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New Insights into Synesthesia

regs writes "Synesthesia is a pretty interesting phenomenon to experience and even just contemplate. Those kooky scientists are at it again, with new insights into 'hearing smells', 'seeing sounds', and 'tasting colors'. A recent study seems to shed insight into the brain mechanisms involved in synesthesia. Interesting read."

29 of 368 comments (clear)

  1. LSD by ContemporaryInsanity · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why not try it for yourself ?!?
    It makes zebra crossings smell like bananas.

    1. Re:LSD by inepom01 · · Score: 2, Funny

      ... because you never really know how loud a sunset can be.

    2. Re:LSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      LSD is dying.

      Oh wait, that's BSD.

    3. Re:LSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Doesn't matter. BSD and LSD came from the same university.

      Co-incidence, I think not.

    4. Re:LSD by Master+Bait · · Score: 2, Funny
      It is a bit sad that so many have 'just said no' to LSD and have never experienced, never fully felt the reality of their place in existence. Never deeply cognited that they're standing on a planet that's evolving
      And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
      That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
      A sun that is the source of all our power.
      The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
      Are moving at a million miles a day
      In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
      Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.

      Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
      It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
      It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
      But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
      We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
      We go 'round every two hundred million years,
      And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
      In this amazing and expanding universe.

      The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
      In all of the directions it can whizz
      As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
      Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.

      So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
      How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
      And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
      'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

      --
      "Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
      --Tom Schulman
  2. First Mitch Hedberg Post by RumpRoast · · Score: 0, Funny

    I see music.

    --

    My Ass hurts.
  3. Windows.. by Durin_Deathless · · Score: 1, Funny

    .. makes me think of full-screen blue. Do I have this?

    --
    You should use AdiumX on your Mac.
  4. I chose the wrong career. by checkyoulater · · Score: 4, Funny

    You mean I could have kept on doing Mushrooms and actually have gotten paid for it? And in the process do meaningful research? That is so not fair.

    --
    Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
  5. I have had synesthesia for years apparently by Monkelectric · · Score: 4, Funny

    Everytime I see a girl walk by I feel a tingle in my crotch!

    --

    Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley

  6. Juvenile onset synaesthesia! by mlush · · Score: 4, Funny

    My son (4) has sight/taste synaesthesia, he able to take one look at a plate of food and declare

    I don't like It!

  7. Re:whoaa..like, I got an early post..it smells goo by mindshadow · · Score: 2, Funny

    Funny.... numbers always had gender for me.

  8. Re:Sega's Rez for the PS2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apparently it presents other effects as well.

  9. It's an oldie... by aeolist · · Score: 3, Funny

    This synesthesia sounds like a pain in the butt

  10. Re:whoaa..like, I got an early post..it smells goo by dattaway · · Score: 2, Funny

    I see what you are saying.

  11. Re:Interesting tidbit by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 4, Funny

    Or, the real father is an Italian guy.

    Sorry, it had to be said :)

  12. I bet this could revolutionize... by LordDartan · · Score: 3, Funny

    the internet pr0n industry. Instead of just seeing it, you can feel your pr0n too.

    Think about it, you know you wanna try it ;)

  13. Re:whoaa..like, I got an early post..it smells goo by teromajusa · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think I read an article about that once in Scientific American. If only I could find the link.

  14. Re:Interesting tidbit by j0hnfr0g · · Score: 2, Funny

    One of my cow-orkers...

    Is this on a dairy farm?

    And what exactly is an "orker"? ;->

  15. Re:borderline synesthesia or borderline dysliexia? by Have+Blue · · Score: 2, Funny

    Judg1ng fr0m 7h3 r357 0f 7h3 1n73rn37, 1'd 54y y0u'r3 n07 410n3. 31337 h4X0r1ng!

  16. In the immortal words of Ray Stantz... by tomzyk · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Listen! ... Do you smell something?"

    --
    Karma: NaN
  17. Obligatory Simpsons Quote by YetAnotherName · · Score: 3, Funny

    "I can see the music!" --Lisa Simpson, Selma's Choice.

  18. Areas in the brain have numbers, apparently! by YetAnotherName · · Score: 1, Funny

    After light reflected from a scene hits the cones (color receptors) in the eye, neural signals from the retina travel to area 17, in the occipital lobe at the back of the brain.

    And let me guess, conspiracy theorists and UFO-ophiles have a highly developed Area 51, right?

  19. Re:borderline synesthesia or borderline dysliexia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I used to associate the number 4 with the letter A. But I think I managed to sever the connecetion between the two when I got a TI-99/4A for my birthday one year.

  20. Then there are people like my father... by cnelzie · · Score: 3, Funny

    That may have never come off of their LSD trip and now live in a scary world filled with a conspiracy theory involving some kind of experiment being performed on him. This happened to him roughly 28 years after taking a few hits...

    Now he sits in a room thinking about the conspiracy against and swears up and down, no matter what is shown to him, that he is posted all over the internet and billboards all over the US. He feels that his old employers are running this experiment and that he still works for them, that everyone that interacts with him is part of this grand conspiracy to see how he would react to having this "experiment" run on him.

    He believes that the events of September 11th were created to see how it would mess him up. He believes that I am involved in the experiment and that I work for something he calls the coporation...

    All I know is that he has sharpened the points on all the screwdrivers in my house, to protect himself when "they" come to end the experiment. I also know that the medication is finally starting to calm him and bring him slightly into reality.

    So all I can say is, "Yay! Way to go LSD!"

    If you have never done LSD, DON'T! You could ruin your mind forever, or put yourself into such a dangerous position that your mind will break one day and everything you hold dear today, will break under the weight of your madness.

    --
    If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
  21. Re:My digit-color associations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    My digit-color associations:

    0 black
    1 brown
    2 red
    3 orange
    4 yellow
    5 green
    6 blue
    7 purple
    8 grey
    9 white

    10% compnent tolerance: silver
    5% component tolerance: gold

    strangely, these turn out to be rather useful associations to have if you do any work with electronics...

  22. New IBM Commercial by Skjellifetti · · Score: 4, Funny

    Actor: Its 2003, we were promised flashbacks! Where are the flashbacks?

    Voiceover: With IBM, you can have flashbacks.

    Fade to picture of OS/2 Warp...

  23. Synesthesia shmynesthesia... by KilerCris · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hell I was tasting colors back in pre school

  24. Re:The creator was not an electrical engineer by TeknoHog · · Score: 2, Funny

    No, he was most definitely a civil engineer! I mean, who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  25. Re:Interesting tidbit by Exiler · · Score: 2, Funny

    Or flamboyantly gay?

    --
    Banaaaana!