The Power of Crossed Brain Wires: Synesthesia makes ordinary life marvelous | Hacker News Reader

The Power of Crossed Brain Wires: Synesthesia makes ordinary life marvelous

nautil.us

49 pointsdnetesn33 comments

Experiment here. I'm haven't synesthesia but I do have some associations of colour and their brightness/darkness with days of the week (these don't match those in the article). If anyone wants to do the same, mine are below in base64 (emacs has base64-decode-region or you can do it online). I'd be interested if there's a correlation.

  c2F0dXJkYXkgLSBkYXJraXNoIGdyZXksIGJsYWNraXNoCgpzdW5kYXkgLSB3aGl0ZQoKbW9uZGF5
  IC0gZGVmaW5pdGVseSBzdHJvbmcgcmVkCgp0dWVzZGF5IC0gc29tZXRoaW5nIGRhcmssIGxpa2Ug
  dmVyeSBkYXJrIHB1cnBsZQoKd2VkbmVzZGF5IC0gbGlnaHQsIHBlcmhhcHMgbGlnaHQgZ3JlZW4s
  IGxpbWUKCnRodXJzZGF5IC0gZGVlcCBwdXJwbGUtaXNoLCBibGFja2lzaCwgbGlrZSB0aHVuZGVy
  Y2xvdWRzICgndGh1cicgZ2l2ZXMgaXQgdGhlIGRhcmtuZXNzIGF0dHJpYnV0ZSkKCmZyaWRheSAt
  IGxpZ2h0IGdyZXk=

Promise, entirely inoffensive!

Why did you base64 it? I was expecting an image, but if it's just text, why didnt you just post the text?

So that their experience does not influence anyone else I guess.

Exactly, precisely, this.

I think I may have color–grapheme synesthesia. For the most part, I don't pay attention to the colors that I perceive in letters and numbers. But then I read an article like this, which quotes someone during the colors they see, and a voice in my mind shouts, "That's not the color of L!"

As a tangent, I wonder if there is any association between color–grapheme synesthesia and spelling or reading ability. I work as a kindergarten and first grade teacher, so I have the pleasure of guiding many young minds of all kinds as they begin to read.

I have color-grapheme synesthesia. I was in a study once because of it and got frustrated by the colors on the screen being offered in the study, because they generally weren't quite right in capturing the colors correctly.

I had kind of a similar experience as what you're describing. I didn't even know there was a term for it, and just sort of assumed everyone experienced things that way, like phosphenes or things like that. Then I was reading an article about it, and realized they were talking about my experience.

I had a version of this as a child, I simply assumed it was normal at the time. It disappeared at some point when I got older but I still have a strong memory of the precise colors.

Is there a term for "seeing" music? Not anything visual perse, but like a minds eye landscape texture. I think it might be associative synethesia?

It’s still synesthesia. It’s really, really cool, and I wish more people could experience it (I wrote about it earlier here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15440878).

That sounds closer! It's almost like an involuntary visualization. It's just how I've always heard music though, not related to anything psychoactive.

I remember seeing a discovery channel documentary where they put a musician under an MRI and a lot of his brain lit up.

So I suspect it’s actually part of the common human experience and not synesthesia.

If you would actually see it, IRL then that would be synesthesia.

If you see it in your mind’s eye as vividly as you see things IRL then it depends.

Disclaimer: not an expert, I simply have a small interest in these topics. During my bachelor synesthesia was perhaps covered for 5 minutes. I learned more about it on my own.

I was inclined to believe it's normal, but you never know unless you ask!

I remember seeing the guy who can calculate a bunch of digits of pi on the discovery channel as well. He also had synesthesia. I always wondered if there was a trick to what he was doing...

How do people distinguish between “actually seeing it” and a visualization?

I’ve heard it being used to memorize the digits of pi, so it’s clearly extraordinary, but it’s difficult to see what is a normal reaction to music in the first place. I can’t imagine “just” perceiving the music at all.

Lucid dreams are much more akin to seeing it than whatever I “see” in my minds eye.

It’s not like the Hololens but I can still tell you the shape, color, distance, location, texture. Since I can basically switch it on and off, I can tell you that the normal experience of music doesn’t come close (and I always loved music).

When I listen to music sometimes I start to taste a tanginess or sweetness in my mouth. Much the same way my mouth starts to salivate and feel strange when I imagine eating a sour lemon. I think that's pretty common? Is that related to to synesthesia or am I just hungry?

Sounds like synesthesia to me.

The degree of awe taken when speaking about synesthesia has always mystified me. I don't think authors would use such flowery language if they were talking about someone seeing an illusory life coach or some other "beneficial" hallucination.

Being awed at any beneficial hallucination sounds appropriate to me. It seems awe-some. Clearly, it enriches the lives of whoever has it.

I think it fits! I’d agree with you before I had my first-hand experiences but now I think it’s really marvelous.

I've suspected for a while I might have _very_ low grade synesthesia. Almost nothing triggers it, but for certain types of white wine, I can't describe the taste as anything other than blue, and my mind fills with that colour (something close to #349beb; I don't see it per se, but it somehow feels like more than just imagining it). 5s also often feel like they should be red, but I suspect that's just an association I've picked up from somewhere, as I don't actually perceive them as that.

This kind of reminds me of my brother. Carrabbas (an Italian chain restaurant) brings out their bread with a small plate of herbs/olive oil for dipping the bread...and from the time we were kids he loved it and always described it as tasting like “Christmas”.

One might think this is just an association of flavors, but he never associated any particular foods from Christmas with the herbs but to him is tasted like the actual holiday.

One example of low-grade synesthesia that many people have is when you ask them what shade is deep, distant rumble of thunder (without seeing the lightning strike). Almost everyone will say that it’s dark despite the association with very bright lightning.

Yeah, it's a steely gray, like the clouds it seems to boom from.

Isn't that more of an evolutionary trait than a unique disorder/neurodiverse trait? Seems like grey = loud sounds = fear would increase survivability. Synesthesia is typically diagnosed as a seemingly illogical pairing between different sensory experiences. Thunder being a dark color is logical.

I don’t know the reason for it but when I experience audio -> visual synesthesia, the lower sounds are invariably darker than higher sounds.

I would imagine that our body subconsciously pairs amplitude and frequency. BRB, gonna go re-read my entire Oliver Sacks collection.

I only recently learned that associating pain with colors was a form of synesthesia (for me, the pain from a stubbed toe is a blue pain, a cut is an orange pain, something getting under your fingernail is a green pain).

I suppose if you could give people synesthesia via a drug for a couple hours that might be marvelous but for the people who have it all the time it must just be ordinary life.

Anyone interested should check out Dr Ramachandrans research at UCSD. Capgras delusion, Phantom limb, synesthesia, mirror neurons, all great rabbit holes. Also some great documentaries, I think Secrets of the mind is one, and also the Boy with the incredible brain ( savant/ seeing shapes for math etc) Great stuff

I have always felt that the colors purple, red, pink, orange, and yellow perfectly match the flavors grape, cherry, strawberry, orange, and lemon. Grape tastes much darker than lemon, cherry tastes darker than strawberry, etc. Is this synesthesia, or is it just learned association?

I experience a rather boring form of this, sight inducing touch sensations. It can be uncomfortable to look at some things because of the association. Otherwise, very little impact that I'm aware of. So, it's not all about the color of music and numbers and memory aids.

Also known as imagination

Same as people seeing walls melting when doing psychedelics just have imaginations?

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