my experience.
This is true for me but only as a broad generalisation. Exceptions are easy to find, such as the effect of putting Sorbothane feet under badly set-up old-type Naim components: the result can be more visually vivid and engaging but the emotional effect will be reduced. In think this is because some important aspects of the sound, which are harmed by Sorbothane feet, either have no distinguishing visual representation (e.g. timing) or have visual representations that in themselves have no emotional significance (e.g. note attacks). I do believe, however, that the colourfulness and vividness of what I see is linearly related to the ability of a system to reproduce timbre accurately. But timbre isn't everything, even though it's very important to me.

quote:
I have to force myself to notice it all though. Because it is my normal mode of experience if I start actively "watching" it I lose concentration on the music and hence my emotional connection to it.
To a great extent there is a one to one correspondence between what I see and what I hear, so watching it only enhances my emotional connection. Actually, I can't really choose not to watch it - even the bits that seem to be more imagination than synaesthesia seem totally involuntary.
Posted on: 04 October 2005 by MichaelC
This is amazing. I have never come accross this before. Followed the earlier links. Learn something new everyday. This plays on the imagination.
Posted on: 05 October 2005 by Rockingdoc
I got exactly these experiences when using LSD (in the distant past), namely that sounds and particularly music were seen as very clear shapes and colours. If this was all LSD did it may have seemed attractive to continue using it, fortunately I also had many very unpleasant experiences with the drug which stopped me.
As with most unusual "psychic" events, there is probably some minor underlying disorder of brain chemistry which can being simulated by hallucinogens or other drugs.
Posted on: 05 October 2005 by Deane F
Well, my experiences with LSD and music were more that I understood the musician - of course, I doubt that I really did otherwise why have I not retained the understanding? Like the sages say, there are plenty of ways to transcendence but if there is no stable base to lay the transcendence upon then it won't last.

LSD is certainly an interesting chemical and shows more how little we know about the brain/life chemistry than anything else, IMHO. The mechanistic biomedical model isn't even interested in the old conundrums of identity so how can it lead to an understanding of ourselves?
Posted on: 05 October 2005 by Roy T
quote:
Originally posted by MichaelC:
This is amazing. I have never come accross this before. Followed the earlier links. Learn something new everyday. This plays on the imagination.

Yup, this is often a for want of a better phrase a "mental problem" that quite a few people would like to acquire from time to time. I expect a few will delude them selves into thinking that they suffer from it and a few more may take conctions of various chemicales in the hope of obtaining such a state of synesthesia even if only for a short time.

The Baroness Susan Greenfield writes and lectures on this general area of research and is well worth following if you ever get a chance.