The hills are alive, with the smell of music.

[davywavy]

Chatting to sister the other night, she came out with something that took me by surprise. It's odd that people can do that when you've known them for a while, but sometimes even the most familiar person tells you something of which you were previously unaware. Whilst chatting, she observed that she sees letters in different colours.
My, I said, that's unusual. What do you mean by that?
Further questioning showed that she meant what she said - she sees the letter U as blue and A as "a mid-tan rather like Thorntons toffee", for example, even when they're all printed the same colour. This was, I decided, out of the ordinary.

The experience of the brain mixing sensory experience from input is called synaesthesia. What happens is that input from one sensory pathway causes an inadvertant firing of another sensory pathway at the same time, so there are recorded examples of people doing things like 'tasting' music, or 'seeing' touch. The one time I've ever experienced anything like this was on painkillers whilst having dental work done - I found I was 'seeing' the pain as a succession of jagged, hatched lines. Some people get it all the time.
To my irritation (as I don't get it), Synaesthesia is often assocated with high levels of personal creativity, as percieving the world in this way appears to be helpful in putting together ideas and concepts in new ways. I suppose this shouldn't surprise me, as sister has a whopping great brain throbbing away between her ears and it appears she has a mild form called grapheme → colour synesthesia. Other alleged Synaesthetes include David Bowie, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Mondrian and even Mozart, who once reported the experience of listening to music as being like walking through a building - and if he wanted to write music it was just a case of adding a room here and a slap of paint there.

So, question of the day to you lot: What, if any, experience of this phenomenon do you have? If it turns out you're all massively creative synaesthetes, I may just have to go and top myself out of pure jealousy.

Comments

[taimatsu]

When I was ill and feverish as a child I used to get a recurrent dream/experience which involved moving white curved lines, coming closer. It was actually rather scary. I'm reminded of it by what you say about 'seeing' pain above - it might be something similar. No other crazily creative synaesthete cred here, though.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

I read the Metro as stabbing pain in both eyes. The same phenomenon happens with most internet forums.

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

I get that with the daily mail.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

You get what you pay for.

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

Fortunately I've never bought a copy. Just the fact that it exists is enough to give me a headache.

All I get from the Metro is psychotic rage at their sicence coverage.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty good one. Wish I'd thought of it, but I'm just not creative enough.

[flywingedmonkey.livejournal.com]

Similarly when I read it I often taste bile. Odd, most odd.

JmC
Why do birds suddenly appear?

[aiwendel.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine sees numbers as particular colours very strongly. It seems very odd.

I can empathise with the music as rooms or pictures. But I reckon that's conscious thing, definitely not a synaesthesia thing, I can walk my way through paths in a forest etc, but I think it's from studying dvorak (or someone) and a journey down the path of a river in the music, when I was 12.

I think it just means some wires are crossed.
Like left handed people have all their wires crossed (literally the brain is wired half backwards) and thus are theoretically better at coming up with ideas...

I'm right handed, not synaesthesic, and still sell myself as a 'creative' :)

[glummdead.livejournal.com]

I can sometimes smell sugar puffs when I wee if that's what you mean.

[(Anonymous)]

well, I'm amazed, I thought everyone saw numbers and colours like this, due to playing with coloured letters as a child. I know Mum does because we once argued about what colour the letters actually were. U is brown too, by the way, but darker than A.

H (sort of pale mauve)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I reckon you're just making it up to seem interesting, and such.

[(Anonymous)]

It's more like likely that you lot are all just pretending not to see the colours, just to freak me out. It won't work, you know.

H

[glummdead.livejournal.com]

typical synthaesthete response, either: "I never mentioned it because no one else did, so I thought I must be strange," or, "I never mentioned it because no one else did, so I thought everyone saw things this way."

[nicnac.livejournal.com]

I get visual migraines, if that helps? Flashing jagged curves superimposed over my vision. I don't think it's anything to top yourself over, though, I could happily live without it.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I get those too and I do't think they count - I think they're more direct horror on the optic nerve.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Alas no; I make up for it by waving pieces of coloured paper in front of my eyes.

[song-of-copper.livejournal.com]

Like you, I don't have synaesthesia, but find it fascinating - and maybe wish I did have it a little bit! :-)

I read somewhere or other someone's theory that there is a little synaesthesia in all of us - think of the word 'imagery' (referring to descriptive/poetic language), 'colourful language', phrases like 'rose-tinted spectacles' and 'turning the air blue' etc., a sound as 'rounded' or 'smooth' or 'jagged', descriptions of a person's demeanour (rather than their body temperature!) as 'warm' or 'cold', etc.

I like to think of there being such a thing as 'intellectual' or 'elective' synaesthesia: you don't need to actually have that sort of brain-wiring to appreciate and use metaphor or to purposefully associate a symbol with something. You can choose to look at things that way now and again if you want to.

