Searching synesthesia the threads that came up never really touched upon this specific topic so…
I have synesthesia, for those that don’t know it’s a (correct my terminology if I’m using words oddly here) a sensory crossover disease, some people taste sounds, some smell being touched, some like me “see” music (sound in general really, but music is the most noticable one, I’ve never really noticed it much while talking or anything). Meaning specifically in my case certain types of chords and sounds and such will literally come off as textures and colors. It’s not too bad, I’ve hever had issues listening to music while walking or passing out from sensory overload (I heard it could happen), so it’s really not troublesome for me at all, in fact it may actually aid in my playing/composing music because I have multiple ways to see if things are working together well whereas many people only have one.
Now that you have background on what it is (for those that didn’t know), I was wondering if anyone thinks it’s possible (or likely) that people that claim to see auras really just have an odd form of synesthesia, possibly connected either with sight-subsets (they see a persion who’s shaped a certian way and designate them subconsciously as a “blue” and have a little blue hue around that person), or some sort of emotion-sight crossover (rather than the typical “5 senses” included normally in the description).
I say the last one because I’ve known one person who claimed to see auras, peppy people were generally a “green” shy generally an “orange” and so on. But the thing that really gets me is whenever she was mad at someone “their aura’s changed, they’re a completely different person.” That doesn’t sound like some mystical power to see into the cosmos and see a person’s true colors (pun not intended), that sounds to me like some sort of visual correlation with how they feel about someone at the moment, especially when you talk to the other person and nothing at all has been changed about them.
So what does every one think about a correlation between synesthesia and “auras”?
Seeing auras was supposedly debunked by blind experiments, but I think it requires analyzing the subject’s countenance (subconsciously) to function properly…and it makes sense that the same person’s aura can change because people’s moods change.
I do not see auras but I feel them very strongly, probably through reading facial expression/tone of voice etc. This ability runs through my family as well. And we have the ability to connect faces/voices of different people in a unique way.
For ex, last night I went to an open mic and this guy says he’s a great musician but can’t sing his songs well…I immediately realize he sings like an out-of-tune Cher. Then the next guy goes up there and I peg him as a Jennifer Tilly sound-alike. Similar facial relationships pop up automatically like this as well. It’s probably related to my ability to sense aura. Maybe I have a huge mental encyclopedia of faces/voices that I cross-reference to gain this extra sense.
Unfortunately it can be a burden as well. I like to use the Rogue analogy…the auras I sense become a part of me for a while (or permanently) and a night around a lot of ‘troubled’ people will make me feel terrible for hours. The upside is when the people around me are feeling good I get extremely uplifted.
Anyway, I think the ability to sense aura is based on your memory of countenance/voices, possibly smells, etc. Synesthesia might be linked to a heightened ability to sense and remember this kind of stuff because memory is so dependent on cross-reference (and synesthesia is, by definition, cross-referencing the senses).
I’m sorry to be rude, but how is this in any way special? Anyone who isn’t autistic will be influenced by the mood of those around them. Some people are more sensitive than others but I can’t see what that has to do with “auras”.
I’ve got to say this sounds more like an opinion than anything else - I constantly cross-reference different tunes and vocal techniques, but would only consider this a fairly normal recognition of similarities.
As for the OP though, I am pretty taken by the idea. It makes much more sense to my sceptical mind that ‘auras’ should be in the eye of the beholder, and I imagine that synaesthetic perception of normally fairly intangible moods could help the synaesthete get a handle on what they would otherwise only subliminally detect when encountering a person.
Mine (very mild) is a pain in the ass. Specifically when playing Guitar Hero, because the second finger (red) and third finger (yellow) are the wrong way round. Everybody knows that second is yellow and third is red.
I’ll probably get some mild derision for this, but - I’ve intermittently been able to see auras, and I’ve never had any other indication of synesthesia. It happens without my control, at random intervals, and I’ve honestly never been able to discern any correlation between the person’s mood or personality and the color(s) I see.
