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Synaesthesia before psychedelics?

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Mitakuye Oyasin

Mitakuye Oyasin

Established member
Has anyone ever experienced synaesthesia (sensory crossover) before taking psychedelics? If yes was there something that triggered it or is it a natural state of mind? Always interested in peoples experiences of reality. Thanks.
 
I have always had a sound/color, number/color and letter/color association ever since I was a kid.

It was how I taught myself to play the piano. I never bothered with sheet music, I'd just watch the colors I heard in a song and smash around keys until I figured it out. It was a mental/intuitive thing.

Certain letters, numbers, and numerical combinations have always been very specific colors to me. Also, when I was a kid, I used to be the person everyone laughed at, because every time we played Around The World, I would relentlessly loop through everyone in the classroom two or three times before having to sit down. I performed basic addition and subtraction astronomically faster than most of my peers. (*Synaesthesia didn't work for algebra, and that was when I ran from the sciences screaming... :p )

It does apparently happen to a percentage of people. Cannabis has always been amazing for listening to music because it enhances what feels like the natural synaesthesia I experienced; other psychedelics, like Ayahuasca, mushrooms, and DMT, however, seem to give me visions independent of external stimulus that feel very much like something else.
 
Synesthesia is so interesting. I recall this one very interesting story about a man named Daniel Tammet. He has crazy style synesthesia. His synesthesia helped him to learn icelandic in one week and Icelandic is considered to be one of the hardest language to learn in all the world. Just look him up on wikipedia. It's crazy.

I actually wish that I had synesthesia. It seems like there would be so many cool things about it. But then again, I might just be thinking the grass is greener on the other side. I wonder if there is any way to cause a state of permanent and useful synesthesia in someone who never had it before.
 
I have always had a colour/letter colour/number synesthesia - I believe I inhereted it from my mother. When trying to remember a word, I tend to remember only the colours... Therefore I have some trouble remembering new words, since for example R, S, and T are almost indentical shades of red. Same goes for I, J, C, O, whom all are light-gray-shiny-ish letters. Numbers on the other hand, I find much easier, since there only is ten different numbers! Haha

Also, when thinking about a name, there's usually a mental painting coming up in my mind - for example is the name Magnus red in the corners and the frame of the "picture", light neon green at the left side, a dot dark grey-purple in the middle and subtly light blue and orange at the right.
 
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