Synesthesia, some people perceive individual symbols, characters, numbers

[rhody]

I call hogwash. The only way an EEG can show no brain activity is if you're brain dead, you don't have the EEG hooked up correctly, you're faking the EEG reading, or you're only showing part of the EEG.

And of course, the wikipedia article says:

If that's true he really has no idea what science is. Science is "narrow" because it only deals with what can be repeatedly observed and proven? What a moron.

StarkRG,

I agree, repeatability in the eyes of independent testers using their own independent calibrated equipment is the only true method of proof. Nonetheless, his testimony in the other video about the mingling of the senses is in agreement with Cytowic's observation in those who have meditated for more than 20 years.

Ken Wilbur may not be aware of Cytowic's work in the field of synesthesia, and he is describing the mingling of the senses from his own perspective, albeit not a truly scientifically based one. If Wilbur was aware of synesthesia and Cytowic's work, one would think that credit would be given where credit is due.

Rhody...

 

[zoobyshoe]

Zooby,

Have you ever heard of someone having a synesthestic experience only while dreaming and not awake as in the case of Sadie White listed above ? That was a first for me, which is the reason that I mentioned it.

Rhody...

No, Rhody, I haven't seen anything like that mentioned anywhere.

 

[StarkRG]

True synesthesia, as I understand it isn't something you can learn or train yourself to do. It's not something you can achieve through meditation. It's unregulated (or misregulated) crosstalk between the hemispheres. And it's not something that can go away when you're done meditating, it's a physical malformation of the brain.

I say "malformation" in the sense that it's not a "normal" formation. Being able to see UV light (something which is entirely possible) is due to a malformation in the eye, the lens filters out UV light, remove or replace it and you'll be able to see UV light (also burn your retinas faster).

 

[StarkRG]

Zooby,

Have you ever heard of someone having a synesthestic experience only while dreaming and not awake as in the case of Sadie White listed above ? That was a first for me, which is the reason that I mentioned it.

Rhody...

I'm not sure this would be classified as synesthesia, while dreaming synesthetic crosstalk is normal. In fact, it's your brain that's generating the experience so not only is synesthetic experiences during dreaming possible, it might even be extremely common.

While dreaming you know things that you, the character in your dream, should not know. I can remember several times when I had premonitions of the dream world while dreaming. I knew the contents of a box before it was opened, that kind of thing. That doesn't mean it was an actual premonition.

People say that you dream in black and white and only add color later when you remember it. I'm not sure this is true as I remember dreams where the color of an object or situation was important to what it was that was going on. If it is true it's possible that I knew the color of an object despite not seeing a color, it just had the idea/sensation/aura of the color.

 

[StarkRG]

Hmm, on second thought, I suppose it might be possible to achieve synesthesia through meditation since, as I understand it, an LSD trip can have similar effects. However a study would need to be done to figure out if it's the same effect and, if it is, whether the same part of the brain is at work.

 

[zoobyshoe]

True synesthesia, as I understand it isn't something you can learn or train yourself to do. It's not something you can achieve through meditation. It's unregulated (or misregulated) crosstalk between the hemispheres. And it's not something that can go away when you're done meditating, it's a physical malformation of the brain.

I say "malformation" in the sense that it's not a "normal" formation. Being able to see UV light (something which is entirely possible) is due to a malformation in the eye, the lens filters out UV light, remove or replace it and you'll be able to see UV light (also burn your retinas faster).

The connection between synesthesia and seeing "auras" was made by Richard Cytowic, M.D. and is discussed in his book Wednesday Is Indigo Blue. On close investigation of the people reporting to see auras he determined that they are involuntary visualizations of the viewer's emotional reaction to the person viewed. They become more "colored" and elaborate the better the viewer knows the viewed. The "auras" of total strangers are usually colorless.

If you're interested in the subject you ought to read this book. It has the most up-to-date information and hypotheses about it. Synesthesia research is very new, relatively speaking, and ideas about it are in constant flux.

There is probably no "location" of synesthesia: it seems to be the result of processes that take place throughout the brain. No two people with two different forms of it will have the same brain scan indicators.

This is anecdotal, but meditating did, indeed, result in my seeing an "aura" once. The woman it appeared around was, indeed, a total stranger, and the aura was, indeed, colorless. I didn't keep up with the meditating and it never happened again.

Meditation is tricky. When I learned TM in high school they went around and asked everyone in the class if they had any history of mental illness in their family. It's just like hallucinogens in that respect: if you have any proclivity toward mental illness, meditating can exacerbate it. There are stories of zen neophytes who have a lot of unpleasant hallucinations while sitting. I didn't ready Rhody's link, but 25 years of unsupervised meditation could well result in someone who's a sort of empiracle crackpot, who interprets idiosynchratic synesthetic experiences as visions of a "larger reality" the "uninitiated" cannot see.

