

Some People Really Can Taste The Rainbow - mhb
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/12/174132392/synesthetes-really-can-taste-the-rainbow

======
friendly_chap
Haha! I have it (synesthesia).

I always forget about it's not normal. By the way, mine was
developed/intensified in my early teens due to psychedelic usage. I see the
shape and colour of sounds like a video. To a certain extent, tactile sensory
input, and even smells trigger visual patterns for me.

It's like having a mental HUD doing winamp visualizations 24/7. Sometimes gets
a bit tiresome.

~~~
pazimzadeh
What do different notes sound like? Are they variations upon a theme, or does
each sound look completely unique?

~~~
friendly_chap
The pitch of a sound mostly controls the size for me, so the same sound on
different note is very similar. Amplitude makes almost no difference.

The texture makes them very unique though. Sub basses, like a deep sine is
usually dark yellow for me, or sometimes very dark grey, and they are soft and
very large, like an infinite floor.

Percussive elements tend to be round. Kickdrums usually look big, round, dark,
with a hard and shiny edge if it is a rocky kickdrum with punch, and they look
like a sphere cut in half if they are weak.

Here are a couple of more examples

\- Trancy leads are the only sounds which I percieve turquoise

\- Electro synths tend to be very bright yellow or orange

\- Drum and bass basses are mudded grimey brown, grey, etc

\- Flutes, sax and wind instruments are light yellow too, with a really
interesting shape

\- Guitar and similar pluck instruments also amaze me, they are very
distinctive

\- Violins are red, and very shiny, like fire.

------
Le_SDT
I think I may have some sort of this when it comes to music. I can't really
concentrate when listening to music. I get so much into it, I can imagine a
whole universe, like everything in the mix must have its visual space. When I
compose/mix, I try to give everything its visual spot in the scene... it's
weird. I can't tell how most people enjoy music so I don't know if this is
"""synesthesia""" or something else or whatever ... I just wanted to share how
I enjoy/compose music !

EDIT: Also I always associate a track with a color. The vibe of the track has
a color. The melody adds something to it. Music can get visual artwork to me.

~~~
bane
I have something similar. Not so much the colors...but I get a definite sense
of being in different kind of "spaces" depending on the music. Hard to
describe as there's no real visual aspect to it, but I might feel like I'm in
a small tight room with lots of fabrics in it for one song, and under a huge
concrete dome for another. I have certain "rooms" that I look for when I
search for music I like.

I also frisson to music, sometimes very hard, it feels like raw lightening is
being pumped through me.

~~~
Daiz
>I also frisson to music

I think this is pretty common. I mean, there's even a term for it, "give the
chills"[1] - eg. "Listening to this track gave me the chills".

[1] [http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-
definition/give%20the%...](http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-
definition/give%20the%20chills)

~~~
bane
It's fairly common in certain groups. I can't find the paper on it, but I
think in the general populace it runs around 30% of the population.

My wife and none of her family for example, absolutely do not frisson. While
my father and I do in my family, but none of my adopted siblings do. My mother
may or may not, but she tends to fall into "religious experiences" through a
variety of stimuli and it's hard to get her to succinctly describe the
feeling.

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
I had never heard the word 'frisson' before, and I had no idea that some
people didn't do it to music. Happens to me all the time. Interesting.

~~~
Le_SDT
I don't know if it is an English word but it's part of the French language as
"to have a chill" or I don't know the correct expression/word in English :)

~~~
bane
In English it has a similar, but slightly different meaning.

Here's some more info on it

[http://www.cogsci.msu.edu/DSS/2008-2009/Huron/HuronFrisson.p...](http://www.cogsci.msu.edu/DSS/2008-2009/Huron/HuronFrisson.pdf)

------
arethuza
The early logo for the Web was influenced by the fact that Robert Cailliau,
who co-developed the web with TBL, has synaesthetia (one of the few things I
remember from the First Web Conferece at CERN):

[http://www.siggraph.org/publications/newsletter/volume-42-nu...](http://www.siggraph.org/publications/newsletter/volume-42-number-3/dr-
robert-cailliau-part-one)

~~~
jacobparker
The logo:
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WWW_logo_by_Robert_Ca...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WWW_logo_by_Robert_Cailliau.svg)

------
Sarien
It seems somewhat strange that somebody whose sense for taste is completely
different from most people should rate wines for them.

~~~
gbaygon
For what i understand, he can distinguish certain characteristics of the wine
better thanks to the amplified perception that synesthesia gives.

------
cwmma
So in reality it's far less interesting then people think, for every musician
who has see colors in music there is someone like me who sees words and
numbers with different colors depending on first digit/letter.

------
jawns
I ... sort of have it. I have always associated specific colors and genders
with numbers and letters. Like, a B is pink, and an O is white, and a T is
male, and a D is female. As far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with their
typographic characteristics. It's just something that has always been the case
for me, and hasn't changed over time.

I'm not certain it's true synesthesia, because gender isn't really a sensory
thing in the same way that color and taste are, but I feel at least a kinship
with synesthetes.

~~~
friendly_chap
I think synesthesia is so weird that nobody is certain what is true
synesthesia ;)

------
fghh45sdfhr3
I don't have synesthesia. But when I see some commercial brands take a common
word and intentionally misspell it. That bothers me a lot.

Apostrophe abuse especially. Not so much when it is a simple mistake of its or
it's. I make that mistake myself. But when a brand deliberately sticks an
apostrophe in the _middle_ of a word.

Call me pedantic. But I wonder if our pedantic sense which makes us perceive
some things as just _wrong_ , is connected to synesthesia?

Instinctively it seems we are all born with a proclivity to spot patterns and
associations. And to be able to learn which patters are preferred over others.
Even for purely arbitrary (cultural) reasons. So it seems we all have a kind
of innate sense which lets us feel good or bad about certain patterns and
associations.

I wonder if synesthesia is an over active version of that? Where any pattern
triggers strong emotions?

~~~
kaoD
You mean like Synthesia? <http://www.synthesiagame.com/>

------
guard-of-terra
I read a fiction book (probably not translated to English) where there was a
tribe who used tastes and flavours as a language. That's right: they didn't
talk, instead they mixed drinks where they would put all the words, grammar,
punctuation and even the fine print.

And food was for tales and epics.

They were also blind.

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
There are some smells and tastes that I have invented, over half of them are
awful, but some of them I wish I could communicate to people. The best I can
do at the moment is explain the shapes and colours over time...

~~~
guard-of-terra
They didn't communicate tastes. They communicated using tastes.

