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Synesthesia


Lenin

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Synesthesia.

 

So, it's basically a neurological cross-wire/misfiring that causes one receptor or sense to trip another.

 

I perceive all sound as color, and sometimes the colors have specific shape. Also, when I see a color/colored shape, I hear a corresponding tone in my head. If see multiple colors, say a rainbow or a tye-dye T-shirted hippy, I hear a sequence of tones corresponding to each color in whichever order I process said colors. And all letters/numbers have their own color too. So, I have sound → color and grapheme → color synesthetes. I know what you're thinking, and yes: there are not nearly enough green songs.

 

Essentially, I hear color and see sound. That's basically a superpower. At the very least, my brain makes it's own LSD.

 

Oh, and I have a friend who has color → taste synesthetes. Yeah. The man can literally taste color... with, his, fucking, eyes. Wishing your brain was fucked up yet? Well, you'll be disappointed to hear the horrid side effect that is... oh, wait, no side effects. Just tasting shit with your eyes. He broke down the flavor of the light refraction spectrum for me:

 

Red - "Melting cinnamon" (he cannot stand looking at anything red because of this... and he's a ginger. So I guess that is a side effect)

Orange and yellow - "like sunshine"

Green - "crisp and refreshing... just like lettuce, without the taste of lettuce"

Blue - "mint"

Indigo and violet - "cake icing"

 

All that varies between different synesthetes, however. Another person with color → taste might think red and yellow taste totally different from his perception of them. Word up for a sentence I never thought I'd have to type.

 

I'd do a breakdown, but it'd take infinite time to list colors and (when applicable) shapes for every sound ever made ever. Will keep it simple:

 

- Lead guitar lines are bright yellow streams with white centers

- Rhythm guitar parts with little distortion are a solid darker yellow

- Heavily distorted rhythm guitar parts are typically black, but if the distorted notes are a bit more closed, they're a dark purple.

- All acoustic guitars are light orange, no exceptions.

- Piano's and speaking/singing voices follow the same rule: lower the note, the blacker it is, higher the note, the whiter it is. Mid-range notes are in grayscale.

 

Of course, according to that Wikipedia article, sound → color synethetes almost never agree on what sounds are which color, and Franz Liszt and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov "famously" disagreed on dat shit. Presumably in what was the precursor to the east coast/west coast rap wars. But if you want to know, I'll break any song of your choosing down into the color array it causes me to see.

 

So, anyone else here have this?

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I dont have anything but thanks for confusing me. P.S break down "Not Afraid by Eminem"

 

No real shapes to the song, bass drums are a navy blue, snares are white, the synth pad that goes all the way through it is a light blue, gray vocals on the verses and the chorus is different shades of red, pink and purple spraying, fast moving speckles. I call this color array "Rappers Need To Stop Singing."

 

 

So wait..

 

Like you can't hear a sound, only see it?

 

or do you like get both at once?

 

If it's the first, retarded; second, superpower.

 

Nah, it's both at once. And vice-versa; when I see a shape/color/colored shape, I hear a sustained note in my head that corresponds to the shape, color or colored shape. Cool shit.

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I've had similar experiences, but I don't think it's actually synesthesia. Letters have specific colors and colors have specific tastes, but I think that is just by association (I know bananas are yellow, so yellow must taste like bananas [oddly enough, yellow does not taste like bananas to me]). Also, this doesn't happen all the time for me.

 

I'm glad because it doesn't sound like something I would enjoy if it were permanent. But to each his own.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

His vocals are high pitched, so they're usually white. His bass parts are usually purple. All typical funk instruments tend to be bright yellow.

 

I can get more specific if you list particular songs you want to know.

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Throw anything you want at me as long as I can get it on YouTube. If there's anything that's literally not a problem, it's this.

 

Golden Lady - it sounds like a cop out, but I'll be damned if this isn't golden brown. The piano is a silvery tone, though.

Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing - this is a dark brown, the piano is black.

Sir Duke - the brass and sax are yellow and the bass is black. Guitar parts are a sky blue/turquoise.

 

All vocals white.

 

Good shit.

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Pretty rad!

 

I do have another request. What does this look like?

 

 

Black, with blue dots all the way through. Pretty neat actually.

 

 

Lenin do you have different colors for different subgenres of things? Like

 

vs.

 

Not in the sense that genre A is always color X and genre B is always color Y. It's more like, genre A tends to have X color pattern because there are common musical techniques that run through the genre. Those two videos you posted up actually have the same dark red, hazy orange and bright yellow colors to me because musically, they aren't really incredibly different. The angry metal guys have black vocals (shocker) and the Castlevania tribute band has grayer vocals, but only because of the actual notes being sung.

 

EDIT: "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall" by Coldplay is the color of awful.

Edited by Lenin
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What color does this give you Lenin?

 

Lead guitar is yellow and white in the center, the rhythm part is orange with a red trim. Drums are black. Vocals are a dull white.

 

So, I got a question about what you see. What exactly does it look like? Like...do you see bands of color floating away from a speaker? Or does it propogate like a soundwave so its a bunch of circles radiating from the speaker? Or is it something else?

 

Does Windows Media Player still do that thing with the backgrounds that swirl and shift around as the music plays? It's basically exactly like that. It's not something that really obscures your vision, though. But when I close my eyes while listening to music, there's no darkness, only color.

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