 

[rhody]

Meditation is tricky. When I learned TM in high school they went around and asked everyone in the class if they had any history of mental illness in their family. It's just like hallucinogens in that respect: if you have any proclivity toward mental illness, meditating can exacerbate it. There are stories of zen neophytes who have a lot of unpleasant hallucinations while sitting. I didn't ready Rhody's link, but 25 years of unsupervised meditation could well result in someone who's a sort of empiracle crackpot, who interprets idiosynchratic synesthetic experiences as visions of a "larger reality" the "uninitiated" cannot see.

Zooby,

That's what I was thinking as I watched Ken's video I mentioned in my post, once he said, "you can actually taste the sky in that sense", definitely a synesthetic connection, he goes on to say how viewing a mountain, he can actually touch it, was sufficient evidence for me to validate Cytowics view that decades meditation can bring on the experiences of synesthesia. I stopped watching the video after that.

Ken Wilbur uses his experience to "peddle his world view to his audience" which I didn't care for. Like I said in a previous post, I doubt that he knows the definition of synesthesia, or of Dr Cytowic either for that matter. If he did, I wonder if he would acknowledge it was synesthesia, I doubt it. Let's just say Ken Wilbur's experience provides unwitting testimony to developing multi-modal synesthesia after decades of meditation and leave it at that.

Rhody...

 

[Frame Dragger]

The connection between synesthesia and seeing "auras" was made by Richard Cytowic, M.D. and is discussed in his book Wednesday Is Indigo Blue. On close investigation of the people reporting to see auras he determined that they are involuntary visualizations of the viewer's emotional reaction to the person viewed. They become more "colored" and elaborate the better the viewer knows the viewed. The "auras" of total strangers are usually colorless.

If you're interested in the subject you ought to read this book. It has the most up-to-date information and hypotheses about it. Synesthesia research is very new, relatively speaking, and ideas about it are in constant flux.

There is probably no "location" of synesthesia: it seems to be the result of processes that take place throughout the brain. No two people with two different forms of it will have the same brain scan indicators.

This is anecdotal, but meditating did, indeed, result in my seeing an "aura" once. The woman it appeared around was, indeed, a total stranger, and the aura was, indeed, colorless. I didn't keep up with the meditating and it never happened again.

Meditation is tricky. When I learned TM in high school they went around and asked everyone in the class if they had any history of mental illness in their family. It's just like hallucinogens in that respect: if you have any proclivity toward mental illness, meditating can exacerbate it. There are stories of zen neophytes who have a lot of unpleasant hallucinations while sitting. I didn't ready Rhody's link, but 25 years of unsupervised meditation could well result in someone who's a sort of empiracle crackpot, who interprets idiosynchratic synesthetic experiences as visions of a "larger reality" the "uninitiated" cannot see.

Just to be clear you mean Aura as in "appearance of energy or colour around/associated with an individual"? not Aura as a result of CSD preceding a migraine? The kind of aura you seem to be describing is not hard to imagine as a result of changes in chemistry due to calming and focusing of meditation, or suggestion (auto or induced). Stare at ceiling tiles long enough without blinking and you'll see some funny things, but that's far from synesthesia.

 

[rhody]

Framedragger,

Glad to see you back...some of your posts were really funny, not all in this thread of course. In any event, the discovery/description/discussion/validation of synesthesia with scientific experiment continues. I am certain this thread will grow to contain valuable insight and consensus over time. IMHO, there is still great mystery in how the brain functions with and without stimulation, I am glad to be along for the ride.

Rhody...

 

[Frame Dragger]

Framedragger,

Glad to see you back...some of your posts were really funny, not all in this thread of course. In any event, the discovery/description/discussion/validation of synesthesia with scientific experiment continues. I am certain this thread will grow to contain valuable insight and consensus over time. IMHO, there is still great mystery in how the brain functions with and without stimulation, I am glad to be along for the ride.

Rhody...

Thanks Rhody, the warm welcome back is appreciated. I have to say, the more I learn about the brain the less I understand. So much of it seemed to be localized, then diffuse, now it's a combination of the two. *boggle* Truly it's a marvelous organ and this disucssion in particular highlights both its plasticity, and as you say, the nature of what "triggers" a thought, or not.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Hmm, on second thought, I suppose it might be possible to achieve synesthesia through meditation since, as I understand it, an LSD trip can have similar effects. However a study would need to be done to figure out if it's the same effect and, if it is, whether the same part of the brain is at work.

Hopefully I'm able to link again, so I'll link this, again, as it involves induced synaesthesia.