[cryx]

I get it very very mildly. There are some sounds/words which have shapes or textures. Standing and looking down from high up, my feet get intense pins and needles style feelings. That's about it.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Given that we all know you have an enormous pulsating brain that goes wom wom wom, I'm not surprised at all that you get this.

[cryx]

*woms atta you*

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Tsk! You never wommed at me anything like enough when you lived here!

[lexx-uk.livejournal.com]

Both myself and my sister see in colours. To the extent that when I named my son I would only pick from a list of first names where the coulours matched the sirname.

[(Anonymous)]

Excellent, you are clearly normal. May I ask what colours you chose?

H

[lexx-uk.livejournal.com]

Red/Black

Always works.

[(Anonymous)]

er, the only red-black name I can think of is "Osmosis" which seems an unkind choice

H

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You're both freaks, you hear me? Freaks!
You should be in a circus.

[lexx-uk.livejournal.com]

Why? because I think in a swirl of colours and how would one develop this into a viable Circus skill?......I guess as well the colour assosation is differant to diferent people...........

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

"Alex, the amazing kaleidoscopic lad! Cross his palm with silver to learn the hidden colour secrets of your name! The ancient Egyptians beleived that a person's 'birth colour' indicated their destiny. Now, with strange mental powers, you can learn the hidden secrets of your name - and your destiny! Etc &c."

[lexx-uk.livejournal.com]

I shall just call you P. T. Barnum?

If you start singing "The Colors of My Life" I shall run :P

[diamondkelt.livejournal.com]

I believe the Discovery channel ran a special on just this phenomenon. It's pretty fascinating and typically runs in families, but obviously skips around. You should ask your mom or dad if they know of anyone else related to you that's had this before.

It's pretty cool in my book. Oh and no one person sees the same colours as another synaesthesia. Everyone has a different set.

[applez.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised how many people I know who have this sensory mixing. I just count myself lucky that I did not inherit my father's colour-blindness. If I have any unusual sensory mixing, it must be so subtle that I haven't recognized it.

[glummdead.livejournal.com]

this is old, but pretty good. The bit on Synaesthesia is toward the end (http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html) I'm curious why an Indian neurologist sounds not unlike Sean Connery...

[godzuki.livejournal.com]

I recently played a game of Dont Rest Your Head set in the Doom Patrol universe where we fought a supervillain with this kind of power, he hit me with an overwhelming impression of the colour blue which almost killed me.

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

Oddly for me words have no colours (etc) but do sometimes have shape or tactile feedback with them. Not individual letters though. That would be strange!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It's not fair! I want mutant powers as well! Do you all have a secret base and handshakes and costumes and stuff?

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

I can only answer the question "do you have costumes" in the affirmative.

[(Anonymous)]

If one is playing with a child's letter U which is infact coloured yellow, does it appear green?

[ddraiggwyrdd.livejournal.com]

I've read a lot about how the brain works in an effort to understand what my sons illness is all about, so I know about synaesthesia and there are some other REALLY wheird things that the brain can do to you.
I have had a pretty good understanding of how the brain makes us all so totally different for most of my life, probably just from observation and understanding.
The nearest I come to the synesthesia category is that I can often smell a picture. EG see a photo of honeysuckle - smell honeysuckle. This I put down to more of a memory trigger and probably indicative of why I can remember such a load of cack as I go through life.

[neuraltrash.livejournal.com]

Ooh, ooh, I'm synesthetic in the same way as your sister. I assumed everyone was until I saw a documentary about it when I was a teenager.

All names/numbers to me have a definite colour. Sometimes I wonder what it must be like not to have that, as it's just a 'natural' part of the word for me.

PS: "Dave" starts off black and ends yellow (for the 'e', obviously).

[greatestofthese.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have this. It doesn't really affect your life. I've read that it can increase your ability to memorise because you are automatically using other associations to a word or sound.

It's really very interesting, it's just useless. It's hardly confusing unless you're looking at individually coloured text, and it takes about four or five times to read it through. Black and white text colours are the best colours, blue is usually okay because of its commonness. With those you can impose your own colours.

A is red, B is yellow, C is blue. D is brown. I am very sure this dates back to junior kindergarten, where A was for apple, B is for banana, and C was a blue cat. D was a brown dog. And on it goes... Individually the letters are coloured, but as a word it becomes a smear with shadings, so that "DAVE" -> brown-red-green-dark becomes a sort of auburn colour.

I've read somewhere that it generally occurs in women who are lefthanded, and both my mother and I are synaesthetes. But I know there is a sound mix as well that occurs in a minor fashion; for example, the word fashion is very soft. The letter C is slick and salty.