Synesthesia, does it look like this?

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After a recent visit to the doctor over a hearing issue, I've wound up with a referral to be diagnosed for Aspergers or Autism. I've been doing some reading on these, and came across synesthesia. I had a very limited understanding, that assumed the sense-crossover was always rendered in the visual field (projection), then I learned about assocative synesthesia.

I've always had very detailed and vivid imagery in my mind's eye while listening to music (and other sounds too), each song has it's own visual character that is consistent each time I hear it. The imagery is pervasive, but I can ignore it.

Rather than make a long-winded description: I set out to draw a very specific part from one of my favourite songs as accurately as possible tonight, it's the pattern I see between 4:24 and 4:28 of the song "Weird Fishes" by Radiohead. I think the imagery I experience during this song made it a favourite. (I'm seriously weirded out that I just wrote that paragraph...)

I'm just curious, if anyone here has synesthesia, can you relate to this image? Does it look similar to your experience in general of synesthesia?

Are you able to identify which sounds are which, and do different notes pop up in different places?

Thanks!

people who drop acid commonly refer to temporary synesthesia, e.g., seeing colors in response to sounds, and hearing buzzing and whining when seeing colors and textures, et al. I am not gifted with those things but since I was a little kid I see people's faces nested within the juxtaposition of the second/minute/hour hands on an analog clock face. 1:37 looks like a different person than 8:42, for example.

Is it an association that you can't help making, like it's pervasive?
I'm curious because sounds similar to something I do with words and numbers and colours.

It is pervasive but less so than when I was your age. you might find that as you age that it becomes a softer thing.

Yes, it's a bit like that, although a bit more simple and "clean" for me. A bit like these :











And these : http://giphy.com/sonochromia

I know what sounds trigger what, and their positions and movement come from their frequency, change of frequency and volume, all around me (not just in front of me).
And as Auntblabby said, it can be induced by drugs too. I've talked with people who take LSD and mushrooms, it's the same thing as their trips. Nothing really different.

I see waving lines of color for each instrument. My musical synesthesia almost looks like one of those MIDI visualizers.

Saxgeeks visual sound experience looks much like mine.
Since age 3, I "saw" Mozarts pianoconcerts like that - and once in a period, when I was doing painting over a specific organ piece by Bach, my art teacher dropped by one day, looked at it and exclaimed: "That`s organmusic by Bach"
Artists are in general synaesthetic.

sure wish I had me some of those genes

It can be trained.
Just find something - however vague, that seems to give you co-sensing: Smell-color/shape, weekday- color/shape, letter-color/shape. Instrumental sound-color/shape.

Most people find, that y and 7 give a yellow expression.
Some find the cello tone to be mellow, dark, greenish or blueish.
Alone the sense of "mellow sound" is synaesthesia - sound and tactile sensing together - and I believe, that all people have this to an extent.
I even think it is part of our human way of developing our sensory world. Perhaps animal have it too in their way.

Once the students in a music class, I attended, were asked about tone and color - and EVERYONE had a sense of color attached to weekdays and musical intervals.

Painter Kandinsky and painter Klée both "orchestrated" their pictures and wrote about the connections between color and sound. They move on the same wave-lengths.

Just go and play with it and you´ll will wake it up - become concious about it.
Have fun

I have kind of personalities associated with raw numbers. When I attempt to do math, things that aren't geometry turn into something three dimensional. So math to me might look like building something or sewing.

I also sometimes sense something like personalities in objects. Like a deeper way of seeing them that I have to purposefully ignore. I'll pay too much attention to a scratch on the floor, and then a small aspect of that scratch. I'm not sure what that is, but apparently not everyone sees things that way.

Thanks a million for sharing your experiences folks, It's kind of comforting to read, I can pretty much relate to everyone here in some way.

Thanks for filling me in on the details - I experience similar too with tone, position and intensity.
I'm very familiar with the third and forth types (from the quote), I actually feel like I can hear them from the animations!
I've never tried mushrooms or acid myself, but I find it fairly funny that I can do it for free!