"Induced Cross-Modal Synaesthetic Experience Without Abnormal Neuronal Connections",
Cohen Kadosh et al.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...Te7rg2&sig=AHIEtbQFkjZfQLq5-aUnEZbn9oSbT62Dyw

 

[rhody]

Thought this may be of interest: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/126745.php" Hypnosis Can Induce 'Synesthetic' Experiences - Where 1 Sense Triggers The Involuntary Use Of Another - Within An Average Brain

They show synesthesia can be induced using post hypnotic suggestion.

excerpt:

To explore the alternative theory of more cross talk (disinhibition) between brain areas in synesthetes, Cohen Kadosh and colleagues used posthypnotic suggestion to show that people who are not synesthetes can be induced to have synesthetic experiences.
After inducing digit-color synesthesia, the volunteers reported similar experiences to those undergone by real synesthetes in their everyday life. For example, one participant described her experience while under posthypnotic suggestion as "When I'm walking on the street, the car registration numbers, if those numbers are on the registration, I see them in those colors." Moreover, hypnotized participants failed a catch test which was also failed by real synesthetes: when subjects were hypnotized to experience seven as red (for example) they could not detect the number when a black seven was presented on a red background.
Cohen Kadosh explains: "Our study shows that hypnosis can induce synesthetic experiences in people, suggesting that extra brain connections are not needed to experience cross-sensory interactions and that it is a change in inhibitory processes - more cross talk within the brain - that causes these experiences. This takes us one step closer to understanding the causes of synesthesia and abnormal cross-brain interactions."

It seems that there are more and more ways to induce synesthesia, this report appears reputable from a legitimate medical source, see below:

The research project was funded by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship; the Royal Society; Israel Science Foundation; Junta de Andalucía and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and Fundación Séneca.

Video of the interview can be seen http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=pS7RHD3rXtA"

Edit: The link wasn't working so I fixed it and watched the short video. You will have to deal with subtitles, it is conducted in a foreign language, since it was done in Israel, I assume it is Hebrew. If you fast forward the video to 1:25 you will hear the interviewed subject, Mary Carmen respond to the following question. Response is taken directly from the link above, and quoted below:

To explore the alternative theory of more cross talk (disinhibition) between brain areas in synesthetes, Cohen Kadosh and colleagues used posthypnotic suggestion to show that people who are not synesthetes can be induced to have synesthetic experiences.

After inducing digit-color synesthesia, the volunteers reported similar experiences to those undergone by real synesthetes in their everyday life. For example, one participant described her experience while under posthypnotic suggestion as "When I'm walking on the street, the car registration numbers, if those numbers are on the registration, I see them in those colors." Moreover, hypnotized participants failed a catch test which was also failed by real synesthetes: when subjects were hypnotized to experience seven as red (for example) they could not detect the number when a black seven was presented on a red background.
Cohen Kadosh explains: "Our study shows that hypnosis can induce synesthetic experiences in people, suggesting that extra brain connections are not needed to experience cross-sensory interactions and that it is a change in inhibitory processes - more cross talk within the brain - that causes these experiences. This takes us one step closer to understanding the causes of synesthesia and abnormal cross-brain interactions."

After thinking about this for a bit, no mention, credit or challenge was made to Dr Cytowic's view of synesthesia. This seems to contradict his research, which says that there are differences in the makeup of the brain which accounts for the condition. Am I missing something here ? I hope not. Read the article and see if you agree or disagree with me.
Rhody...

 

[zoobyshoe]

Just to be clear you mean Aura as in "appearance of energy or colour around/associated with an individual"? not Aura as a result of CSD preceding a migraine? The kind of aura you seem to be describing is not hard to imagine as a result of changes in chemistry due to calming and focusing of meditation, or suggestion (auto or induced). Stare at ceiling tiles long enough without blinking and you'll see some funny things, but that's far from synesthesia.

What I saw was a colorless sphere around a woman. She was inside it, and carried it with her as she walked across a city street toward me. It was dusk, which made the sphere easier to see. It gave the impression of being slightly incandescent or glowing, and I suppose it would have been harder to see, or even invisible, against a well lit bright background. No one else on the street had a sphere, just this one woman.

I would call this experience 100% vivid. The "aura" looked "real": out there around her, and perceived 100% with the eyes. It wasn't a "feeling" or a mere association.

At the same time it was clear that the "aura" was insubstantial: I knew if I tried to touch it I would feel nothing at all, the same way that you know you won't feel anything if you try to touch a beam of light illuminating dust particles in the air.

The woman was very striking: blonde, tallish, very attractive, dressed up in a business outfit with a skirt. I noticed her across the street waiting for the light even before she'd started to cross. After the light changed and she started to cross, the "aura" appeared. Then, about halfway across, she noticed me staring at her and smiled. What crossed my mind was that I could see her aura and no one elses because she must have had the strongest one of anyone on the street. The "aura" meant: excellent health and excellent mood. In other words, it was, indeed, a kind of visual translation of my emotional reaction to her, just as Cytowic reports.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Zooby,

That's what I was thinking as I watched Ken's video I mentioned in my post, once he said, "you can actually taste the sky in that sense", definitely a synesthetic connection, he goes on to say how viewing a mountain, he can actually touch it, was sufficient evidence for me to validate Cytowics view that decades meditation can bring on the experiences of synesthesia. I stopped watching the video after that.

