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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesiaquote:Synesthesia (also spelled synæsthesia or synaesthesia; from the Ancient Greek σύν syn, "together", and αἴσθησις aisthēsis, "sensation") is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.[1][2][3][4] People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synesthetes. "Synesthesia" is an umbrella term for a a wide variety of sensory abnormalities which involve a strong association between two different senses or stimuli. Naturally, it manifests in a lot of different ways, some of the most common being letter(or number)/color and sound/color. There are also rarer types that are less documented, into which my variety of synesthesia (sound/taste) falls. Basically, when I hear a sound, I taste something (and vice versa) though this isn't necessarily true for every sound/taste. Generally, strong tastes and loud sounds cause the greatest response. Seeing as how this is an offshoot of my answering some questions in GBS, I'll repost them here: Honky Dong Country posted:I still want synaesthesia goon to tell me what the sound of a fart tastes like. hi that's me. salty and vaguely musty? think stale potato chip wasabi is like a really dissonant accordion honk I hate it unpleasantly turgid posted:something about a cascading, discordant wail of accordion honks as the ambient music for a sushibar is incredibly funny to me. A meal is basically a song to me. When I was a little kid I actually sang along with my food and I can still catch myself humming when I eat sometimes. So I'm having a great time jammin out to a sushi lunch and then *HOONK* gross A Spherical Sponge posted:How does that work as you develop a taste for things? like for example I used to hate the taste of olives and marmite and similar half bitter salty savoury things, but now I think they're delicious. Does it just feel like you develop an appreciation for the already existing sound-taste, or does the sound change to become more consonant with other flavours? Our taste preferences are pretty plastic from what I can tell, whereas music appreciation seems more static to me, so I'm just curious how they interact I've always been a fairly picky eater  In the few cases I've changed my mind about a food it's been more of the latter, working the new sound/taste into how I perceive things. My music taste is definitely more eclectic, but sounds don't trigger as intense a taste as vice versa so that might have something to do with it.That's it for my short primer. Ask away! If anyone else has synesthesia they're also welcome to chime in with their experiences. Have Blue fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Dec 1, 2017 |
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Dec 1, 2017 04:19
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I don't get this at all. What does Led Zeppelin taste like?
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Dec 1, 2017 04:22
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What would happen if I gave you like a really gross thing to eat like what if I gave you a piece of poop on your tongue :iamafag: e: no but seriously what have various gross things you remember tasting sounded like a hole-y ghost fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Dec 1, 2017 |
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Dec 1, 2017 04:23
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If we post songs will you tell us what they taste like? You talked about singing along with your meals as a kid and humming them as an adult, ever thought about trying to write them down/record yourself singing what you hear along with the meal? If you ever did end up doing that could you share it? Have you ever seen any rhyme or reason to what food sounds like or is it just kinda random-ish like the wasabi accordion honks?
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Dec 1, 2017 04:34
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Spinster posted:I don't get this at all. With music there are a lot of different sounds going on and not all of them correspond to any one dish/food. I tend to associate certain tastes with certain tones (e.g. male vocals are dull and sour, female vocals are more acidic and sharp). If I was forced to say something maybe a steak burrito? a hole-y ghost posted:What would happen if I gave you like a really gross thing to eat like what if I gave you a piece of poop on your tongue :iamafag: I already mentioned wasabi/horseradish is an accordion honk Olives are an off key bass note with a bit of a squelch added in Burnt food is almost like static (these are all approximations)
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Dec 1, 2017 04:43
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Thanks for answering my question earlier  So when you say you're a sound/taste synesthete, what do you mean by taste? is it like the full flavour of a thing that arises from the combination of smell and proper tongue taste? or just the isolated combination of tastes that are derived from things you taste on your tongue? Do the sounds you taste change if you have a blocked nose and lose the smell based component of flavour? Also what does the inside of your mouth sound like when you're not tasting anything? like the flavour of saliva. Can you pick out particular aspects of flavour and associate them with certain sounds, so there's a commonality in the sounds you hear when you taste the sour citrus-y flavour of an orange and the flavour of a lemon or a lime? How does the sound you hear get associated with the taste you hear? like if you're listening to music, is the flavour determined by the emotional content of the music? the tonal characteristics, the tempo? if you listen to a pure sine wave middle C, what do you taste? I don't know enough (or anything) about music theory to know how music gets associated with particular emotional characteristics though so I guess that's a pretty vague question. I find all this stuff pretty interesting because I'm studying sensory physiology and function at the moment. Synestheisa is pretty cool because different sensory modalities have very different 'structures' I guess is the way you'd put it, so how they map on to one another in cases of synesthesia can sort of give you insight into common underlying conceptual and perceptual structures, and how these different sensory modalities are combined into a cohesive perception of the world where you attribute stable properties to objects and sources of stimuli in your environment. Something like that anyway. A Spherical Sponge fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Dec 1, 2017 |