For me, it appears as a wavy light surrounding the person - mostly clear, but shot through with various light shades, usually green and blue. It closely resembles heat waves off of a hot road.
hmmm… I dont see auras, but I often see the colors someone is speaking instead of “hearing” them. It’s not constant though, and I can’t demand it to happen.
This is an interesting question. I just learned that my son has synesthesia. When he was 5, he said his eye “went black” but after a number of tests in the hospital, they said maybe it was just “optical migraines”, like the auras sometimes associated with migraine headaches. I have no idea what is really going on in that head of his. He has Tourette Syndrome, too.
This isn’t necessarily what optical migraines are: It’s entirely possible to have just the optical component without the pain, and you don’t always get anything as interesting as auras or bizarre wheels-within-wheels Old-Testament-angels visual hallucinations.
I have optical migraines and mine begin as a field of random flashes in the center of my field of vision that gradually expands into a field of ‘black static’ (think old-fashioned analog TV static, but black instead of white) with the flashes on the periphery. This changes shape to bracket the center of my field of vision on one side or the other (usually the right side, I think), and grows outwards like a shock wave with constant width but increasing radius until it’s grown all the way out of my visual field. This is associated with, at most, extremely mild pain at some undefinable location in my head.
I used to “see auras” when I was a teenager. It made me very popular with the hippies I babysat for. I never really saw anything at all, just rendered an opinion as to what color I first thought of in association with that individual. I think I was successful, whatever that means, for the same reason those quack “psychics” who talk to the audience’s dead relatives are believed by so many people. I was just right enough just often enough for people who wanted to believe in this “gift” to convince themselves I had named their colors correctly. For instance, if I tell Larry his aura is crimson with a touch of gold, Larry hears red and yellow which he thinks of as warm colors, and he’s always kind of thought of himself as a warm person, and there ya go, another convert. The people who don’t get a color they can agree with are easily ignored, of course.
This morning I discovered that the kid (3 yrs old) has it same as me, in that she associates gender with genderless abstractions. Specifically, in this instance, the months of the year. We had a friendly argument about whether August was a boy (obviously) or a girl. (She also said December was female. Nuts, right?)
I saw an red, bolt-shaped aura leap from a friend while he was in a fit of rage. Also, I saw an exhaled breath as a white mist during prayer, which I interpreted as an expression of purity or love. These are the only two times in my life of 42 years I’ve seen what I would consider an aura.
However, pain and darkness are easier to recognize. I can frequently recognize someone high on drugs by the quality not of their behavior or facial expressions, but by the “dark cloud” which surrounds them. Not drugs generally, I mean opiates like heroin, specifically.
I went through a period in my life where I would smell blood when I heard a certain song. Or at least I thought I did. It was a Robert Hunter song, lyrics about a newborn baby. Nothing negative to it.
There have been times when what I am interpreting visually was “sensed” in a tactile fashion in my fingertips, hands…if I am looking at a guardrail while driving, I am feeling the sensation of a guardrail…I look at a cat and feel the softness of the cat, or the surface of a corkboard when I see that…whatever. It is not purposeful…it just happens. I’ve thought it was a kind of synaesthasia, but it could also be some kind of semi-involuntary compulsion on my part, too I guess.
I think that intellectually interpreting visual stimuli is such a complex process, very closely tied to the intuition, also mysterious, and occurring in microseconds. Convergent processes, difficult to tease apart.
Well I used to see auras as kind of a colored glow around people. As a child I put it down to just what people looked like, and in fact the interpretation of certain religious figures in art, with round things around their heads–well, that was kind of what it looked like, only to me the color wasn’t always yellow.
Then of course I heard about auras and all that, so I’m thinking that’s what it is.
Except–I also have seen these things around dogs, cats, horses, and inanimate objects such as my fax machine and a file cabinet in my office (whose aura is purple with a thin green edge).
I should add that also, I have pretty bad vision–corrected, but not all that well.
August is female BTW, and I think that might be because eight is pink, but December is definitely a boy.
I know this is really old and I doubt OP is still checking. But does anyone else have that thing where you close your eyes and listen and you see colors? or is that synesthesia