Ken Wilbur uses his experience to "peddle his world view to his audience" which I didn't care for. Like I said in a previous post, I doubt that he knows the definition of synesthesia, or of Dr Cytowic either for that matter. If he did, I wonder if he would acknowledge it was synesthesia, I doubt it. Let's just say Ken Wilbur's experience provides unwitting testimony to developing multi-modal synesthesia after decades of meditation and leave it at that.

Rhody...

There's always a problem, according to Cytowic, with people adding unwarranted interpretations to what they experience when describing it. Kluver had a hard time with his mescaline subjects because they would say things like "I'm seeing the cosmic eye of the universe!" He had to train them to simply report the plain geometrical properties of the patterns they saw, and separate those properties from their emotional interpretation of them.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

this report appears reputable from a legitimate medical source

I think it may be referring to the paper linked in post no. 116 which is in PubMed, etc.

 

[rhody]

I wanted to see if I could find any examples of synesthetes who experience colored pain. I found this: http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/ramsey.htm"

excerpt:

Feeling pain in color is another sensation which synesthetes experience. One synesthete had an accident where she tore a ligament. At the moment of the accident, her experience was that everything became orange and she felt as if she were wearing orange sunglasses. After another incident where she stubbed her toe, she yelled out in pain but all she could initially say to her husband was the word orange (Hornik, 2001). Synesthetes may see blobs, spirals, cross-hatching, and/or moving lines but color and geometric shapes are most described. They may also taste salty or metallic tastes and feel cold, prickly and/or rough textures (Cytowic, 1989).

While investigating pain synesthesia I stumbled across this: mirror touch synesthesia: http://health.howstuffworks.com/synesthesia.htm"

excerpts:

Perhaps you've seen someone bump their head or stub a toe and thought, "That had to hurt." Well, for some people, watching such an event actually does hurt. An unknown number of people have mirror-touch synesthesia, a condition that causes them to feel the touches that they see others receive. For example, if a mirror-touch synesthete sees someone touched on the cheek, she will feel as if her own cheek has been touched.

Like the name implies, there is a mirror effect involved. Say a mirror-touch synesthete is standing opposite someone. If the non-synesthete is hit in the right arm, the synesthete will feel it in her left arm. If the two are standing next to each other, contact with the non-synesthete's right arm will be felt in the synesthete's right arm.

Besides feeling the pain and touches of others, mirror-touch synesthetes often are very in touch with the feelings of others. Many claim no understanding of how people can laugh at others' misfortune, and action and horror movies are too unbearable to watch.

and

Recent studies have shed more light on the phenomenon, including one published in the June 2007 issue of the journal "Nature Neuroscience." The study, performed by UCL researchers Jamie Ward and Michael Banissy, used brain scans, touch tests and questionnaires to detect mirror-touch synesthesia in 10 subjects. Brain scans showed hyperactivity in certain areas of the brain when mirror-touch synesthetes saw someone being touched. In touch tests, supposed mirror-touch synesthetes more often mistook observed touch for having the touch applied to themselves.

Further research about mirror-touch synesthesia could lead to discoveries about other empathy-related conditions such as schizophrenia, Asperger's syndrome and autism. For example, one symptom of autism is difficulty understanding the emotions of others. Learning why some people are highly sensitive to others' emotions could teach us more about those who aren't.

Another http://www.livescience.com/health/070617_touching_faces.html" on mirror touch synesthesia:

excerpt that summarizes it:

Banissy told LiveScience that "when we observe another person being touched, we all activate areas of our brain similar to those activated when we are physically touched." In mirror-touch synesthetes, this mirror system is overactive. The resulting high level of empathy they demonstrate supports the notion that people learn to empathize by putting themselves in someone else's shoes.

"It is extraordinary to think that some people experience touch on their own body when they merely watch someone else being stroked or punched. However, this may be an exaggeration of a brain mechanism that we all possesses to some degree," Ward said.

Edit: 05/13/10 10:38am
The phrase: "mirror touch synesthesia" was named by http://www.firepile.com/robin/?p=112" another link validating what was stated above. Funny, they didn't mention Michael Banissy, I just figured out why, Banissy is a student of Jamie Ward.

By now, you all must know what my next question will be, don't you, hehe. Does anyone following this thread have colored pain synesthesia, or mirror touch synesthesia ?
Please feel free to come out of the closet, we are all curious, interested, kind souls (well, so far at least).

