Seeing Sound: How Synesthesia Can Change Our Thinking | Annie Dickinson | TEDxYouth@Lancaster

I have a neurological condition this one that affects about 4% of the general population it's a condition where two or more senses of the brain are crossed the stimulation of one sensory pathway involuntarily leads the stimulation of another which can create some unique perceptions of the world so the affected person it's called synesthesia meaning a blending of the senses people who have synesthesia are known as synesthetes force in US v the sound of a passing car can create the taste of cherries and the touch of a cotton blanket can create a sound like falling rings well there are many different types of synesthesia my particular synesthesia is a connection of sound and color often referred to as chroma stiva colors caused me to hear sound and sound causes me to see color for example and talking to you right now can see a cloud of violet purple appear right about here my field of vision because the sound of my voice causes me to see purple that purple cloud is present every time I use my speaking voice every one of your voices has a unique color as well there's Elizabeth breath the emcee of this event has a voice that is turquoise blue objects that make noise also produce the color if I snap my fingers there's a cloud of fuchsia that appears and disappears almost as quickly as it came while similar pitches share the same color the timbre of the sound can slightly alter the shade and attend city of the color cloud that I see if you think that this might become distracting or overwhelming at times you would be right and it might be one of the reasons why I love music so much when I listen to music I can hear the different melodies and the different musical elements as most people can but I can also physically see the music dance through the air most music produces beautifully synchronized light shows for me I didn't realize that this wasn't the normal perception till it started last year planning my freshman year singing test for choir I had just finished singing and my teacher asked me what color I thought my voice was without missing a beat I answered purple I her confused look told me that is not the answer she was expecting she had been talking about tone color and was expecting an answer like bright I have been talking about actual color needless to say it was a new discovery to find out my perceptions were not shared by the rest of the population I had just assumed that everyone saw the world in this colorful way that I did I remember going through a period of time where I felt like a weirdo and a freak of nature I now know that my fears were unfounded but at the time whose especially insecure about it as a musician it made sense for me to turn to music to get rid of all that insecurity I started creating electronic music to help me explore and come to terms with the synesthesia and what it meant for my life I started creating music that produced colors I liked and being able to produce something the exact colorful effect that I wanted was definitely therapeutic it wasn't long before I had enough songs to release a short album which I've titled synesthesia every song had a distinct new color of course no one else would actually be able to see what I was seeing when they listen to any of the pieces but it was important to me to present my full reality with synesthesia woven tightly throughout in a tangible public before one of my favorite songs of that album was called sleep to dream it came about as I was discovering more about how colors interacted with each other for me I was lying awake one night as I often do it couldn't fall asleep and there's an analog clock that hangs on my wall I've had to take it out of my room on several occasions because it just goes tick tick tick and I just see red red red and turn makes it almost impossible to fall asleep so it's lying awake listening to this chick red and I thought oh only I can make this red red red go away if you remember from elementary school the complementary color to red is green so I brought this song sleep to drink with the intention of creating a dark green color that would cancel out the red of the clock in a sense it's a lullaby to help myself get to sleep and that's the vocals come in it's my color purple so the song ends of this very floaty purple color I think complements the dark green beautifully I have a video here of sleep to dream that will hopefully give you a sense of what I see when I listen to this song you will need to imagine that the screen is much larger and takes up your whole field of vision and that the black you see in the background it's the world around you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I have learned to embrace my synesthesia now I'm more willing to talk about it with others as I learned more about myself I realized I could use synesthesia I understand more about those around me and people that I know well I have noticed that the color of their voice can change just slightly based on how they are feeling the person is getting sick feeling overly stressed or just not feeling like themselves I can often perceive this based on a change in their voice color when my dad is just about to get a cold it's normally bright shade of robin's egg blue changes to a much darker shade of blue and one time at work I could sense that my coworker was on the verge of a panic attack and I encouraged her to take a break to head it off this isn't some sort of magical ability or anything I've simply learned but the more I listen to a person the more I'm able to understand about them think about that for a minute the more I listen to a person more I'm able to understand about them for the past few minutes you have been listening to my voice you have listened to me describe a condition you may and may not have heard before I acknowledge that I cannot prove to you that synesthesia even exists or even that I do indeed have it and yet I am betting you believe I'm telling you the truth about how I perceived the world you came today with an open mind ready to experience something new and you allowed me to speak and I shared my thoughts and experiences our society seems to be one in which we think we are all experts the tendency is to quickly insist that our ideas opinions and perspectives are the only ones that are valid the comments section of YouTube video reveals that it only takes about 30 seconds for an individual to completely understand which is going on in a video and they can make authoritative and sweeping judgments about a videos content many of which appear to be false after a few minutes of research in short anything that does not line up with our personal experiences or our vantage point often dismissed as untrue or fabricated but you did not do that today you came with an open mind and allowed me to speak in order to experience the full diversity colour of our society we must give people the chance to speak and to speak often we must learn to listen with an open mind and give consistent voice to those around us synesthesia has taught me that the world is bigger than any one person's experiences conflicting perceptions do not have to lead to battles which strike down one view and declare another victorious has seen in so many posts on social media how much less conflict would there be and how much different what our news Facebook we began if their minds open to the idea than another's viewpoint while different is equally true and equally real if we won about our daily interactions the intention of keeping an open mind to all ideas opinions the viewpoints that's I believe we have the potential to better our communities and better our society how much less conflict about there be if we allow others to live in their truth by omitting that the human experience has the potential to range far beyond what we understand or perceive we have waded into a world that is alive with color if you can accept my experiences with synesthesia this ones that are true and valid regardless of never experiencing them yourself or possibly not even understanding them then surely you can learn to accept ideas and opinions and a few points of everybody regardless of whether or not you agree with them when it makes sense to move forward away from the darkness of non acceptance and how fitting would it be if moving forward we began the acceptance of a condition as colorful and as unique as synesthesia [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 116,105

Rating: 4.9346085 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Life, Senses, Sight, Sound

Id: 88s6guf9egs

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 15 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Monnoa]

Very cool! How did you get the opportunity?

[u/rainbow_ducky]

This was awesome! Great job! I loved the song and video, it was really cool to see the sound how you see it! I have the type of synesthesia where I associate letters and numbers with colors, I figured this out about 2 years ago and I think it's so cool! :) Great job explaining your particular type of synesthesia.

[u/Sedna1989]

I watched it just yesterday :) Great talk!