

Synesthesia Encyclopedia - profquail
http://cytowic.net/Synesthesia/Synesth__Encyclo_/synesth__encyclo_.HTM

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MikeCapone
Thanks for the link. I have a couple of kinds of synesthesia myself (I wrote
about my experience here: [http://michaelgr.com/2007/09/14/my-experience-with-
synesthes...](http://michaelgr.com/2007/09/14/my-experience-with-synesthesia/)
)

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profquail
Cool...I posted this up because I'm pretty sure I have some kind of number-
form ("spatial-sequence") synesthesia. I've always been good with math since I
can look at a problem (numbers, equations, etc.) and "see" it's shape. This is
actually very handy when coding as well (different sorts of coding problems
have their own shapes too!)

Anyone else have experiences they can share?

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aristus
Numbers and letters have consistent colors and combine and "influence" each
other inside words and large numbers. At an early age I asked my mom to
explain exactly why 113 was green, 114 was pink, 115 black, etc. It took a
while to get the idea across, and we were both very puzzled. She dug out an
article on synaesthesia and we learned together.

I also see colors and shapes in music. Complex melodies are very beautiful. I
feel as though I can "move" between "curtains" of different musical voices. I
have very good relative pitch because I can see the harmonies.

I sometimes mix up things in very odd ways because they have similar colors:
9->u, 5->e, and (god help me) names like linda->julia and teresa->desiree.

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trapper
I envy you aristus - the benefits certainly sound like they outweigh the
negatives!

I wonder if you can induce this in a normal brain somehow, like those tongue-
sight or smell remapping experiments.

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aristus
I'm not sure. I don't see colors on a page like others do, and I'm not
convinced that my brain is somehow abnormal.

Your idea of smell remapping is very interesting. If I understand you, maybe
some sort of biofeedback device can stimulate the sensation. Deaf people use
voicemapping software to help them biofeedback their pronunciation.

There are three times in early life when I remember noticing the effect very
strongly: when my sister first taught me to sing harmony (age 3 or 4), when I
first heard outre jazz (7? I didn't like it) and when I first really paid
attention to Bach (8 or 9). Each time I was in a receptive mood and I was
confronted with novel stimuli.

There is also a lot of anecdotal evidence for synaesthetic "hallucinations"
brought on by drugs, exhaustion, or sensory deprivation. Maybe there are some
clues there.

And if all else fails, there's probably a synaesthesia-mode for Emacs. :)

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steiger
A famous synesthete was the late great Richard Feynman. I think he had written
it in one of his books that he felt unconfortable with that feeling, and
didn't talk much about it.

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zoba
Is any one aware of how to cause synesthesia in people who don't have it,
other than using drugs...or by using drugs: keeping it permanent?

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a-priori
As far as anyone knows, synaesthesia is a fundamental property of how some
people's brains are wired, where the interconnections between two areas of
sensory cortex are abnormally strong. Thus, when one area is activated (by
perceiving a letter, for example), the activation spreads to the other area
(for perceiving a colour). It's something that would develop very early on
(probably _in utero_ , and surely by soon after birth).

In adults, you might theoretically be able to induce permanent synaesthesia by
repeated Tetanic stimulation of the two areas of cortex simultaneously. This
may induce a strengthening of the connections between the two areas via
Hebbian learning.

On the other hand, this might destroy your ability to perceive both letters
and colour, or cause other brain damage. There would be no guarantee that the
results would be of any use to you at all (remember that synaesthesics grow up
experiencing the world this way). And that's assuming you could even identify
the appropriate areas. Needless to say, no surgeon would do this.

Sorry, LSD is still your best bet. :)

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joshu
What I find massively fascinating about synesthesia is the high coappearance
with creativity...

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321abc
Synethesia is a very common (temporary) effect of psychedelic drugs. This
means that most everyone has the ability to sense synethetically. It's just a
matter of somehow triggering this experience in one's brain.

It's a pity that research on psychedelic drugs is so difficult to do legally
in the US (where the overwhelming majority of research money is spent).
Otherwise, it might have already been possible to develop drugs that target
just the synesthetic experience without bringing on a full psychedelic trip
(not to mention the many other benefits that scientific research in to
psychedelics would very likely have had).

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bingaman_
"Synaesthetic and psychedelic mean approximately the same thing." -Gene
Youngblood in Expanded Cinema
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanded_cinema>). Good book.

~~~
321abc
This may be true, when "synethetic" and "psychedelic" are used as specialist
jargon for describing films or various effects in film. But it's not true in
the general, colloquial sense of these terms, which refer to either a type of
sensation or to a type of drug.

Psychedelic literally means "mind-manifesting", while the etymology for
synethesia comes from "sense" and "together".

The word "psychedelic" was specifically coined as a way to describe the drugs
that were previously called "hallucinogens" and "psychotomimetics", and it was
an attempt to remove the inaccurate and negative connotations that those other
words had.

Synethesia, on the other hand, refers to a specific type of sensation, and not
to a drug.

Also, psychedelic drugs have many, many other effects apart from synethesia
(which isn't present in every trip or for everyone taking psychedelic drugs,
anyway).

So in the usual sense of these terms (not in the sense a film critic might use
them), these two words have quite different meanings.