Rhody...

P.S. zooby, in your continued reading, does Cytowic mention mirror touch ?

 

[zoobyshoe]

It's not listed in the indexes of either of the books I have.

That's an amazing find, Rhody. I've never heard of this either and it's beyond fascinating. I have been thinking about the proposed existence of mirror neurons ever since I heard about them and this dovetails right in with that field of inquiry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

It raises questions, though. Are these people really synesthetes, or just highly suggestible due to an excess of empathy? Are there really dedicated "mirror neurons" or is a high level of identification with a person outside yourself just a matter of where your attention gets fixed?

 

[waht]

Wow, there is a pain synesthesia, and a mirror synesthesia? That's pretty cool.

 

[rhody]

It's not listed in the indexes of either of the books I have.

That's an amazing find, Rhody. I've never heard of this either and it's beyond fascinating. I have been thinking about the proposed existence of mirror neurons ever since I heard about them and this dovetails right in with that field of inquiry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

It raises questions, though. Are these people really synesthetes, or just highly suggestible due to an excess of empathy? Are there really dedicated "mirror neurons" or is a high level of identification with a person outside yourself just a matter of where your attention gets fixed?

zooby,

I am thinking beyond that, say you could perform a blind study where the person who has the ability to detect how another individual was feeling in tactile range then proved it in the normal sensing area of the five senses as a baseline test. The mirror neuron sensitive individual proved with good accuracy that they could detect another's touch, feelings, etc...

Then, the person without mirror neuron sensitivity would be removed from the room, away from every sense that the person with the mirror neuron's could detect , and if they still could (with accuracy) sense what the other individual was feeling, touching, what would be a valid explanation ? weak electromagnetic energy (we all give off http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophoton" ).

If the sensitive individual were able to accurately detect this energy through a non-blocking weak electromagnetic curtain of some type, then science would again have to look hard at the brain's amazing sensing capabilities. I would love to see such an experiment conducted, and wouldn't be a bit surprised if the outcome after many variations of using different walls that increasingly limit the weak electromagnetic energy (to the point of complete blocking of all weak EMF) the results would be positive, as long as some weak EMF made it through the partition. That would truly be astounding and groundbreaking as well.


Rhody...

 

[rhody]

Wow, there is a pain synesthesia, and a mirror synesthesia? That's pretty cool.

waht,

Take a look at my updated post #102, all the known types except for the mirror type that I just mentioned are listed there, with percentages of how often they occur in a group of 365 people known to have some form of synesthesia.

Rhody...

 

[waht]

waht,

Take a look at my updated post #102, all the known types except for the mirror type that I just mentioned are listed there, with percentages of how often they occur in a group of 365 people known to have some form of synesthesia.

Rhody...

I did now, thanks. I'll have to catch up with the rest of page 7. A thought occurred to me that it would be cool if Cytowic was lurking in this thread, and in the number form one.

 

[rhody]

I did now, thanks. I'll have to catch up with the rest of page 7. A thought occurred to me that it would be cool if Cytowic was lurking in this thread, and in the number form one.

waht,

I doubt it but, :rofl:

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

Ok, yesterdays find was surprising, but today you are in for another shock, are you ready...
take a deep breath, it turns out there is something known as: http://www.seeingwithsound.com/asynesth.htm" .
It is also referred to as: "virtual synesthesia or synthetic synesthesia"

I was hoping by now to have delved deep enough in this subject to reach the "bottom" of it. I was wrong, and am continued to be proved wrong as time progresses and my queries expand. Simply amazing is all that I have to say... amazing... I have beat the phrase: "Holy Crap" to death, so it has little meaning to me anymore, lol.

excerpt:

Artificial synesthesia (syn = together, and aisthesis = perception in Greek) is a deliberately evoked or induced sensory joining in which the real information of one sense is accompanied by a perception in another sense through the use of a cross-modal mapping device. It is also known as virtual synesthesia or synthetic synesthesia. The additional perception is regarded by the trained synesthete as real, often outside the body, instead of imagined in the mind's eye. Its reality and vividness are what makes artificial synesthesia so interesting in its violation of conventional perception. Synesthesia in general is also fascinating because logically it should have been a product of the human brain, where the evolutionary trend has been for increasing coordination, mutual consistency and perceptual robustness in the processing of different sensory inputs.

and

However, a main drive for investigating artificial synesthesia (and cross-modal neuromodulation) is formed by the options it may provide for people with sensory disabilities like deafness and blindness, where a neural joining of senses can help in replacing one sense by the other: e.g., in seeing with your ears when using a device that maps images into sounds, or in hearing with your eyes when using a device that maps sounds into images. The former synesthetic vision is the main focus of this site.

Rhody...

