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Seeing Sounds and Hearing Colors
somberlain writes "BBC has an interesting article about people who hear colours and see sounds. Luckily I don't have this medical condition: but which sounds do you want to colorize?" This is an old story, but just reading the woman's descriptions of her condition make it worth linking.
and can also be chemically induced by the consumption of LSD.
Just wondering what those with synaesthesia think of colorized movies. Or for that matter, what they think of dubbed foreign language films.
Do the picture/sound clash more or less on "tampered" movies more or less than on the original?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Now Ted Turner will want to go around colorizing old Benny Goodman records.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
that have this condition dont mind or enjoy it. If this is the same as other articles i remember, they think a lot of artists may have this to varying degrees. I mean, imagine being able to watch the music and see how it will sound by eye?
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I'm wondering if each person has a unique color "signature"
If so, could a scanner be developed that sees these signatures and identify people from a distance?
Gone will be the days of thumbprints and retina scans. Now you can be identified without even being aware of it.
Signus X-1
I could save thousands on drugs. When you start hearing code and seeing machine cycles, though, it's time to slow down.
.cig - what you do after winning a good flame war
I have this condition, but in what I guess is a more mild form. I don't associate sounds with colors-- UNTIL NOW!-- but I do associate words and letters with colors and... um... tastes, kind of.
I guess it started in the first grade or so, when I was learning to read. The letter "A" (capital A, that is) has always been sort of a bright red color, and smelled and tasted sweet, like cherry-flavored candy. "B" is purpley-blue, and chewy. "C" is lemony yellow. And so on. When I visualize any of those letters in my head, the color and the texture, or taste, or smell come along with them. It's hard to explain, I guess, if you don't know what I'm talking about.
When I was growing up, I just assumed everybody was like this. I turn 30 next month, and it was only earlier this year that I learned that I was different from most people. I was talking about our new house with my girlfriend, and I said something like, "Let's paint that room blue... sort of an 'M' blue." She had no f*cking idea what I was talking about, and that's how I learned that I was unusual in this way.
Since then I've kinda been reading up on synaesthesia a little bit in my spare time. Funny coincidence that this should come up on Slashdot at about the same time.
I write in my journal
I recommend The Man Who Tasted Shapes for a readable and interesting account of synesthesia.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I'm just wondering... If by looking at something they heard sounds and by hearing sounds they see things...Can they experience a feeback loop?
If they get into a feedback loop, how does it sound/look like?
--Vuzz
Probably the composers. A friend of mine wrote a piano piece about blue and it really did feel like blue to me (I play several musical instruments).
People have colors to me, but how is that to be distinguished from what many people call auras? And the color impressions are the same there as well: individual and meaning the most to the person who actually see them.
Lots of visuals have sound (as opposed to sound having color.. but I hear that too as mentioned earlier) but how is that distinguished from other things we associate with an object? Could be just projection.
I think that musicians are just more in tune with associations as opposed to having a different wiring.
"Would you rather have a playstation addicted dork wearing a star wars t-shirt?"
[I wish I had this condition] I could save thousands on drugs
Actually, I think I'd rather have a (safe, reliable, flashback-free, won't-destroy-your-brain) drug that induces this. That way I could turn the condition on or off at will, just by taking or not taking the drug.
It sounds like it could be fun, and maybe even useful as an aid to creativity/productivity but I can see real problems with having synaesthesia all the time. Just like a caffeine buzz can be useful for getting through long nights of coding but would be no fun to have all the time, so I imagine it'd be with synaesthesia.
When and if a safe synaesthetic agent becomes available, I'd also like to be able to buy it from a pharmacist, instead of on the street. Maybe it's misplaced trust, but I'd still trust my synapses to the friendly neighborhood druggist - or even ConHugeCo Pharmaceuticals - before I'd trust some stranger selling the stuff out of a car trunk.
But the chances are miniscule that the FDA would approve a drug like that (even if a safe and effective one were found). Too much potential for recreational use....
That stuff is putrid. I certainly hope that her artwork is what my voice looks like
Yeah but art appreciation is notoriously subjective. One person's masterpiece is another's putrid crap.
I for a long time have enjoyed Wassily Kandinsky's works, though until I read the article I wasn't aware that he was synaesthetic. Makes me wonder what sounds (smells, tastes, sensations) he had in mind when creating them.
There's a more straight forward way to mix your sences than LSD.
Close your eyes and (gently) press your fingers to your eyelids. Those funky, psycadelic colours you see are not caused by light, but be pressure.
I am a Karma Library.
I've noticed that many people, my self included, try to assign genders to colors, sounds, words, numbers, even letters.
Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Black, Brown Beige - Male
Blue, Purple, Pink, Tan, Gray, White - Female
C, D, G, H, J, L, M, N, O, T U, W, Z - Male
A, B, E, F, I, K, P, Q, R, S, V, X, Y - Female
1, 4, 5, 7, 0 - Male
2, 3, 6, 8, 9 - Female
Mirrored and transparent surfaces are female,
while colored or textured surfaces are male.
Some english-speaking people I've discussed this with have no association. Other people I've discussed this with who have the same association usually have different association. One person who spoke english *and* spanish (a language with gender built in) had much stronger reactions than I did. Note that the association doesn't seem to have anything to with shape, order, or similarity. I really think this is because the neurons that are responsible for recognizing those shapes are stimulating the neurons responsible for recognizing face and body shapes.
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It's got nothing to do with synaesthetics, but I count the months on my knuckles to work out the number of days, rather than running through the old "Thirty days hath September" rhyme.
You start with January on the knuckle of the left pinky, and February on the gap between the pinky and the ring finger, working to the right as you go. Knuckles have 31 days, gaps do not. It just seems to work quicker than the rhyme, perhaps because the rhyme reauires you to perform a "pattern match" against an unordered list.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
Some people would give a lot to be able to see things this way. From what I've heard, it's absolutely amazing.
--j
same thing here, I taste and hear colors.
nothing like being half asleep in a meijers parking lot with your girlfriend, and saying, "that van looks like it tastes good," pointing at a bright red van.
boy did I get a weird look.
oh well. btw, npr did a couple of stories on this a few years back, that's when I found out that's what I had. try checking their archives to find the story.
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