Synaesthesia
Synaesthesia
Synaesthesia or synesthesia is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.
The composer is not involved, so this is not strictly speaking spiritual experience in its strict sense of composer provided input. But synaesthetes have a unique role to play in the interpretation of the spiritual which is extremely exciting, more will be revealed in a moment.
Some more detail. In ‘ visual motion to sound’ synesthesia, sounds are heard in response to visual motion and flicker. The reverse is also possible, you can hear sounds from visual images. You can taste sounds and taste images. You can ‘see’ the touch of a feather, hear the touch of a squeeze of the hand. And of course in the example above, we can experience sensations of touch in response to sounds or visual input.
Functionally, what is happening is that the input signals from the nervous system are being sent to the wrong sensory processing function. The nervous system ‘hardware’ is sending the input to the wrong sensory ‘software’ system.

It is a little like playing a music CD using the program interpreter of the computer, or playing music on the computer, but getting the image processing software to do the interpretation. I hope that you can now see that we are functional beings not hardware beings, as such our ‘software’ can also malfunction temporarily or permanently and we can get some odd loose connections between the hardware and the software. Some people have permanent synaesthesia, but drugs including pharmaceuticals can also produce synaesthesia.
Normally when we experience any form of sensation, the signals that go to the brain are electronic signals – physical signals in other words – that are interpreted by the processes in the brain – the sensory processes. Thus, if I try to show this in a simple diagram, the red boxes show the physical organ from which signals are sent and the yellow boxes are the sensory processes. When the taste buds send us a signal we taste something, when the ears hear something complex signals are relayed to the brain and we hear something.
During synaesthesia, the input gets sent to the wrong process, we may taste smells received by our nose, or hear images relayed by our eyes, we may alternatively see images of what we have heard or feel, or maybe smell those images. We may get odd touch sensations resulting from things we are eating….
One might think of it almost as a form of crossed wires.
But synaesthetes have a tremendous gift which is key to any understanding of the spiritual world - they are the Rosetti stone of the experiencers - through them and only them we may crack the code of the Word.
More details can be found in the following sections
Observations
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- 'Delusional parasitosis'
- 65 per cent of Londoners have had a religious, spiritual, ecstatic, sacred, paranormal or mystical experience
- A Journey to Heaven, a Journey to Hell DOM by J. Andersen
- A somatic type delusional disorder secondary to peripheral neuropathy: a case report
- A Strangely Isolated Place LSD & Massage by DayTripper
- Acute Effects of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide in Healthy Subjects
- Alix Fox - when love is scented with lemons, life with olfactory synaesthesia
- Am I possessed?
- Aphex Twin - An interview on inspiration
- Appalling chloroform headache
- Arthur, James D - 13 A profound feeling of direction
- Ashton R - Becoming a tree and little pills
- Ball, Dr Martin - On Sound and Structure
- Banned from a store from chloroform
- Ben sees the quality of thought
- Billy Joel - The River of Dreams
- Bird Chirping Overtones DiPT & Cannabis by Flying Hamster
- Brain damage from butane
- Brennan, Barbara - Hands of Light
- Brian - The Iridescent Column of Everything
- Butane permanent brain damage
- Cannabis and morning glory seeds - by Waking dream
- Cayce, Edgar - Sees auras
- Cocaine
- cRUNk4L1f3 - No Fun: An Experience with Bupropion (Wellbutrin)
- Custance, John - Wisdom, Madness and Folly - Enhanced perception in mania
- Custance, John - Wisdom, Madness and Folly - The 'fully alive' state of mania
