| s y n e s t h e s i a |

I hear color.

Eh...sort of.

I have grapheme-color synesthesia, which is a common form of sensory pairing. Being a musician, and understanding what semantics go into understanding and learning music add a whole dimension to the idea of metaphor, perception and language. I hope you enjoy this video essay on everything Synesthesia.

The book I referenced the most in this video - definitely check it out if you enjoyed my video. A great overview!

If you really dig this video, DEFINITELY check out Dr. Ramachandran's lecture, this is amazing.

Thin-thick languages versus high-low in english

Jamie Ward's paper on the multi-modal basis of synesthesia

HOW DO WE KNOW SYNESTHETES AREN'T JUST MAKING IT UP? Well...Stroop interference for one.

Are you a Synesthete?

Table of the different kinds of synesthesia and their occurance

Prevalance of synesthesia

That Tommy Edison blind guy color video I mentioned.

fMRI scans of synesthetes

Cross-Modal Perception

Synesthesia is in fact ideasthesia - experiencing of concepts

|~|

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Peace,
Adam

[lemonslisterine]

PROTIP: Make sure the notes and the colours are in the SAME KEY

[shimtest]

i'm color blind and i think you're all nuts

[faith]

OH MY GOD AS A CHILD I ALWAYS CAME UP WITH PERSONALITIES FOR NUMBERS AND I NEVER KNEW THAT WAS A THING

[fluteloopsyd]

*OH MY GOSH!* Yesterday in band class, we were warming up and playing chorales, and the band director said *"The band is playing yellow. Can you play more purple?"* AND I SMILED SOOO BIG!

[RijuChatterjee]

I'm starting to have vsausthesia. I associate Adam Neely with Vsauce

[jadeblades]

I lost it when you slowly said kiki and bouba

[TheAwesomeGingerGuy]

if i see another Yousician advert i'll smash the fucking screen in

[TheDutchCreeperTDC]

Is nobody gonna talk about the fact that that car explosion at 4:00 is from the music video from All Star...

[JCavLP]

I bet having a bass with colored frets would be hella satisfying for you

[terminaldeity]

When I was a kid, I thought everyone experienced music this way. When I was like 16, I was in a band, and at practice during a songwriting session, I started talking about "yellow" part of the song, and everyone looked at me like "wut." I struggled to explain what I meant. Didn't find out about synesthesia until a few years later, and everything clicked.

[Victor-dgwm]

I agreed with all your colorings of the letters until you gave my boy E the color purple

[logmethekcufin]

A little praise for you, Adam:
I forwarded your video to a Professor, who has been doing scientific research about this topic for years. He thinks, it is pretty accurate and particularly likes the visual effects you used. A good insight for non-synesthisians into this extraordinary sense of perception.

[patrickhodson]

I’ve always loved that in musical metaphorical language, when describing tone, bright is the opposite of warm.

[MyTubeUtoo]

*Person:* "Hey Adam, what key is this tune in?" *Adam:* "Robin's Egg Blue."

[LordPaxr]

I'm bilingual (Spanish is my motherlanguaje), and synesthesic, so, for me the numbers, the sound of the letters, the days of the week and the chords sounds different in both languages, for example: Tuestday is purple, meanwhile 'Martes' (tuesday in spanish) is green

[bennettmickley]

I learned that my synesthesia on the circle of fifths makes a perfect rainbow.

Edit: For anyone who is curious, here are the colors I see based on each note:
C-chartreuse to lime green
G-cyan to sky blue
D-azure
A-blue
E-navy to indigo
B-dark lavender
F#/Gb-dark magenta to quinacridone magenta
C#/Db-burgundy
G#/Ab-blood red
D#/Eb-orange
A#/Bb-butterscotch orange
F-goldenrod yellow

[sharpiepaws]

3:45 my mom has this, and because of it people in our house have to be careful about playing too many sounds at the same time. you can't have music playing, the tv going, and a conversation at the same time cause it'll overwhelm her too much with all the colors lol

[MichaelRicksAherne]

Sometimes I think I have some sort of limited sound-emotion synesthesia. Certain music and tones cause me to get highly emotional, but in ways that don't make sense. Like I'll spontaneously start crying at some random music in an ad, or sometimes even just a sustained chord on strings. But it's not like "sad" chords or music. It's just a normal sound, or sometimes even "happy" music -- but I get this weird uncontrollable tear-jerking reaction.

[ilovelij]

People often focus on colour when talking about synesthesia, but for me, though there are overarching colours for some songs, my visual representations of sounds are more about texture than anything else.

[kianar]

As someone with Synesthesia this is the best explanation I’ve heard so far. Everyone I try to explain it to just look at me like I’m crazy. I have a lot of the forms except the taste and word one. I used to think everyone felt/saw color when they listened to music or when thinking of numbers and letters or days of the weeks and months. I also didn’t used to know that not everyone felt/saw a geographical map of all the numbers and that they have personalities until like 2 years ago. Now every time I have to explain it I will just show this video.