The Synesthesia Thread

Dr Legostar · Post by **Dr Legostar** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 6:51 am

Mr.Bob wrote:What came first, the colour Orange, or the fruit?

in which language?

Post by **Mercury Hat** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:37 am

Well, everyone knows Pepto Bismol tastes like pink, but that doesn't really count as synesthesia.

And Kirb: If it's what I'm thinking of, they sell Red Pop at Big Lots for 59 cents a bottle. It does taste like red.

There are some people who associate a personality or gender with a letter or number. They'd say something like 7 is a shy man, but 9 is a grumpy woman. Things like that.

For as many senses, there are degrees of synesthesia covering them. Sound > touch, smell > sound, sight > smell, sight > touch, taste > touch, and more. A person can look at the color orange and feel like they're touching a hairbrush.

I think some things are generally the same for similar types. The letter A is often red, for instance.

My mom thinks I'm weird, but at least she doesn't think I might be making it up, now

.

Rock_dash · Post by **Rock_dash** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:38 am

The closest thing I can think of is that sometimes when I'm playing a game, certain songs just make me think random thoughts. Like now, whenever I hear the FF5 battle theme, I sing a little song about the George Foreman Grill to go along with it.

"It's the greatest grill you've eeeever seeeeen, garanteed..."

MixedMyth · Post by **MixedMyth** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 2:15 pm

rkolter wrote:I've had several situations where "taste" and "smell" are absolutely identical, but in general my senses do not get confused like that.

I don't think associating a song with a life event is synthesia, but I do that too.

Well, no wonder since taste and smell are so directly related. For example, chocolate tastes completely different if you don't smell it while you're tasting it. In fact, people who have anosmia (for whatever reason, the inability to smell) have greeeatly reduced senses of taste.

Wikipedia:
"It should be emphasized that there are no more than 5 distinctive tastes: salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and umami. The 10,000 different scents which humans usually recognize as 'tastes' are often lost or severely diminished with the loss of olfaction."

MixedMyth · Post by **MixedMyth** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 2:17 pm

Mercury Hat wrote:Well, everyone knows Pepto Bismol tastes like pink, but that doesn't really count as synesthesia.

Sorry to double post, but that's ANOTHER one!

Petpo Bismol tastes like chalk to me! Or rather, it tastes like how I think chalk should taste, even though I have never eaten chalk and do not know what its actual taste is.

Jackhass · Post by **Jackhass** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 2:48 pm

I think sex tastes like sloppy joes.

YarpsDat · Post by **YarpsDat** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 2:52 pm

Joel Fagin wrote:synthe... syneth... Bah.

Joel stung by a spelling bee?

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 3:28 pm

YarpsDat wrote:
Joel Fagin wrote:synthe... syneth... Bah.
Joel stung by a spelling bee?

Bah. Buzz off.

Mr.Bob wrote:What came first, the colour Orange, or the fruit?

In old english, colour came first. Fruit didn't used to have names except for apple (which meant "fruit") and berrie ("berry").

- Joel Fagin

RemusShepherd · Post by **RemusShepherd** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 7:50 pm

The closest I've had to synesthesia is an ability to feel textures at a distance. I can look at an object and feel its texture on my fingertips or cheeks.

But with real synesthesia -- so I've heard -- people actually see words when they smell things, or hear voices when they see a bright color, and other wierd stuff like that.

A great depiction of synesthesia is in the sci-fi novel "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester:

<i>"Your senses are all confused. It'll pass soon, but I won't give the directions in left or right or up and down. I'll tell you what you can understand now. Turn around until you're facing the loudest shadows. Got that? Go toward the noise until you feel a deep prickling on your skin. Then stop. Make a half turn into compression and a feeling of falling. Follow that. You'll pass through a solid sheet of light andcome to the taste of quinine. That's really a mass of wire. Push straight through the quinine until you see something that sounds like hammers. You'll be safe."</i>

Kilre · Post by **Kilre** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:09 pm

MixedMyth wrote:
Mercury Hat wrote:Well, everyone knows Pepto Bismol tastes like pink, but that doesn't really count as synesthesia.

Sorry to double post, but that's ANOTHER one! Petpo Bismol tastes like chalk to me! Or rather, it tastes like how I think chalk should taste, even though I have never eaten chalk and do not know what its actual taste is.

