Synesthesia - Hearing sounds and seeing colours

Psalm

Psalm

New member
So I recently discovered that I am a Synesthete!
For those who haven't heard this term before it is when someone hears music or sounds and in their mind they see colours or a group of colours that represent what they are hearing. It's really hard to explain but if you're interested you can read this: Synesthesia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basically for me each song has a different colour, take for example the song 'niggas in paris', that is a lime green in my mind.
Individual sounds are the same as well, so 808 snares seem bright white to me yet natural sounding snares are more like a dull brown.
There are many different types of Synesthesia but the one I am talking bout is called Chromesthesia
Until watching the Pharrell interview with Oprah (where they briefly discuss it) I had no idea this was a phenomenon, I always thought everyone experienced music and sounds in the same way. Apparently only around 4% of people have it!

Does anyone else here experience this? If so do you see the same colours when hearing the song 'niggas in paris', 808 snares and natural snares?
 
try a local search at fp with with the word synaesthesia and synesthesia: I got 35 hits on the first one alone; 121 hits with both terms going back as afar as 2001

it has been discussed numerous times, by me and many others.
 
I would be curious if sound and light frequencies are linked...

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Q.12 Do identical twins have identical synaesthesia?

No. Most twins seem to have different colours and different types of synaesthesia (but see Hancock, 2006, for an exception). It is even possible to have genetically identical male or female twins with only one twin having synaesthesia (Smilek et al., 2002, 2005). This does not disprove a genetic contribution to synaesthesia, but it does prove that genetic make-up isn't everything. This could also explain why synaesthesia can sometimes skip a generation or more. In these instances, it is probably just as likely that the non-synaesthetic twin will have synaesthetic children as the synaesthetic twin. ^
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http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2009/02/05/synaesthesia-the-neurological-condition-in/

Based on some research it seems genetic then each association is learnt in childhood then can't be unlearnt after. The genetic link seems a bit odd though seeing as there's cases of people getting knocked on the head and developing it after.

Neuroimaging shows that the connections between the brain’s sensory pathways are both denser and more active in synaesthetes than in non-synaesthetes. The condition is now viewed as being developmental in origin, and it is thought that newly-established connections, which would otherwise be “pruned” during development, remain in place, and perhaps become overactive.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SAwzjtD2mY

F minor is lime green, hmm where could you learn that in childhood...

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I'm thinking it's learnt in the same way normal people would learn it. We're all have synthesia to some degree but we have a mental representation rather than a physical (seeming) one. (otherwise we couldn't construct things like metaphors relating different senses)

My 2¢
 
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Now that I think about it....There's only one time when playing piano that a color flashed in my mind...it was very vague and it happened when I was playing a song in a scale then hit a note that was in another scale. It was a euphoric feeling when I got that color flash.


I'd say that's a gift to be able to see mental imagery when you hear music. You must be tapping into higher parts of your mind. The only time I get any kind of mental imagery is when I meditate. So I think your lucky
 
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First off I did search the forums before posting this because I presumed that would be the case but most of the threads I read was people just saying "I see dead people" haha. I did read through a few that were quite interesting, I just wanted to start up the discussion again because I specifically want to find out if other people see similar colours that I see when hearing certain sounds.

Thanks for those links Olie, I never thought about the colored piano child toys! I don't think that's where it comes from though, because mine seems to be very random. I dont see each note as a different colour, unfortunately if so I would have perfect pitch but for me it seems to be different types of sounds rather than pitches, as in instruments different synth sounds etc.
As far as the colour spectrum being linked to the audio spectrum, I don't think there's a connection although most high pitched noises seem to be brighter in colour and deeper sounds are darker. Kicks are always black or brown.

It's interesting that you say I could be "tapping into higher parts of my mind" Majestic Mastermind because it's just my normal mind to me, I was so surprised when I discovered no one else experienced music in the same way. I don't mean to sound all high and mighty here but I feel sorry for people who don't experience this because it is a really enjoyable experience especially with some songs that produce a range of different colours, it's almost like a kaleidoscope. A lot of Kid Cudi songs does that for me.
 
Psalm said:
It's interesting that you say I could be "tapping into higher parts of my mind" Majestic Mastermind because it's just my normal mind to me, I was so surprised when I discovered no one else experienced music in the same way. I don't mean to sound all high and mighty here but I feel sorry for people who don't experience this because it is a really enjoyable experience especially with some songs that produce a range of different colours, it's almost like a kaleidoscope. A lot of Kid Cudi songs does that for me.
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It's not high and mighty, you should be glad that you can enjoy something like that. Sounds like psychic hearing to me.

When I first started learning music theory, I had a sort of intuition that each scale has it's own color and feel. And it makes sense cause Jazz/Blues feels like the most expressive genre of music to me since it uses notes from many different scales.

Usually when I am comfortable playing in one scale and unexpectedly hit a key or two in another scale... I get a "feeling" of a color change but only once did I actually see a vague color in my mind.

That would be amazing if I could sit down at a keyboard, play music and get all kind of mental imagery just from music lol.
 
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You sound to me like you have a mild form of it at least because you seem to understand what it's like. It's really closely linked to how minor scales sound unhappy and major scales sound happy, those scales produce different mood feelings in the same way different colours are seen in my mind.
I watched some docos about it and one guy said he could literally see colours with his eyes if the music was loud enough and it would blind him until he got away from the sound which is pretty crazy!
 
It's usually euphoric and beautiful to me.

I'm going to be doing some work with harmonies, music theory and sacred geometry soon. A whole new world opens up when you layer harmonies together..then introduce slight dissonance.
 
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It still remains a learned skill, each synthesized will have different colours and experiences unless they were exposed to the same thing at childhood to make the associations.
 
Olie said:
The genetics of synaesthesia – Neurophilosophy

Based on some research it seems genetic then each association is learnt in childhood then can't be unlearnt after. The genetic link seems a bit odd though seeing as there's cases of people getting knocked on the head and developing it after.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SAwzjtD2mY

F minor is lime green, hmm where could you learn that in childhood...

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I'm thinking it's learnt in the same way normal people would learn it. We're all have synthesia to some degree but we have a mental representation rather than a physical (seeming) one. (otherwise we couldn't construct things like metaphors relating different senses)

My 2¢
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Good post, but I see two minor flaws...

1) Fmin is a chord which means it would be more than 1 note which means more than 1 color.
2)
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This pic kinda disproves the whole "lime green/Fmin association" theory since these colors are off.
 
i always think of colours for particular sounds, always found it a bit weird. heres a few examples:

pianos - light to dark blue
saw leads - yellow, orange to light brown depending on octave
sqaure & triangle - light pink to dark purple depending on pitch
metal percussion - white to light grey
wood drums - dark brown
kickdrums - black, navy
dark green - filtered saws with resonance, sometimes fades into lime as pitch rises
 
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Wow, now I know the name of that thing... Chromesthesia.
Since I was 15 years old I always associate music with colors, especially instruments. High frequency sounds are always yellow or light brown, snares are brown and kick are black or dark blue. Strings yellow, guitairs red, piano light brown... Soul voices dark brown and yellow.
It's amazing!
 
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