h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I read you are one of those people who "suffer" from syaesthesia, and I'm insanely jealous of all people with that "affliction"!
I understood what he meant, when Garcia Marquez had one of his characters say "La sopa sabe a ventana" (The soup tastes of window) so i wonder if one can learn syneasthesia? At least a little bit?

jealous?... I don't think jealousy is particularly green. More yellow, like the yellow wall-paper (do you know that story? <shudder&gt

Which book is that from? I have only one of his, because I was told it would be 'impossible to illustrate'. (challenge!)
I think you can *encourage* it, certainly. You are much better off than the people who go 'What're you on about? Nutter. You must be on drugs,' and think they are frightfully witty.
It could mean several things, though, that the soup tastes of what windows evoke; or it *tastes* like the object itself. Once I was given salad and confused its creator by saying it tastes like car upholstery; it did, taste like the smell of a clean car. Which is sort of synaesthetic but less so, those two senses are after all linked (however plenty of people don't *get* even that.)
good luck with it!

Definitely yellow, the worst sort is mustardish-like! Dreadfully unpleasant emotion.

The book is "El amór en los tiempos del colera", i don't know what the English titly would be. I have to go back and see if he has other references like that, but it's the only one i remember, because it continued "And they tried the soup, and it was true, it tasted of window." and i thought, hey, i just know how that tasted.
To the car upholstery thing i can also relate, i particularly like whisky's that taste chemical, see. But as you say, that is not real synaesthesia, involving as it does only one sense.

So the first time i heard about the phenomenon synaesthesia, i was like, why oh why don't my senses work like this?
Are you an illustrator? How is that influenced by your synaesthesia? You see, i'm really interested and intrigued and don't think youre at all weird.

i beg your pardon, you are an illustrator. finally scrolled all the way down. Nibelungenlied? Have done Siegfried already please?
And a writer, how that multisensory thingy must benefit you!

it sounds grand... I am not a published illustrator or writer or anything. Hope to be, if all goes well. But I could not decide on one job, and I think anyone should be able to make a living from more than one thing they enjoy.

I would class the taste thing as somewhat synaesthetic, since car upholstery is more to do with smell and vision (it makes my eyes hurt, slightly, as well) even though smell and taste are linked more than the others. It would taste grey, with yellow in it (the same yellow as jealousy, slightly unpleasant.) I had a dream once in grey and yellow. Normally I dream only in colour (which apparently is unusual; however everyone I remember asking said they do, too) It was not an unpleasant dream but the colours drove me mad. Similarly I know of people who cannot look at very pure shades of blue because it is too painful; I am okay but they make a very insistant humming noise, like when you 'play' a wineglass.

I suppose it's not necessarily easy as a writer, you'd need readers who have an incling what you're talking about. But i'd like to see such a story, i really would!
Read your dog song, Tom Waits gone finally bad, what?
I did wince a bit, because i like both dogs and cats, it's supposed to say something about my character, but i forget what. Some sorts of dogs have some cat characteristics, they way they cuddle and curl up, and get exactly their own way, managing all round. It's usually the breeds called difficult.

What about the other rainbow colours, what do you hear at red, yellow, green? And purple?

i dream in colour btw, all people i asked said they dreamed in colour. b&w must be possible, if you also had a two-tone dream, albeit one black and yellow like The beauty and the beast, with Jean Marais, i think.

I can use terms like 'blue' for miserable, obviously; strange how some synaesthetic terms are generally used.

Red sounds like trumpets... yellow I do not get a strong sound for although it feels like shiny plastic. I suppose it sounds a bit like a low note played on an oboe. Green has several sounds, like bubbling water; purple makes a sort of humming noise (I hope this isn't too ridiculous! ) depending on how blue or red it is, more gentle/strident the more of each colour it has in it.

Purple making a humming noise would be sort of logical, it being a high frequency colour. I have always felt a sort of tension and spark in purple, maybe because lightling is purple. I aspire to having one purple velvet dress, although i haven't found the right one yet, but when i do, i expect to become all energetised in it.
Interesting that you feel like that about blue, it would depend what shade blue though? And on the texture too. Dark blue velvet is a piece of night sky for me, (the blue velvet dress i got already), while feeling blue would have a sort of dullness about it, or maybe a blue fog, which almost sounds like blue funk, what?

You tought YOU were sayin' somethin' silly?

Having said all that, i don't subscribe to all the colour theories, some things they say i agree with, others i feel different.
Your idea of yellow havin' a sort of plastic feel i can subscribe too, it does indeed, just thinking of sunflowr leaves and plastic buckets.

Do synergetics feel similar about the same colours and sounds?