 

[zoobyshoe]

I am thinking beyond that, say you could perform a blind study where the person who has the ability to detect how another individual was feeling in tactile range then proved it in the normal sensing area of the five senses as a baseline test.

I'm not following this. You need to flesh it out and be specific for me. What are you testing for and what is the baseline you want to establish?

 

[rhody]

Zooby,

I will get to your question, but wanted to post a small video on "artificial synesthesia" first, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_iB...CAC2FD6&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=15". The Video and Audio are generated from the same mathematical equation. Like synesthesia, the video makes the sound, and the sound makes the video. If you fast forward to 1:14 you will note a step away view, and it seems the tone, tempo, cadence, and frequency are limited by the algorithm. To me it sounds sinusoidal, and the patterns displayed remind me of a hurricane or black hole feasting, with a bit of gravitational lensing thrown in for good measure.

Chi, any comment on the patterns ?

Now, on to part deux, I know french isn't allowed here but I couldn't help myself, hehe. From order of events step by step:

1. Conduct a scientific study, with a synesthete, a confirmed mirror touch synesthete, and a normal control individual who has been pretested and shows no signs of either ability to determine and range, accuracy, and testable limits on touch sense sending and receiving.

2. Determine and connection between the synesthete and mirror touch synesthete, documenting the the touch response through interview and data gathered through fMRI imaging. Use the interview testimony and the fMRI results as baseline. Note, the sensitivty to types of touch, gentle, using cold objects, heat, etc... basically the works to see if any types of synesthetic touch are not transmitted, or if others are less intensely or more intensely felt by the mirror touch recepient.

3. Test in step 2 conducted in full five sensory range of the synesthete and the mirror touch synesthete. All senses are perceived by the sender and receiver as they would normally be in the same room, with results fMRI being recorded, post test interview of both subjects conducted.

4. The same battery of tests is repeated, this time the receiver (mirror touch synesthete) is in another room, in an isolated sound and EMFfree enclosure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage" ). One would expect the mirror touch synesthete would not pick up any sensation at all due to it being a anechoic (sound isolated), and EMF room.

5. Repeat the same series of tests a third time, but this time remove the two subjects from all sensory range, without the farraday cage. Mix the stimulation of the senses transmitted by the sending synesthete and mirror touch synesthete so that the receiver cannot anticipate what touch sensation is being applied and when it happens. Run the tests and record the results. I would not shocked to learn that there is still some sensation perceived on the part of the mirror touch test synesthete.

6. Repeat all tests above, but use a control individual in place of the mirror touch recipient synesthete. Record the results.

7. The fact that seemingly normal individuals experience sickness, tingling, etc, make me wonder out loud in this case, if they are unwitting receivers if you will of EMF energy that in this case while not biological still could qualify them as synesthetes, and further gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that mirror touch synesthesia can in fact be experienced some distance away from sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch proximity of the person giving off the touch sensation.

Zooby, does this clarify what tests I would like to see performed to verify or dispute the claim of reception of a mirror touch sensation by two people ?

Rhody...

http://www.lessemf.com/emf-news.html#links"
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23375600-wireless-technology-made-me-sick.do"

excerpt:

Ms Figes said: "The day we installed wi-fi two years ago was the day I started to feel ill. At first I could not work out what the problem was. I had no idea why I felt so sick and run-down. But I knew that when I walked through the front door it felt like walking into a cloud of poison.

"Imagine being prodded all over your body by 1,000 fingers. That is what I felt when I walked into the house... Then I started to think it might be the wi-fi, so we scrapped it - and I felt better."

 

[zoobyshoe]

Rhody, I'm not sure you understood the mirror-touch synesthesia phenomenon. The person with mirror-touch synesthesia feels the sensation of being touched when they see someone else being touched. They have to see it. It works even if they are watching a movie of someone being touched. If they see someone being hurt in a movie they feel physical pain. This is the reason they can't watch violent movies: the sight of violence causes them to feel physical sensations of pain.

This is clearly a concept-> sensation kind of synesthesia, in the same way grapheme -> color synesthesia is. The sight of the grapheme induces the concept of the grapheme, which then induces the involuntary color association, projected or unprojected.

What's of note is that the actor in the film that bothers the mirror synesthete never feels any authentic pain: they are acting, and the blood is a special effect. The mirror synesthete, therefore, is always merely reacting to the concept.

It is highly likely the "WiFi sensitive" people are also just reacting to the concept of WiFi. They have gotten the meme in their head somehow that it is bad for people so they experience unpleasant physical sensations when they believe WiFi is on in their immediate vicinity.

Quite a few people responded to the story you linked to, claiming they, too, were made sick by WiFi. This means there are plenty of test subjects out there who could be tested in various ways to see if they only get sick when WiFi is really on, or if they only get sick when they think it is on.