Chalk ain't as tasty as it looks.

MixedMyth · Post by **MixedMyth** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:15 pm

Neither is Pepto Bismol, and that's saying something.

Perhaps they should call it Pepto Dismal.

TRI · Post by **TRI** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:49 pm

How about "Peptabysmal?"

Just watch out you don't get a case of "Langue Noire."

Nyke · Post by **Nyke** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:05 pm

Jackhass wrote:I think sex tastes like sloppy joes.

You put your face THERE?

I mean, I'm perverted and all, but... EEEEEEEEEWWWWWW!!!

Novacancy · Post by **Novacancy** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:43 pm

I haven't got much experience with stuff like this, but I do have one observation: Gin tastes like pine trees.

Technically, this doesnt count, because I've tasted pine trees (worked a summer shearing trees into cone shapes with a machette, you cant avoid the occasional branch in th mouth), but the taste is about the same as the smell.

DarkMagician wrote:You put your face THERE?

I mean, I'm perverted and all, but... EEEEEEEEEWWWWWW!!!

Don't knock it till you've tried it. If it really tastes like sloppy joes, can you really say it isn't worth it?

TRI · Post by **TRI** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:01 am

Not surprising, since it's flavored with juniper.

Sortelli · Post by **Sortelli** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:20 am

Uh... best I can manage is "yes, grape drink tastes like purple" and... regular McDonald's hamburgers taste like masking tape.

Delicious masking tape.

When I was a kid, I would take extra Pepto Bismol because it was also tasty.

Dr Legostar · Post by **Dr Legostar** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 5:20 am

rock_dash wrote:The closest thing I can think of is that sometimes when I'm playing a game, certain songs just make me think random thoughts. Like now, whenever I hear the FF5 battle theme, I sing a little song about the George Foreman Grill to go along with it.

"It's the greatest grill you've eeeever seeeeen, garanteed..."

o_O you're a strange little man.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 5:29 am

I don't think anyone here is really describing a case of Synthesia... maybe Merc aside. It's like, for example, whenever you see the number 5, it is GREEN. So you can, and do, instantly pick out all the 5's amidst a field of 5's and 2's.

Or whenever you hear a certain note, you taste salt in your mouth.

Stuff like that. We all have the 'smells like it tastes' thing (assuming your nose and tongue work).

I had a girlfriend whose teeth ACHED whenever she touched a sponge or spongelike material. It even worked if you just made it look like you were squeezing a sponge. I dunno if that counts or not though.

Post by **Mercury Hat** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 8:06 am

Yeah, a lot of the stuff here is mostly just mental association. When I said Pepto tasted like pink, that's a joke and not really a synaesthetic response.

But if I'm listening to music and close my eyes, I can get colored visualizations like you can in Windows Media Player. Except it mostly flows from right to left and the colors and shapes aren't random. I mean, the color and shape of a guitar is always amber vertical waves and a piano is always purple horizontal waves.

The problem I have is that most of the sounds don't have one clear color to them. I can't figure out B (the sound of the letter, not the grapheme itself) since it's a mixture of gold and white and transparent.

People who are grapheme -> color often report being distracted while reading something because of the different colors on the paper. Some of them also say math was a chore in school, sometimes equations would have clashing colors.

There are also people who see "auras", or blurs of color around different people. Nothing supernatural, they're just seeing colors associated with a person's name or personality or whatever and it's visualized around a person. It's another form of synaesthesia.

I can sort of generalize voices and/or accents into color. War's is a rich maroon, Komi's was more of a dark blue. Of course, it also depends if it's a guy or girl talking: Guys are more of a red and girls are closer to blues. Some guys are green, though.

Some of my J-pop songs have a bubblegum pink color because of the singer's accent.

Some things sort of follow "common sense", that low sounds are darker and high ones are lighter. I think I read that there's a little bit of synaesthesia in everyone when it comes to that.

People with synaesthesia really don't even know they do things different from other people until they bring it up. It can be hereditary and shows up more in "artsy" people, some composers and poets are known to have had it.

TRI · Post by **TRI** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:45 am

Mercury Hat wrote:People with synaesthesia really don't even know they do things different from other people until they bring it up. It can be hereditary and shows up more in "artsy" people, some composers and poets are known to have had it.

Reminds me of Kandinsky's comments about how he was painting music.