synesthesia rocks! who here has synesthesia?

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I don't have synesthesia, but I do have this weird thing where I subconsciously create mental "maps" of individual songs, represented by a line on a 2D plane that goes up and down as the song changes intensity, curves around, and loops or jumps back when the song repeats itself. It's not intentional- I usually aren't even aware that I've made a map of a song until well after my brain made it.

um - yeah

you've got synesthesia

i get oscillating patterns like windows media player and stuff like that sometimes with music

the affect is different for everyone

the key element is sensory crossover - the brain interpretive element of making vsual maps is just your way of sorting out what the crossover has done

it is like dreams being a way to sort out issues in the waking world

like many things i think it is a spectrum. for me i think it is only occasional and not very strong. I do often smell things imagine or perhaps they are olfactory hallucinations. either way it is great fun. I have to agree, synaesthesia is amazing and i think it really indicates the diversity of realities between individuals

HA! Actually, it is weird! Meaning, it's rare! There's even a name for those of us that have it.. well, those of us that have it have a name, ha! Sonitiles! From "sonic tactile" It is one of the rarest, and hardest to diagnose. Unlike some of the more common fusions in which a person can say, "I see colour when I hear music", a Sonitile that says, "I feel sound" often gets dismissed and simply responding to natural wave-physics. ha!

Also, most people don't know they're synesthesic until someone tells them It's like growing up colour blind... you just naturally believe that's the way everyone sees the world. I had no idea the rest of the world couldn't feel the world around them with their ears. *wiffles her ears*

Keep in mind that synesthesia is *easy* to diagnose today, though expensive.

_Bloom

I don't but it sounds really cool. I'd like to have it

Had pretty heavy synesthesia as a kid but this faded away with age. I remember having all sorts of combinations...two ones I can think of are sounds evoking random visuals in my head, and smells, tastes and colours blending together. The taste/colour was a very strong one. I would get obsessed with certain books, objects and toys because their colours were grouped together in a way that I found pleasing.

The only ones I still have are colour/number, colour/month of the year, and colour/personality (every person I know seems to have one or more colours associated with them)

While my mom is completely NT, she tells me that she has always had it too. As a kid, I realized this when my mom bought a book called "The Man Who Tasted Shapes" about synesthesia...and I told her that I could taste the shapes on the front cover. For the longest time, I thought everyone experienced their senses in the same way I did.

The only times I really get it back is when I`m really stoned or there`s a huge change in the weather...it`s like my mind travels back to an earlier time when the world seemed more interesting, fascinating and brighter.

I work at a medical clinic (computer guy) and one of the doctors gave me that book a couple of years ago when i first started talking about it again

i learned early in childhood to not talk about it because of the bad responses i got from others/adults e.g. "You're being stupid", "Don't be silly"

I have mild synesthesia all the time.. mostly if not entirely produced by taking various hallucinogenic substances. I liked some of the effects while on those subtances, so I decided to keep them.

I can mostly consciously control it, and compared to other peoples', it's rather minor.. mostly seeing certain colors with certain music.. but I enjoy it..

I also have rainbows and patterns appearing/bubbling and other things.. I wanted them

I do not have it, but I always associate the feeling of headaches with swiss cheese...

That very closely describes what I experience when listening to music - it's like having a built-in visualizer.

sometimes when i see things there it a word next to it,but that is it

I have color -> taste synesthesia. Colors have all kinds of flavors to me.

I have sound (mostly music) -> color synesthesia. The louder/more intense the music is the stronger the colors are. Hard rock tends to look like exploding fireworks.

I think I have some degree of mirror touch synesthesia. Sometimes when I see someone touch someone else, I feel it. Some things prompt this more strongly than others - one animated gif that showed someone stroking the top of someone else's head was really intense and is difficult for me to look at.

Human voices have textures. Like you know when someone's voice is described as gravelly? I literally get that, except gravel is not common. Ice, stone, water, the surface of a balloon, wood, metal, knives, sometimes combinations. Deeper voices tend to be more dense materials.

I tend to associate words with colors, images, and flavors, as well, although I do not literally see the words as those colors, so I am not sure if this is synesthesia. "Asperger" for example is fairly sour and white. "Schizoid" is yellow and somehow brings beetles to mind.

I don't have this and I don't fully understand how it works or whats the use for it.

Some say that it's a great gift for a musician to be able to see music in colours and shapes. I don't understand this. For me it's enough, and sometimes even too much, to hear these sounds separately. Like if I listen to some classical music, it makes me a bit anxious to hear separately all the sounds, so what if there would be colours and shapes too! That would be so stressful!

How do you experince this synesthesia? What's the use for it? I'm also really interested how those musicians with this ability rely to it while doing music?

If you see musical notes as specific colors, then you can tell through visual and auditory feedback if your music is on key. For one example.

I am not sure why you'd phrase a question like "What's the use for it?" It doesn't really have a use, it's mostly a variation in how people perceive things. It sounds too much like "justify its existence." Its existence needs no justification. It exists, what more needs to be said?

Yep, that's enough explanation for me, that it just exists I was just wondering if there was something sneaky behind it.

Ok, maybe it's useful to see if key is correct if you can't hear it. In my optimizing mind this just adds there one step too much to use.

I suspect it depends on the type(s) of synesthesia and how it presents itself in the individual.

TheSunAlsoRises