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Dec 1, 2017 04:45
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Ignatius M. Meen posted:If we post songs will you tell us what they taste like? I can certainly take a stab at it though sound>taste tends to be less vivid than taste>sound for me. Unfortunately no I haven't. It's more of a subconscious thing and I haven't ever made an effort to sit down and record it. There are some "random" associations but as I mentioned above the strongest correlation is with tone A Spherical Sponge posted:Thanks for answering my question earlier It's more taste by itself, which could partly explain why taste> sound is more vivid ( with sound>taste I'm missing the smell component). I touched on flavor above. As for listening to middle C, I'd have to say it tastes like crappy sourdough, bland but with a mild edge. My own mouth is something I'm acclimated to, so I don't really get a background taste/sound. I'm in biomed myself and I have a neurologist in my family, so the physiological/neurological basis is definitely something I've looked into, though a lot of it still seems like people throwing up their hands and saying "iunno", especially for the weirder types.
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Dec 1, 2017 05:03
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Have Blue posted:I already mentioned wasabi/horseradish is an accordion honk
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Dec 1, 2017 05:43
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Have you ever tried miracle berries and checked if the change in taste perception corresponds to a change in sound perception?
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Dec 1, 2017 10:01
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A local wine shop used to have an employee with this "condition" and he used to do music/wine tastings/pairings, and they were all really cool. So, do you drink, and if so, what sorts of booze go with what kinds of music for you?
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Dec 1, 2017 21:01
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a hole-y ghost posted:Interesting—but what about non-food gross things? For example, dirt, soap, blood, vomit, etc I don't make a habit out of eating gross things but out of that list: Blood and other metallic tastes are a sizzle Dirt is almost a thrum, the kind that churns your stomach Vomit is a mix of stuff but the most prominent is bile, which is like a screech that that fades into a whine My Lovely Horse posted:Have you ever tried miracle berries and checked if the change in taste perception corresponds to a change in sound perception? I tried them once in a high school bio class and the change was pretty dead on. Very sour/reedy tastes became sweeter rounder and brassier. PT6A posted:A local wine shop used to have an employee with this "condition" and he used to do music/wine tastings/pairings, and they were all really cool. I do drink, but being a college student cost and quantity tends to be the order of the day. Still here are a few nice ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynnX2HWwKek Gin and tonic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9mbZJubWdU Dry red wine (e.g. cabernet sauvignon)
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Dec 1, 2017 23:49
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What are the most pleasant associations? Are there any sounds that provoke a light, sweet taste, or a taste that provokes an angelic tone? When you're making dinner, do you take the sound of a flavor into account?
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Dec 2, 2017 19:34
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Serious question. I think youre straight, but not sure--- so many posters to keep track of! If you are....what do you hear when, y'know, giving a lady oral pleasure?
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Dec 2, 2017 21:25
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I fear this might be the equivalent of asking you to taste something really disgusting, but would you be willing to listen to this and tell me what you think of it? If you can stomach it you should definitely listen until the end. I enjoy that piece and others like it but I can definitely understand other people not liking it.
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Dec 3, 2017 05:33
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Boksi posted:I fear this might be the equivalent of asking you to taste something really disgusting, but would you be willing to listen to this and tell me what you think of it? If you can stomach it you should definitely listen until the end. I enjoy that piece and others like it but I can definitely understand other people not liking it. Have Blue posted:I don't make a habit out of eating gross things but out of that list:
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Dec 3, 2017 08:51
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I have a bunch of questions  Despite experiencing them differently, does your tastes and preferences sort of align with common distastes and acquired tastes? I mean like, people like different stuff, of course, but certain foodstuffs like, say; coffee, beer, olives, whiskey and a bunch of others are either commonly disliked, or acquired tastes; does that translate into those foodstuffs generally having unpleasing sounds? Is it useful or hindering in some way, like, does it make cooking for others more difficult, or it it just like, instead of "this needs more salt" you go "this needs more bass" and it works out the same? If I understand it right, when eating something and experiencing sound, you also still taste it, right? If I got that right, does well-tasting food usually get nice sounds, or are there examples of nice-tasting food with horrible sounds. You mentioned being a picky eater, but do you have any particularly weird or quirky guilty pleasures? Like, maybe eating raw potatoes is just straight up symphony. lmbo. Don't skip this one, regardless of sexual preference.
