| Author | Posts |
|---|---|
| Author | Posts |
| January 30, 2012 at 8:10 am #45871 | |
 Brady | Synesthesia is something that has fascinated me for a vey long time, particularly because it digs down to the fundamental problem of the fallibility and imprecision of human perception. That, and the fact that it’s really cool and interesting. So, if you’re unfamiliar with Synesthesia, the easiest way to think about it is to imagine that there is a switch board in your brain that separates the information that your senses gather (sight, sound, smell, ect) from the parts of the brain that allow you to perceive that information. For the sake of the explanation, imagine that each sense/perception has a “socket” of sorts, and that a wire connects the two and allows information to flow from the senses to the brain. In a normal, boring brain, the sense of sight is “plugged in” to the brain’s perception of vision, the sense of touch is routed to the sensation of physical contact, and so on. It doesn’t have to be general senses either; the sight of letters and words is plugged in to the brain’s perception of language and thought. In this case, all is well and good, and the brain functions like normal. But what would happen if you plugged your sense of sound into your brain’s perception of vision? What if the sight of letters and words was simultaneously plugged into your brain’s perception of language AND its perception of color? What if your sense of smell was routed to your brain’s understanding of personality? That’s Synesthesia. The people who have it can hear color, taste sound, and feel the physical sensation of shapes. They can perceive both the meaning and color of words, and they can empathize with numbers. Isn’t that cool? More info here (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia) I myself have a mild form of it (or at least I think I do. I haven’t gotten it diagnosed). It only happens with music, not all sound, but I basically perceive music as 3-D space. I don’t quite know how to put it into words, but different instruments within a song sound like certain shapes. Yeah, they sound like shapes. For example, bass drums almost always sound like two Hershey’s Kiss-shaped things, with their pointy ends pointed at each other and their fat ends pointed out towards my ears. Other instruments (guitars, snare drums, bass, synths, ect) all sound like different shapes and like they’re in different places depending on the song. So yeah, my auditory experience of music is plugged into my perception of spatial relationships. I still hear the music just fine, but I also hear the shapes. So do any of you have (or think you have) Synesthesia? I’d be really interested in knowing. Which of your senses are mixed up? How does it change your experience of the world? Has it helped or hurt you? |
| January 30, 2012 at 10:19 pm #46142 | |
 Natalie | I don’t think I have this (although I found it interesting to read.) Is it weird though that when I read the title I kind of hoped that the post would be this link? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfeyUGZt8nk |
| February 5, 2012 at 4:54 am #49109 | |
 Allison | Though I don’t have it, I learned about it initially through Wendy Mass’s A Mango-Shaped Space. It’s a really good book and the one that has made me cry the hardest. I did a research paper on it in eighth grade because I had recently read the book, but, since I was in eighth grade and had procrastinated, I don’t think it’s very good. |
| February 5, 2012 at 7:29 am #49141 | |
 Leo Shannon | Hi! I’m on the same boat as @Brady, I think I have synesthesia in one form or another. Probably my most prominent sense(?) is assigning colors to letters, numbers, and words. Like, for numbers, one is gray, three is green, five is orange/red, etc. I also kind of perceive music as a 3-D space as well, with angles and points jutting out where the beats/emphasized notes are. If that makes any sense. |
| February 7, 2012 at 12:44 am #50009 | |
 Will | I think I might have this a tiny bit. Not like with the music or anything, but like for as long as I can remember I’ve thought of people as having different colors. Like almost everyone I know, to me, has a distinct color, if that makes sense. When I try to explain it to people usually they just look at me like I’m crazy. |
| February 12, 2012 at 9:05 pm #52640 | |
 Maddie | I was actually just about to start a conversation about this myself, when I found this one. I’ve been interested in synesthesia ever since I read “The Name of This Book is Secret” by Pseudonymous Bosch. I read it about four years ago (and I read A Mango- Shaped Space this past summer), but only in the last two months have I actually realized that I’m probably synesthetic. Letters and numbers have colors, genders, and personalities for me. And I view the months and days of the week in a particular, almost 3D sort of way. I’ve done a lot of reading on synesthesia, and I’ve heard that a lot of people who have synesthesia, when they were young, they would get frustrated when other kids would color letters with the “wrong” colors. I think this may have been one of the reasons I never thought I would be synesthetic because I never felt that way. I always figured everyone had their own colors. I remember having a conversation with my younger sister where we just talked about what colors certain letters were to us. |
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