Dreaming and Synesthesia

Seeing new colors and mixing senses, can it be done without prior experience?

I was just wondering if there were any non-synesthates here who experienced senses crossing over in dreams. It happens to me all the time but I have mild synesthesia even in waking life. Since I was young (and long before I knew anything about synesthesia) I was fascinated by the concept of martian colors. I thought that if aliens came to earth, they and the things they brought could come in all sorts of new colors, colors we'd never seen or dreamt of simply because they didn't exist on earth. Then later in life I learned about the electromagnetic spectrum and I dismissed the concept until I learned about synesthesia.

I read that blind-from-birth people didn't dream visually because they'd never seen and so their brains couldn't generate vision as we experience it. Same goes for black + white - visioned animals; they dream in black and white.

So it follows that people that don't have synesthesia wouldn't see the colors of smells or the shapes of numbers in dreams. For me, however, if I concentrate while dreaming I can perceive the dream world as a completely synesthetic mix of senses, something that I've never experienced in waking life except on a small scale. So, I'm unsure of whether I'm able to bridge some gap while dreaming that I'm not aware of while waking or whether the potential was always there. If anyone who doesn't normally experience these things could attempt it in a dream it would help my understanding of dream reality greatly.

I'm confused. Synesthesia is the mind replacing what is percieved with the wrong sensation. Seeing music, hearing shapes, etc... In a dream, you don't percieve the external world (sound sometimes, I'll give you that); the sensation is what it is. How could you know that what you're seeing is supposed to be a scent, or that what you're hearing is supposed to be a tactile sensation, if you have no objective reference? If you see it, isn't it just something you see? What makes you think that the sensation is being caused by the wrong faculty? I have experimented with psychoactives, and I understand synesthesia, but I don't understand how the concept could apply to an entirely subjective experience. Straighten me out.

beats the crap out of me which is why I'm asking. In my mind, the number 4 is a number, but it's also a color and a smell and a shape etc etc. When I'm dreaming every misinterpreted stimulus comes at me at once. If I see a color I feel the color with every sense at the same time. I know there are plenty of psychedelics out there that induce synesthesia, but for me it happens without any drugs, although it's minor. So of course it also happens in dreams. What I'm asking is if someone like you, O-neiro, who is familiar with the sensation but doesn't experience it normally, can induce it in the dream state without drugs. From your post it seems like it could only happen if the brain remembers a synesthetic interpretation of a stimulus and recalls it during sleep instead of the right one (or in addition to the right one). Nevertheless, anyone who has experienced it could potentially recreate it, right? Let me know if I don't make sense.

well oneironaut, IMO waking life perception is far from objective (as the very existence of synthesthesia demonstrates). the same mind interpets the 'objective' world and the subjective world of dreaming.

i don't seem any distinction between the validity of synesthesia in dreams, and in waking life. in both cases one would simply "know" that a certain colourful shape is a musical tone, or that cooked green beans smell pointy...certainly dreams are entirely an internal construct of our mind, but you nevertheless experience stimuli through the senses.

synesthesia is simply a particular mode of perception by which to interpet stimuli, whether internal or external..


i will definately try this out dangeruss, as the only synthesthetic experiences i ave had involve seeing music under the influence of psilocybin..

thanks and good luck! I think it should be a good thing to learn, the creative benefits of synesthesia are many. Just look at jimi hendrix.

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Originally posted by wombing
well oneironaut, IMO waking life perception is far from objective

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Agreed. I didn't say that perception was objective. I just meant that in waking life, the subjective pointy smell can by attributed to the objective green beans. In theory, the green beans are an objective reference for the subjective sensation.

I see what you're saying now, wombing. I didn't realize that the stimuli were presenting themselves in a spectrum of sensations, I thought they were isolated to the wrong perception. That makes more sense now. I'll try to remember to give this a try next time I'm lucid. Geez, my list is getting long... :shakehead2:

Info about synesthesia is scarce so here's a nice site that's pretty informative if anyone has any questions or uncertainties http://www.mixsig.net/