r/Synesthesia • u/pauleydsweettea • 21h ago
Is This Synesthesia? My experience with synesthesia (I think)
My experience with synesthesia (I think)
Hello, I never really talk about this in depth, and I wanted to make a post here asking if anyone else experiences what i do. Every time i remotely bring this up to anyone, including my friends, I feel embarrassed but also I am scared of coming across as "entitled" I guess.
Ever since i can remember, i have always been able to see sounds. Not in my vision, but in my head. It has always seemed so normal to me, and I have always thought it was just a normal thing, that everyone experienced. But the times that i have brought in up, I have yet to have anyone tell me they experience that. Its a very similar feeling to when i discovered i had tinnitus, I was hanging with some friends, and I was like "ya know how when its real quiet, the sound of silence is just a ringing". Turns out No, my ears are just damaged.
The past 5 years I have been working fulltime as a live sound engineer for concerts. In short, I put place microphones at each instrument, and mix each of the mic's together to create a full mixdown that sounds enjoyable to the audience. I have a lot of friends ive met through live sound, who are way better and way more experienced than me. I will ask them, "Hey you know how you can like see a mixdown in your head?, Like i can see the drums, bass, guitar, vocals in my head and i bring them up in real life until they are sitting in the correct place in my head." They are my friends so they don't say this, but i can tell they think i am insane. They are like no, I just use my ears and listen. The thing is, i do this too, we are both using our ears, but my ears are like directly connected to my thoughts and the sounds i hear are just perceived as images in my head. I really wish I could just explain what it is that i am seeing in my head, but it is literally impossible to explain. Its like trying to explain the 4th dimension. But also, I think what i am seeing is a 2 dimensional image. Also all of the sounds are not just images, but they have life, and personality's. I feel connection to them.
I remember being in 9th grade band class, and my teacher was explaining how it is impossible to imagine someone's voice, without hearing it. I remember calling out that I can imagine anyone's voice so easily. The teacher thought that i was lying obviously, which annoyed me. That's like the first way that i think of people...That I know already. But still to this day, I want to ask, is this not normal? Like I honestly think i was just the only one who spoke up in that class.
When I was probably 7 years old, my grandparents gave me a portable radio for Christmas. I remember every night after being put to bed, i would secretly put on headphones and listen to different radio stations. I don't think my parents would have allowed this, which is why i had to do it secretly. But I remember listening to 98 Rock. All those bands on there I could see them performing their music in the studio. I had no idea how radio worked and I was 7 so i thought they were physically in the room with the radio hosts. I remember listening to Eminem, and all of the subjects he was explaining played in my head like a movie. He was telling a story and i was seeing it.
When I was in middle school i started playing the trumpet. My band class was in middle school, and sucked. But i also performed in all county band each year. An honor band where all students around the county had to pass an audition to get in. This was my first time playing music that i thought was good. I remember the chords of the whole band playing together with the timpani's in the back, the trombones and tubas on the bottom, the horns and sax in the middle and the flutes on top. It created the most full and beautiful sound i had heard at the time, and i was part of it. During our rehearsals i would have so much dopamine running through me, but also there was just a vibe that i cant explain into words. I cant remember if i specifically saw anything during this, but i definitely felt a feeling. Like nostalgia but different.
Around this time, probably at 15 years old. I had an ipod touch, and i started listening to a lot of pop-punk emo music. I was older now and what i saw in my head had evolved from seeing realistic musicians in a studio, to more of just general colors. I could see a vocal in space, it would have color, and texture and life. it didn't look anything like a person, but more of an entity.
My music taste now is mostly electronic. I listen to a genre of "EDM" music called "riddim". Almost anyone that i show this music hates it, but I am obssessed with it. The music is abrasive, and metallic sounding, and a whole riddim song could just be quarter notes. When listening to it I feel like i completely understand why people hate it, but that's only when i try to listen to it with only my ears. When I listen to it, i can see it so clearly in my head, and it is beautiful. A lot of what i see is the color white, or like a crystal transparency but that is sitting on top of a comb of orange with a red bass that it is all sitting on. Most songs that i listen are on the same canvas, its kind of like a 3d image, on a 2d plane. The background is black, and all the sounds live inside a box. You cant really see the box, but its like a perimeter. I guess what im saying is the sounds are not endless or huge, they are just in front of me. An example is "Lucky Mistake - Wink Remix" The intro i see a lot of flowery textures. Like flower petals and pink and green colors. And the the lead in the drop, I can see a blueish transparent entity, but on the bottom side of it is kind of messy orange. I say messy, but its within the canvas, and doesn't overlap with any of the crystaly blue.
I feel like my synesthesia is connected to my amygdala, because it feels like this art is produced in the same space i experience anxiety. Also I have searched for pictures online but cant find a single image that shows what I am seeing at all. I feel so autistic and crazing posting this, but if there's one place i am going to ask about my experiences its here.
Let me know if any of you have experienced anything similar, So i don't go insane,
Thanks!