 

[rhody]

Rhody, I'm not sure you understood the mirror-touch synesthesia phenomenon. The person with mirror-touch synesthesia feels the sensation of being touched when they see someone else being touched. They have to see it. It works even if they are watching a movie of someone being touched. If they see someone being hurt in a movie they feel physical pain. This is the reason they can't watch violent movies: the sight of violence causes them to feel physical sensations of pain.

What's of note is that the actor in the film that bothers the mirror synesthete never feels any authentic pain: they are acting, and the blood is a special effect. The mirror synesthete, therefore, is always merely reacting to the concept.

zooby,

Yes, I understand the mirror-touch phenomenon as it is defined. I was trying to take it a step further by removing the subject who experiences anothers pain's five senses to see if there is still some form of sensing (electromagnetically going on).

I had an interesting conversation over dinner with a friend who had two incidents in which he felt pain without being the one it was being inflicted upon. When his daughter was young he was taking her to school and accidentally closed her fingers in the car door, he said at the last moment he sensed her fingers were there and did not slam the door shut. He claims that he felt the pain as she screamed and as one would imagine felt guilty about it. A second incident occurred years before while playing soccer with his brother (not a twin, or identical twin BTW). He got kicked in his nether parts and dropped like a rock, and again he claims he felt his brother's pain, physical sympathetic (synesthetic) pain. My friend to the best of my knowledge is not synesthetic in any other way, we discussed the five senses and he said he didn't think he had it as part of his normal day to day activities.

It is highly likely the "WiFi sensitive" people are also just reacting to the concept of WiFi. They have gotten the meme in their head somehow that it is bad for people so they experience unpleasant physical sensations when they believe WiFi is on in their immediate vicinity.

Quite a few people responded to the story you linked to, claiming they, too, were made sick by WiFi. This means there are plenty of test subjects out there who could be tested in various ways to see if they only get sick when WiFi is really on, or if they only get sick when they think it is on.

On this subject I agree with you, I think that a rigorous scientific test is required to settle the issue, with the people who claim to be affected being told there was Wifi present (when in fact there wasn't), and vice versa, along with different brands of routers and frequency ranges to separate fact from fiction, and use fMRI to record other types of the brain's reaction to induced pain responses to establish a baseline before applying the Wifi signal, then recording the brain's real or lack of pain response.

Another issue I have with Wifi myself is that the frequency, amplitude and power of the signal has to be much higher than say a slower, Alpha - Delta range and much much weaker than the body is capable of producing when a person who experiences pain which would disqualify it from being the mirror touch type, unless of course there is another type of synesthesia lurking in the shadows. We can call this one, EMFIS, electromagnetic frequency induced synesthesia, lol.

Rhody...

 

[zoobyshoe]

The question I have, as I mentioned before, is whether this mirror-touch phenomenon is really synesthesia at all. The word "psychosomatic" comes to mind. Psychosomatic symptoms have been recognized as real and troublesome for quite some time: when a person is convinced they are sick they will experience all the appropriate aches and pains, even when they have none of the germs, or injuries, that actually cause the particular illness.

I am prone to this, myself, in a small way. I may feel perfectly warm, but if someone I'm with complains that they feel cold, I will start to "notice" how cold it actually is, start to feel uncomfortable, and want to go inside. I may even shiver. Before they said anything, I was fine. At the same time I am aware they have essentially "hypnotized" me into feeling cold when I was perfectly fine, I am still now cold. It's a kind of putting myself in their shoes: If I want to hang out with them, I have to be sensitive to their discomforts and react accordingly. To allow myself to stay warm would be a kind of anti-social act. Feeling cold myself helps us to stay on the same page. (Course, there's a limit.)

Additionally, once in a great while, if a particularly "painful' thought occurs to me suddenly, I will experience it as a sharp sudden pain in my body. When this happens I am perfectly aware it's psychosomatic, but it hurts anyway. The pain sensation is very real. I think under the wrong circumstances I could be induced to psychosomatically feel a pain in my own body by the sight of someone elses pain. (It's a thing to be resisted, though, since the non-injured person has to be able to calmly and competently give, or call for, medical help.)

I think your friend's stories are reports of the same thing: empathetic physical sensation of pain in response to someone elses' injury that he became aware of through perfectly ordinary means. In his case the extreme empathy seems limited to close relatives, which sounds pretty normal. The "mirror-touch" synesthete is rather more promiscuous with their empathetic reactions.

So, the important question in my mind, in reaction to this "Mirror-Touch Synesthesia" phenomenon, is where they are going to draw the line between synesthesia and psychosomatic reactions. Maybe the question is whether there is a line, whether all syesthesia isn't caused by the same mechanism that causes psychosomatic reactions: the taste of properly spiced chicken psychosomatically inducing the feeling of points, and so forth.

