Skazi Smells a Funny Colour

On 2006-02-10 02:11, floatyhippyflower wrote:
I'm sure I've posted a reply to something like this before...

To cut a long story short, I went through a phase of thinking (and hoping!) I was synaesthetic after an old Professor of mine suggested I might be. I have very strong colour and textural associations with particular sounds or timbres...

Interesting Kire-naj was talking about tripping in the winamp thread after I said something like "I close my eyes a lot" because actually I have never taken acid or any other psychedelic for that matter. However ^ this is the very reason I close my eyes when I dance or listen to music. My mind's eye visuals are always very strong. The note E on a piano is nearly always red/very dark pink for example. F is green. Ab is purple and so on and so forth. It really helps my pitch sometimes just by singing a note in my head because I often 'hear' a colour too. Also days of the week...Monday red, Tuesday yellow/lime green, Wednesday indigo blue, Thursday is orange etc. But then even emotions have shapes and colours...it's really hard to explain, like trying to describe a dream. I sort of 'see' them in my mind's eye but 'feel' them too. So Thursday 'feels' orange, rather than 'looks' it when I write the word. The pads in Smoked Glass And Chrome are a very deep, bluey pink. Excitement is spikey and flashes light colours such as yellow and white. I could go on but I'm stoned and would bore you to tears if I haven't already.

To be honest I thought everyone was like that and didn't give it a second thought until I described something once in a seminar at uni and my Professor interjected with "do you have synaesthesia?" It was the first time I'd heard of it and so did a bit of research into the condition. Somewhat disappointingly, I don't think my personal experience would stand up under scientific tests for audio-visual synaesthesia. However I did see a documentary about it not long afterwards that made me realise we are probably all synaesthetic to some extent (onomatopoeia anyone?), and we are all part of the synaesthesia spectrum.

@ Dawn, if you haven't already, try find a documentary called Derek Tastes Of Earwax - I think it might be from the BBC Horizon series. It's so weird but so very good. Some of the theories relating to synaesthesia and the development of language were fascinating. Also, I remember when I watched it for the first time, there was this little scientist guy who started to speak (I'm sure it was the same docu) and my ears immediately pricked up...

"You take this huge universe and put it inside a very tiny head...you fold it!"

...as used by Shpongle, Around The World In A Tea Daze. What a top way to discover the origin of a most favoured sample.

On 2006-02-10 04:16, floatyhippyflower wrote:
On a related topic I remember someone showing me a kind of chart demonstrating some kind of correlation between certain visible and audible frequencies...might have been my acoustics teacher. Hmm, will have a hunt. Never really investigated that actually...but if true (from a rigorously scientific point of view of course) bet that would make for some interesting theories regarding the relationship between the experience of sound and that of sight.

On 2006-02-10 06:42, New Era Scientist wrote:
floatyhippyflower - which color do you get from the tone of G?

On 2006-02-10 05:12, ----Dawn---- wrote:

Maybe the vibrations caused by certain sound systems could have an effect on the brain... but then again, i probably wouldn't notice!

On 2006-02-11 13:14, floatyhippyflower wrote:

Quote:

On 2006-02-10 05:12, ----Dawn---- wrote: Maybe the vibrations caused by certain sound systems could have an effect on the brain... but then again, i probably wouldn't notice!

Two things came to mind when I read this story, the first being binaural beats and hemi-sync. I keep mentioning them here because I find them utterly fascinating; using nothing but sound to alter your perceptions and state of mind. That and the stories I read when I was studying about the effects of infra sound on the body - see ghosts? Pah. Lightweight. Wait until you read about bowel expulsion frequencies.

The second thing I thought of was yet another doc I saw a long time ago (can't remember what or when, google tells me nothing) about some ancient cave, somewhere in England I think. The passage way alligned with sun at certain times of the year and the acoustics of inner cavern were very specific and extremely powerful; paintings on the wall suggested that sound waves could actually be seen when certain rituals involving sound and music were practised by the ancient inhabitants. Imagine living thousands of years ago and being able see sound waves!!

On 2006-02-13 09:35, Salamantra wrote:
we are all crazy... and we are not. I beliebe that there is no such thing as craziness, there is just another way of looking at the world.