This is pretty much what pianos, plucked guitar/strings and melodic percussives look like to me! Slow piano music is amazing.



That's remarkable! I've noticed that I can do that when watching midi pattern videos on youtube, if it's an unfamiliar song, the oncoming pattern makes it very predictable, is that similar to what your teacher saw I wonder!

I wouldn't call it training, but I found I could temporarily focus more in perceptions with modifications of consciousness. Meditation, and even more, meditation with music that is known for enhancing perceptions. With ambient or good trance, it's mind-blowing. (But some people find it much too intense to bear it)

[quote saxgeek]

That's remarkable! I've noticed that I can do that when watching midi pattern videos on youtube, if it's an unfamiliar song, the oncoming pattern makes it very predictable, is that similar to what your teacher saw I wonder![/quote]

No, my teacher had great knowledge of Bach, so he knew his style intimately. It was the character, rythm and and the colors, that told him roughly, what it was.

Doing math is like building for me, too. Numbers that equal 10 when added seem to "fit together". Like, if I see 23 + 47, I see the 3 and 7 as two blocks that fit together to make a 10 block.

Hi folks, New to this whole concept of probably having Aspergers or something but I have always 'seen' music, Smells, Textures, Vivid visualizations in high detail, Links to other seemingly unrelated things that others don't seem to see, both in my 'minds eye' or head, I can visualize a pitch black 3D infinite space surrounding me, I seem to be able to experience it as a body-less incorporeal being or I can go back into my body and walk around the space and the objects within if I so wish. Within that space, when I hear things for example, I see colours, textures and vivid visuals within that black 3D space very easily and readily almost pervasive. I can do this with my eyes open too and see them in the world around me, but I can tell they are not there, they have opacity, but they can be distracting and have caused awkward moments!

I see single strong prominent notes with like piano and guitar plucking very much like the Midi sequencer above that saxgeek shared, a single cloured rectangle for a single note and the longer the note is held, the longer the coloured rectangle gets, the colour also increases in intensity with volume and sometimes frequency, but if I want to flip it within my 3D space and see it from alternative views, I can! I also see stars or little smoky squares, grids, squiggles, circles for different noises, long flowing sine waves for strings, soft edged feathered squares for beats and the edges sharpen if the drum or beat gets sharper/heavier. The deeper or bassier the note or sound the darker in colour it is. I can visualise voice in what looks like the soundwave a voice makes or popping bubbles of different shapes and texture depending on the words. As the music plays, they can fly from right to left if I just want to watch them but I can walk around them and put my fingers through them if I try (it looks like if you pulled your fingers through a rainbow of paints, the colours bleed and fade into each other)

There is always noise in my 'Phosphene patterns' and again will be interfered with with any type of noise, music, smell, texture but mostly sound related. There are colours that blend like watercolours being dropped onto a very wet page, they spread and meld and interact with different sound. It's quite beautiful but I was so surprised to hear that this is 'not normal' and most others cant do it! It kinda makes me feel special and at the same time very strange and odd because I thought it was a regular thing!

It helps though in that I am a creative artist an though I have never had any training in music, I seem to understand the theory of it quite well and I have put my hand to it a few times and have produced interesting, well composed things that people seem to like!

I do not like numbers, they make me panic, sweaty, nervous, I really dislike math and had a ton of trouble in school because of it! Days, weeks, months of the year and years are all in a horizontal timeline for me january being at the start of the line for the start of a new year and then all the months through to December then there is like a small void and the next year starts again! Each month has a colour and they are the same every year.

Anyway, that is some of my own experiences!

Nice subject, i looked into the field just now and found one very interesting form of Synesthesia that i didn't know of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia#Spatio-temporal_synesthesia

The people who has this form is said be able to see time(!)

EDIT: When i was younger i thought i had Synesthesia (why i know of it), but there was no connection to anything, a feeling, a word or a number.. later on i learned that it was Migrane Auras, it starts in the centre and slowly expand across the field of vision (in one eye) and ends up like a large "C" that later on move out of view.