- David Lewis-Williams - A sensation felt on the skin may be perceived as ‘blue’
- David Lewis-Williams - Native American Indians - Isaac Tens
- David Lewis-Williams - On synaesthesia
- DMT & Alprazolam (Xanax) - Trip to outer space
- DMT - PippUK - Synchronicity and a prayer
- Douglas Coupland - The sudden gain of synaesthesia
- DPT & Cannabis - Meets the spirit being of the drugs
- Dr Alicia feels their pain
- Dr James Terrill - The nature of the LSD experience
- Dr Philip diagnoses illness
- Duke Ellington & John Coltrane - In a sentimental mood
- Epilepsy from stress of divorce
- Escitalopram and Lexapro
- Ether butterflies
- Fall Out Boy - Dance, Dance - Patrick Stump
- Farrelly, Frances - Diagnosing TB in the ear
- Farrelly, Frances - Pain in the bum
- Farrelly, Frances - Remote diagnosis using blood
- Ficino, Marsilio - Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus - On harmony and synaesthesia
- Fioricet - Hallucination figures from eHealthme
- Fiorinal - eHealthme figures for hallucinations
- Fuckers came at him from all sides
- Gardner, Ingrid - The hypothesis of the unit of energy
- Gautier, Theophile - A never ending swarm of myriads of butterflies
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Crystals can have auras too
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Diagnoses Cushing's syndrome
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Diagnoses Graves' disease
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Diagnoses Paget's disease
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Diagnoses Pituitary gland problems
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Diagnoses Temporal lobe epilepsy
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Diagnoses Thyroid problems
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Diagnosing heart problems
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Fluorite flows with sound
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Myrrh and its aura
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Predicting disease
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Red spots all over the emotional field
- Gelder Kunz, Dora van - Seeing the templates
- Generalized argyrosis in man: neurotological, ultrastructural and X-ray microanalytical findings
- Ginsberg, Allen - From High Priest - Mind machines
- Glutton for punishment on ether
- Gyorgy Ligeti - Atmospheres
- Gysin, Brion - Effects of using a Dream machine
- Gysin, Brion - Various paintings
- Hamilton, Dr Allan - The Aura of Death
- Hearing original music
- Hearing voices that sing to him
- Heywood, Rosalind - The Infinite Hive - I indulged in three out-of-the-body type experiences
- Hockney, David - A Bigger Grand Canyon 1998
- Hockney, David - A Bigger Picture
- Hockney, David - A bigger splash
- Hockney, David - Forests and trees
- Hockney, David - Fred & Marcia Weisman 1968
- Hockney, David - Lady Midnight songs - 1 Spring
- Hockney, David - Lady Midnight songs - 2 Summer
- Hockney, David - Lady Midnight songs - 3 Autumn
- Hockney, David - Lady Midnight songs - 4 Winter
- Hockney, David - Landscapes
- Hockney, David - Li Shangyin - 1 Swallow terrace, Spring
- Hockney, David - Li Shangyin - 2 Swallow terrace, Summer
- Hockney, David - Li Shangyin - 3 Swallow terrace, Autumn
- Hockney, David - Li Shangyin - 4 Swallow terrace, Winter
- Hockney, David - Li Shangyin - Untitled poem
- Hockney, David - Lithographs
- Hockney, David - Peter Getting Out Of Nick's Pool
- Hockney, David - Pools
- Hockney, David - Saltaire
- Hockney, David - Spring
- Hockney, David - Trees
- Hockney, David - Trees in Summer
- Hockney, David - Yorkshire hedgerows
- Hofmann, Dr Albert - The LSD experience
- IBS and synaesthesia
- Incense smell in Raynham Hall
- Instant winner! 2C-C by psydkik
- Intense Sadness and Analyzing My Personality - DOI & Various by Psychedelic*Dreamer
- James - Goa - A baggie of mushrooms
- Jonathan Ott - Journal of Psychedelic Drugs - Mushrooms and no toast
- Joscelyn Godwin - Shabda yoga and the inner sound
