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July 26, 2004
¿Are you experienced on synesthesia?
Synesthesia is a mouthful. Or is it an eyeful? That's the beauty of it.
Synesthesia is a phenomena wherein you see audio, hear video. Your senses are confused, just like sentence this is.
Synesthesia often occurs under the influence of psychadelics. Acid, shrooms, your mileage may vary.
What I want to know is: can we invoke synesthesia while sober?
Well, help me guys. I'm trying this out.
Here, let me go through Jimi Hendrix's "Are you Experienced?" Let's work on just colors for now.
0:00-0:13
The scratching feels like slate, so I'd say some light slate gray.
0:13-0:17
The crashing of guitars and sounds feels like blood and flesh, so I'm going with dark orange, and a shine of hotpink, like orgasm perhaps.
0:17-0:40
There are multiple layers going on here, the bass guitar, the percussion (is it keyboard?), and hendrix's vocals.
The bass feels colored like chocolate, the percussion sounds like big drops of water, so like straight up blue, and hendrix's voice is a dark announcement, calling my name at night: indigo
0:40-0:47
"But first, are you experienced?"
The drop off of the ambient background sounds is an entrance out of the tunnel of sound. Let's label this with light, white colors, like azure, mintcream, lavendar blush.
0:47-1:10
(chorus)
Hendrix gets warmer, the early scratchy effect returns, and everything just has more energy.
I'd increase the hue on everything, throw in back the slate gray, and since hendrix is warmer, let's make this have more fireball red.
-------------
And on it on it goes. One could visualize all sorts of elements of design: lines, shapes, directions, sizes, textures, colors, etc..
Is it possible, that with persistent training with this kind of method, one could develop a knack for synesthesia?
I also tried listening to SomaFM's Drone Zone on high volume with headphones, and tried to scribble in photoshop the colors I heard.
Henyway, just a thought for you adventurers out there. And if you are an expert on this topic--I know you're out there--please, add some comments.
Posted by at July 26, 2004 12:41 PM | TrackBackrealize that dancing is also a form of synesthesia as well
just let your nervous system do what it will and pay attention to it
Posted by: dzed at July 26, 2004 01:21 PMI remember having two distinct synesthesiac moments. Both of these happened before I ever took a recreational drug.
Once, I was listening to a walkman and had the volume set very loud. The opening sweep from Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" unexpectedly filled my ears. It surprised me enough that I physically jumped and a strong metallic taste swept across my tongue in synch with the opening of the song.
The other time, I was looking at metallic boxes. I picked one up that was painted green and on a whim smelled it. I swear that the box _smelled_ green.
When I'm "in the groove" programming, the experience is a bit like synesthesia, where I literally see the processes I'm dealing with as shapes and colors.
Posted by: John Fenderson at July 26, 2004 03:46 PMRE: dancing
so true, so true.
RE: something else...
I also experience synesthesia when I'm about to wake up from a dream and I have music playing. Various percussion sounds will manifest as poles, or ambient sounds will become oceans of color.
Posted by: Philip Dhingra at July 27, 2004 12:54 AMAh, cool idea. Deliberately access different perceptual systems than you're 'supposed to'. Makes me also think of psychogeography, which I just wrote something about. Like, you walk around, and do things a different way than one normally does, and you map out your environment based on what you feel. I think.
OK, reading these words I just wrote tastes like ... a slightly bitter taste at the tip of my tongue, and there's a rough texture to the rest of it. A bit of glue taste.
Posted by: Flemming at July 27, 2004 06:34 PMExcellent synchronicity! Last night & this morning I was thinking about Hendrix's "Are You Exp?". And a couple of days ago I was thinking specifically about the term "psychogeography".
We must be on to something here...
Posted by: lvx23 at July 29, 2004 03:34 PMIt's a nice idea and i think you can develope it very far if you just make the effort, but i wouldn't call it synesthesia - well, at least not at this point.
I guess there isin't any clear difference between assosiation and synestehesia, but considering the fact, that there are people who are basicly born with (very strong) synesthesia you will have to be quite a guru to achieve that just by thinking.
Synesthesia has got lots to do with genetics and for synesthetic people the fenomenon has got nothig to do with your state of mind or you will: simply every time they see a certain shape they hear a certain voice or every time they taste a certain flavor they see a certain color.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lecture4.shtml
Posted by: Jussi at July 30, 2004 03:48 PMI have experienced this phenomena on several occasions, most of the time i ignored it becouse it made me think i was paying attention to the insignifigant, Lots of times i will seeshapes and colors to music, i felt sound one time on some wierd drug, but whats interesting if we can expierence synesthesia while trying to interpret a conversation. i dunno just an idea
Posted by: deme at August 10, 2004 02:13 AMThere's an old Zen idea that's useful for creative purposes - try listening with your mouth or talking with your ears. The latter one is my favourite as it serves to break down object/subject distinctions. Synesthesia I guess is what makes poetry possible.
Posted by: Boyfromthecountyhell at September 20, 2004 09:20 AM