Need Help With Story: Seeing Sounds

[shardsofnarsil]

I am trying to write a story that involves a main character who sees sounds as colors with his right eye (but he sees normally with his left eye). I have begun to research online and have found that there is a genuine medical condition, synesthesia (or synaesthesia), in which people's senses get confused, and they see sounds (among other things).

 

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows a lot about this condition and could give me some specifics (if not, I'll just wade through a myriad of internet pages).

 

I especially would like to know about the form the color takes when a sound is heard. Do the colors shoot out from the source like rays of light and just kinda dissipate with distance? Does the light continue only as long as the sound is being produced? Does volume affect the intensity of the light? Or does the object just kind of take on a color? I'm just trying to obtain a mental image of what it would be like to have this form of synesthesia. But any other related comments would still be helpful. Thanks!

 

Edmond the Hun

[reverse]

huh?

 

you mean sees colours as sounds with the bung eye.

 

I know something about this...but I cant remember...isn’t there some drug that produces this side effect...

[Glider]

I am trying to write a story that involves a main character who sees sounds as colors with his right eye (but he sees normally with his left eye). I have begun to research online and have found that there is a genuine medical condition' date=' synesthesia (or synaesthesia), in which people's senses get confused, and they see sounds (among other things).

 

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows a lot about this condition and could give me some specifics (if not, I'll just wade through a myriad of internet pages).

 

I especially would like to know about the form the color takes when a sound is heard. Do the colors shoot out from the source like rays of light and just kinda dissipate with distance? Does the light continue only as long as the sound is being produced? Does volume affect the intensity of the light? Or does the object just kind of take on a color? I'm just trying to obtain a mental image of what it would be like to have this form of synesthesia. But any other related comments would still be helpful. Thanks!

 

Edmond the Hun[/quote']

You could do worse than read "The Man Who Tasted Shapes" by Richard E. Cytowic.

 

As far as a the actual perceptions go, it's different for every individual.

[j_p]

Why the split functionality in the eyes?

[jdurg]

huh?

 

you mean sees colours as sounds with the bung eye.

 

I know something about this...but I cant remember...isn’t there some drug that produces this side effect...

 

LSD, Peyote, PCP, Psilocybin, and to a VERY small extent THC can all produce this synesthesia effect. Basically, the class of drugs known as hallucinogens create this 'effect' in the brain by altering the way the brain interprets signals. The most commonly known drug to do this is LSD as people will swear that they 'hear visions and see sounds'. To a great extent, it's just a lot of exaggeration. What you mainly see is that when there is an intense sound, your vision will get these 'flashes' of color or alterations to what you are seeing. Kind of like when you get those flashes in your vision after rubbing your eyes too hard. Only when it's synesthesia, these flashes will genrally have some type of coloration to them and occur due to the perception of sound.

 

The typical effect is that the user's vision will become altered so that when they are looking at something, it's like they are looking at it through a mixture of oil and water. The stories you commonly hear of 'Oh I saw the walls bleeding and purple elephants flying through the sky' are generally gross exaggerations told by the user in order to make the experience that much more 'intense' in the eyes of others.

[atinymonkey]

Isn't the comic character 'Daredevil' someone with the ability to see sounds?

[YT2095]

Isn't the comic character 'Daredevil' someone with the ability to see sounds?

 

Yup

[CanadaAotS]

I assume it would work by louder signs = brighter colors, and higher pitch sounds = higher spectrum color... ex, a loud low pitch noise would be bright red and a low high pitch noise would be dark blue / purple. Also, if the afflicted eye still has its old functions as well, I doubt it would be able to see any direction of the sound, other then maybe it brightening more (getting louder) when you turn towards it...

 

hope that helps!

[shardsofnarsil]

Thanks for all the info! The split functionality is necessary to explain a crucial part of the plot... as I currently have it, he gets beat up and his left eye is punched, causing him to temporarily lose sight in that eye. That means he can only see with his right eye---or, only see sounds, not light. This causes him to be really dazed and confused, relating to why he falls into the water (it's just slightly complicated).

 

Basically, I needed him to temporarily only be able to see sounds, and the first thing I came up with was for each eye to be different, and one of them to be temporarily knocked out.