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Dec 3, 2017 11:55
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Magic Hate Ball posted:What are the most pleasant associations? Are there any sounds that provoke a light, sweet taste, or a taste that provokes an angelic tone? When you're making dinner, do you take the sound of a flavor into account? A lot of fuzzed/distorted sounds like overdriven guitars taste meaty, which I like a lot. As for light and sweet, the closest sound would be a trumpet? Something darker and heavier like chocolate is more like a trombone. When I cook I definitely take sound into account and it tends to work out pretty well. Not to brag (I'm gonna do it anyway) but I'm considered the best cook among my family and my roommates. Boksi posted:I fear this might be the equivalent of asking you to taste something really disgusting, but would you be willing to listen to this and tell me what you think of it? If you can stomach it you should definitely listen until the end. I enjoy that piece and others like it but I can definitely understand other people not liking it. Yeah that's got a lot of different things going on and I'm not really enjoying it, and I say that as someone who listens to stuff like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Z6CWuxHZU I think it comes down to the music in your link being an aggressive mix of disparate sounds/tastes and it doesn't quite come together for me. Spinster posted:Serious question. I think youre straight, but not sure--- so many posters to keep track of! I knew this was coming... It varies between different women, and even the same person can be different day to day. Generally though it'd go along pretty well with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmRraoL9v7k (yeah I know it seems too on the nose but I swear it's true) a hole-y ghost posted:interesting.. thanks. I'm not a synaesthete but a lot of these make a weird sort of sense. Have you met other people with the same type of synaesthesia and compared sound/taste correlations with them? I'm curious if they would line up. Lots of people I tell about this say it makes a kind of sense, which makes me think that a lot of people get at least a little bit of crosstalk between their senses. A lot of people who use psychedelics also report temporary synesthesia, so it can definitely be induced and is not just congenital or fixed early in childhood. I've done a few pyschs and only got more types of synesthesia once but it was wild having half my senses fire off in response to a single thing. I haven't met any other synesthete, let alone a sound/taste one. iirc all kinds of synesthesia combined have about a 4% incidence, so it's pretty rare. From what I've read though each person's perceptions are fairly individual. Grandmother of Five posted:I have a bunch of questions I like a lot of things other people don't. From your examples I like strong black coffee, straight neat whiskey, and some very hoppy/bitter beer. I don't like olives at all. The taste, mouthfeel and sound is all horribly off for me. A big part of the appeal is that they're strong, complex flavors, so they have a corresponding vivid and multilayered sound, even if it's not necessarily conventionally appealing. I find it very useful. It just make life a lot more enjoyable overall and opens up some neat experiences. Concretely, it makes cooking a breeze. I like to improvise and just cook by feel/sound and it ends up being great, though I tend to initially underseason things because my sound/taste perception is apparently more sensitive. What sounds good tastes good, though that's predicated on my own personal aesthetic sense. Some of the more experimental stuff I listen to conjures the taste of plastic and blood and that's enjoyable (in appropriate measures) . Food wise, I like my steak black and blue, which freaks a lot of people out.
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Dec 3, 2017 16:32
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I have studied musicology so this is pretty interesting. What about music written in certain keys? Scriabin was a synesthete and perceived different notes to color. Is this something tou relate to? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavier_%E0_lumi%E8res Also I had a collegue who is a synesteth with perfect pitch which made it hard for him to listen to certain music written in different keys according to the season of the year and the weather outside. Very interesting.
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Dec 7, 2017 00:00
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Can you hear when food is off? Like if you were to get some kind of seafood that was on the verge of going bad, would it sound different enough to clue you in that you're about to get food poisoning?
