First, some technical stuff. I am trying PNG format. It is supposed to be less lossy than JPEG. If I like it, I will go back and switch all the previous entries to PNG, too.
Some people do hear colors, taste sounds, and so on. Do you ever experience or associate one phenomenon or sense with another?
.jpg files take up less space than .png, but .png are must higher quality. From what I understand, .jpg uses coding shortcuts kind of like .mp3 files when compared to .wav files.
And you’re referring to synesthesia? Sometimes I can smell or taste memories, but I think that’s a completely different concept. Music sometimes brings it out or a strong wind. I’m partial to wind. I’ve heard you can induce synesthesia through psychoactive drugs, though I’ve never tried it myself. Maybe this prompt will bring out some interesting stories?
it depends on the amount of entropy in the image. for stuff like this, where most of the pixels are plain white (or transparent), PNG will not lose you much over JPEG. for detailed photographs, on the other hand, JPEG tends to save an order of magnitude or two in space.
I’m not a strong synesthete, but I understand the feeling … fall incandescence and spring emergence always make me feel like arias.
I’m a synesthete, and it’s my first time commenting on the secretvespers site, though I’ve been here often before.
I taste sounds and spoken words. I also experience colors associated with numbers, letters, and shapes (e.g. countries on a map) and time (days of the week, months of the year, hours in a day, etc.) is associated with color and spatial relationships as well.
Feel free to ask any questions!
I dated a synesthete for a while. he had number/color/emotion synesthesia. I was a hazy orange eight :P
The guy that does 3 Panel Soul has been on a synesthesia kick lately :)
Wikipedia puts me in the same category, I perceive personalities in a handful of numbers… other than that, no.
My orgasms come in colour.
This reminds me of a Walt Whitman poem…
That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning-yet long untaught I did not hear;
But now the chorus I hear, and am elated;
A tenor, strong, ascending, with power and health, with glad notes of day-break I hear,
A soprano, at intervals, sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves,
A transparent bass, shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,
The triumphant tutti-the funeral wailings, with sweet flutes and violins-all these I fill myself with;
I hear not the volumes of sound merely-I am moved by the exquisite meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves-but now I think I begin to know them.
I taste smell, more often then not . unfortunately, in some scenarios it is not the best way .
I’m synesthetic… i feel coloured stomach aches or head aches… and also… mhmh, orgasms. :P
I sometimes feel colors around people. I can see them, like coloured. Its quite weird but I love and have been playing with it for a while now. When I was little I didn’t dare to tell people when I had these “feelings” because I always thought that it sounded like cheap lies, but now I just don’t care.
Ha!
I have always wished I was a synesthite. Ah, well, at least im sort of like one. My memories have distinct colors and places connected to them that had nothing to do with them.
Hmm… not sure if it counts as synesthetic or not, but colors always have emotions attached to them – strong emotions with associations that never change (red is not love, it’s passion and anger. Blue’s always calmness and peacefulness, green -depending on the shade- is either sickness or serenity, grey’s depression and numbness, etc), and usually vice versa (if I’m calm, then I’m in a blue mindset, etc). *grins* And some sicknesses and pains have colors attached as well – stomachaches are a definite green, toe stubbings are a burst of red with black around the edges, etc.
I have synasthesia. For me, sound has shape and sometimes colour. I do not see the shapes, I feel them, or rather percieve them inside my self. Loud, harsh noises feel like someone hit me. Sound runs through me, not just through my ears. I discovered that two of my (twin) cousins whom I never met till I was over 30, have this too. It runs in families. Vladimir Nabokov and Kandinsky are both synasthesics.
I recognise people more by their voices than their faces. Often when I see someone on the street or on TV I have to wait for them to speak before I know for sure who they are.
I can smell colours – when I was little, scented gel pens drove me mad because the colour/smell combinations were all off. I’d smell strawberry, think ‘powder blue’ and have a pink pen. Very confusing :P Aches and pains also come in colour. I also have very, very strong connections between smells and memories. Refridgerated spearmint Polos remind me so much of my Grandma that every time I eat one I can feel her hugging me.
Yes! For me a sharp pain is bright white, an old or chronic pain is dark blue, while red is inflamed soreness. Not only in myself, when I give someone a massage I percieve these colours when I touch their skin.
How odd! For me, sharp pains are grass green, dull ones are grey/blue and burning ones are salmon pink. I can’t feel the colours of somebody else’s pain, though – have you always been able to do that?
Yes, always. Perhaps because I’m synasthesic And very nearsighted? I don’t know. It is sometimes a gift, sometimes more of a curse…to touch someone and feel their pain as your own. Sometimes just sitting next to them I will “pick up” their pain if it’s strong. Once I laid a hand on a friend’s shoulder and nearly dropped to my knees at the surge of tension and pain I picked up.
Perhaps this is what has taught me compassion. If a person is carrying that kind of pain, their reactions are more comprehensible when you feel it yourself.
What you describe seems to go beyond synaesthesia – but it sounds dead interesting. I can imagine it wouldn’t always be a blessing.
I have some minor synesthesia. i sometimes catch myself describing things using the wrong sense. for instance i might describe a color as sounding like overripe tomatoes and nobody has a clue what I’m talking about.
wow – that’s more pronounced than mine, I wouldn’t call it minor. I can only smell colours if I concentrate on them, usually. The pain thing’s definitely more noticeable for me.
Rereading this discussion I realise that I also see colours in my mind linked to certain smells. There used to be a cologne called “Othello”…I just described it to someone as “dark mossy green with flashes of gold.”
They don’t make it anymore, unfortunately.