- Julian of Norwich - AFTER this the Fiend came again with his heat and with his stench
- Known each other before
- Koestler, Arthur - Return trip to Nirvana - Mushrooms
- Lethbridge, T C - The Power of the Pendulum – It made a lovely pink sound
- Lilly, John - On tripping and full OBEs into infinite distances
- Lucid dream of insects
- Lycaeum forum - First LSD experience
- Macmillan smells perfume
- Mad itching - 'sensory hallucinations of pruritogenic stimuli'
- Manning, Matthew - The Link - 15 Starting to see auras
- Masters and Houston - Transmutation into another substance
- Maureen Seaberg - Tasting the Universe
- Menopause and mental disorders
- Michaux, Henri - Miserable Miracle Mescaline - Mescaline and Hashish compared
- Mind machine
- Miss Salt and her lover
- Moody Blues - Departure
- Moody Blues - The Word
- Mr Wilcox's carbuncle
- Mrs Aldridge's blue aura
- Mrs Croft's cancer
- My mind is falling down through the pillow
- Nabokov, Vladimir - Speak, Memory - Coloured hearing
- Near death from Freon
- Nefopam
- Neil Harbisson - I listen to colour
- New Recruit - Pins and needles, and a tunnel
- Nuages Gris - Felt so weird he wasn't sure he was breathing
- Nuages Gris - Itchy paradoxes
- Olfactory hallucinations in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder
- Oliver Sacks - Bedtime patterns
- Oliver Sacks - The twins, numbers and celestial music
- Olivier Messiaen - Inspired by celestial music
- Ordinary woman uncommon aura
- Osmond, Dr Humphry - A negative adrenochrome experience
- Osmond, Dr Humphry - Peyote night
- Ossowiecki, Stefan - seeing auras
- Pericles Diamendi - Prodigy and calculator
- Pet Store Treasure by Shard
- Pharrell Williams - N.E.R.D. - Seeing sounds
- PiHKAL - GANESHA - Closed eye visuals
- Poisoning from myelography
- Primidone - eHealthme figures
- Professor Carmagnola witnesses the little girl who could hear with her shoulders and see with her hands
- Professor Lombroso witnesses the little blind girl who could smell with her feet and see with her nose
- Prototype-2 - Becoming a pile of sand
- Psilocybin occasioned mystical-type experiences: Immediate and persisting dose-related effects [FULL PAPER]
- PubMed - Kratom, Morphine, Salvia Divinorum and pain relief
- Quakers - Holy rollers rolling
- Quincey, Thomas de - Music invokes the display of the whole of my past life
- Robert Cailliau - Co-inventor of the WWW
- Romano, Jacques - Avoiding a train crash
- Sabriye Tenberken
- Saint-Martin, Louis Claude de - L'Homme du Desir - Things were not as they are in our gloomy dwelling
- Salvinorin A - Caves and prickling
- Salvorin A - Gwyllm becomes Medusa
- Seeing 'lights' the aura
- Seeing historical events in detail
- Sensing illness using hands
- Seventeen lost years from Vallium
- Shereshevsky, Soloman - Every sound produced an experience of light and colour
- Shereshevsky, Soloman - Mental walks to aid recall
- Shereshevsky, Soloman - The effects of synaesthesia
- Shereshevsky, Soloman - Words and vivid images
- Sibelius - Karl Ekman quoting Sibelius on his synaesthesia
- Sleeping pills cause hallucinations
- Sleeping tablets sent me bonkers
- Soav - Loud rhythmic tinny sounds
- Solvent abuse causes brain damage and paranoia
- Soustelle - Aztecs and Mexica - Diagnosing disease
- Stead, William - part 01 - Jingle bells, tunes and small dogs
- Surgeon changes to healing GP
- Swann, Ingo - Sees the aura
- Sylvie and Bruno - As there was only one cluster of hare-bells
- Szalay, Attila - I was lying in bed when I heard a series of flutelike sounds
- TED talk - Daniel Tammet - Different ways of knowing
- The Squid - Gets synaesthesia
- Thelmar, E – 02 Hearing bursts of music
- TIHKAL - Alexander Shulgin - DiPT
- TIKHAL - Alexander Shulgin - AL-LAD
- TIKHAL - Alexander Shulgin - DET
- Tyaga the Road of Fire - 01
- Unable to cope with the voices
- Voluntary self destruction on Adderall
- Wanted to die after chloroform
- Watson, Lyall - On synaesthesia
- Waugh, Evelyn - He acquired a memory 'not at all hazy - just sharp, detailed and dead wrong'
- William Burroughs et al - Chapel of Extreme Experience
- William Lopez
- Yeats, Georgie - A Vision - Sweet smells