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Dec 12, 2017 22:26
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Fellow synesthete here! Not looking to hijack, just add input. My experiences have been more along the Iines of naturally associating numbers and letters with colors, as well as musical timbres/rhythms/melodies creating abstract imagery in the mind's eye. For example, in terms of the numbers/letters, ask yourself, "what color is (insert number here)?". For me, the number 7 is a prominent gold/orange, close to freshly squeezed orange juice. The number 1 is pure white. Therefore, when I think of 17 (or 71, or 171, or 717, 7117, etc.), my mind's-eye instills the impression of those colors based on the order. 17 is more like an egg over-easy (white outside, gold/orange "yolk"), whereas 71 feels like the opposite alignment (prominent orange, with white tones/specks thrown in). In terms of the musical aspect, I am a musician/music instructor by trade so there has been a lot of opportunity to hone/sharpen these senses over the years. The rhythm/length of tones creates the size/length of the shape being experienced, the timbre creates the direction as well as the actual 'visual timbre'. For example, smoothly changing tones with no spaces in between will create curves with ebbs/flows. Short, staccato tones create jagged directionalities with unpredictable paths. The tonality of the music/instrument dictates the colors shown. A full band looks/feels like a 'symphony' of colors/shapes. This has been part of my teaching philosophies, because although this came naturally to me as a child, it does not for everyone. However, I believe it is possible for almost all people to train themselves to cross-over and freely associate "unrelated" sensorial input.
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Dec 13, 2017 07:41
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Primordial Soup posted:naturally associating numbers and letters with colors 
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Dec 13, 2017 13:29
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Primordial Soup posted:In terms of the musical aspect, I am a musician/music instructor by trade so there has been a lot of opportunity to hone/sharpen these senses over the years. The rhythm/length of tones creates the size/length of the shape being experienced, the timbre creates the direction as well as the actual 'visual timbre'. For example, smoothly changing tones with no spaces in between will create curves with ebbs/flows. Short, staccato tones create jagged directionalities with unpredictable paths. The tonality of the music/instrument dictates the colors shown. A full band looks/feels like a 'symphony' of colors/shapes. This has been part of my teaching philosophies, because although this came naturally to me as a child, it does not for everyone. However, I believe it is possible for almost all people to train themselves to cross-over and freely associate "unrelated" sensorial input. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4MQ7GzE6HY
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Dec 13, 2017 17:25
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von Braun posted:I have studied musicology so this is pretty interesting. What about music written in certain keys? Scriabin was a synesthete and perceived different notes to color. Is this something tou relate to? The closest thing would probably be the relationship between tone and taste for me but I don't classify it in a way as elaborate/formal as what you linked. I definitely get the second part though, I can't eat candy and listen to rock music. It just doesn't work. Primordial Soup posted:Fellow synesthete here! Not looking to hijack, just add input. Hey no worries! It's right up there in the OP that other people are free to drop in and share their experiences Nighthand posted:Can you hear when food is off? Like if you were to get some kind of seafood that was on the verge of going bad, would it sound different enough to clue you in that you're about to get food poisoning? Usually it's pretty obvious from just sight/smell, though a lot of rot and putrid tasting stuff comes through as a gut churning thrum like dirt so that's a pretty reliable indicator too.
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Dec 13, 2017 23:21
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How was it growing up? Like was it a pain in the rear end to deal with other kids thinking you're weird and having to learn not everyone was like you? Do you have any particular preference for music based on what tastes good? What are your favorite foods based on how they sound? What kind of sound does spicy food make? Or since it's really just pain and not actual flavor, does it make a sound at all? Friar Zucchini fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Dec 14, 2017 |
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Dec 14, 2017 00:35
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Have Blue posted:I definitely get the second part though, I can't eat candy and listen to rock music. It just doesn't work.
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Dec 14, 2017 11:42
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What happens if you taste something that is unlike anything you have ever tasted before?
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Dec 14, 2017 14:37
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What happens when you eat something that makes a sound, like pop rocks or potato chips? Does the sound trigger a taste sensation while the taste triggers a sound sensation? Could you distinguish between the part of one sensation that's triggered by synesthesia and the part that's actually what the food tastes/sounds like? e: or to put it another way, could you "season" your food by playing the right tone or does one kind of input take precedence? "Good soup, needs some ukulele though." My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Dec 14, 2017 |
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Dec 14, 2017 14:42
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Does being aware of the song title have any influence on the "taste"?
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Dec 14, 2017 22:05
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My Lovely Horse posted:How do you deal with the Stroop effect? Not too much of an issue. In my case, it's less about the word itself, but the effect takes place for the individual letters comprising words. The word "purple" will conjure up the color purple, but individually, the letter P is magenta, U is golden, R is also reddish, L is yellow, while E is lilac. This is a cool activity to do and challenge others with though.
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Dec 15, 2017 17:03
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