Your test is about something else: you're looking for a form of communication that works through walls and at a distance. That's an interesting subject, but I don't see that it is even suggested by any of these cases. The WiFi people haven't claimed to react to anything but prolonged exposure to known installations.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

zooby,

Yes, I understand the mirror-touch phenomenon as it is defined. I was trying to take it a step further by removing the subject who experiences anothers pain's five senses to see if there is still some form of sensing (electromagnetically going on).

I had an interesting conversation over dinner with a friend who had two incidents in which he felt pain without being the one it was being inflicted upon. When his daughter was young he was taking her to school and accidentally closed her fingers in the car door, he said at the last moment he sensed her fingers were there and did not slam the door shut. He claims that he felt the pain as she screamed and as one would imagine felt guilty about it. A second incident occurred years before while playing soccer with his brother (not a twin, or identical twin BTW). He got kicked in his nether parts and dropped like a rock, and again he claims he felt his brother's pain, physical sympathetic (synesthetic) pain. My friend to the best of my knowledge is not synesthetic in any other way, we discussed the five senses and he said he didn't think he had it as part of his normal day to day activities.



On this subject I agree with you, I think that a rigorous scientific test is required to settle the issue, with the people who claim to be affected being told there was Wifi present (when in fact there wasn't), and vice versa, along with different brands of routers and frequency ranges to separate fact from fiction, and use fMRI to record other types of the brain's reaction to induced pain responses to establish a baseline before applying the Wifi signal, then recording the brain's real or lack of pain response.

Another issue I have with Wifi myself is that the frequency, amplitude and power of the signal has to be much higher than say a slower, Alpha - Delta range and much much weaker than the body is capable of producing when a person who experiences pain which would disqualify it from being the mirror touch type, unless of course there is another type of synesthesia lurking in the shadows. We can call this one, EMFIS, electromagnetic frequency induced synesthesia, lol.

Rhody...

How an event unfolds, and how we remember it or internally "explain it" is often inconsistent. This is interesting, but impossible to really confirm with anecdotes or TCMS.

 

[rhody]

The question I have, as I mentioned before, is whether this mirror-touch phenomenon is really synesthesia at all. The word "psychosomatic" comes to mind. Psychosomatic symptoms have been recognized as real and troublesome for quite some time: when a person is convinced they are sick they will experience all the appropriate aches and pains, even when they have none of the germs, or injuries, that actually cause the particular illness.

I am prone to this, myself, in a small way. I may feel perfectly warm, but if someone I'm with complains that they feel cold, I will start to "notice" how cold it actually is, start to feel uncomfortable, and want to go inside. I may even shiver. Before they said anything, I was fine. At the same time I am aware they have essentially "hypnotized" me into feeling cold when I was perfectly fine, I am still now cold. It's a kind of putting myself in their shoes: If I want to hang out with them, I have to be sensitive to their discomforts and react accordingly. To allow myself to stay warm would be a kind of anti-social act. Feeling cold myself helps us to stay on the same page. (Course, there's a limit.)

Additionally, once in a great while, if a particularly "painful' thought occurs to me suddenly, I will experience it as a sharp sudden pain in my body. When this happens I am perfectly aware it's psychosomatic, but it hurts anyway. The pain sensation is very real. I think under the wrong circumstances I could be induced to psychosomatically feel a pain in my own body by the sight of someone elses pain. (It's a thing to be resisted, though, since the non-injured person has to be able to calmly and competently give, or call for, medical help.)

I think your friend's stories are reports of the same thing: empathetic physical sensation of pain in response to someone elses' injury that he became aware of through perfectly ordinary means. In his case the extreme empathy seems limited to close relatives, which sounds pretty normal. The "mirror-touch" synesthete is rather more promiscuous with their empathetic reactions.

So, the important question in my mind, in reaction to this "Mirror-Touch Synesthesia" phenomenon, is where they are going to draw the line between synesthesia and psychosomatic reactions. Maybe the question is whether there is a line, whether all syesthesia isn't caused by the same mechanism that causes psychosomatic reactions: the taste of properly spiced chicken psychosomatically inducing the feeling of points, and so forth.

zooby,

Fair enough, you have a valid point, so my question to you is, how would you design a "fair test" designed to discriminate between real mirror touch synesthesia and psychosomatic reactions, briefly of course, what tricks, tests would you suggest ?

This was a quote from my previous post #121, maybe hyperactivity is the brain activity that identifies mirror touch synesthesia:

hyperactivity in certain areas of the brain when mirror-touch synesthetes saw someone being touched

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

How an event unfolds, and how we remember it or internally "explain it" is often inconsistent. This is interesting, but impossible to really confirm with anecdotes or TCMS.

Iced,

I haven't tuned in synesthetically to your mode of communication yet, lol, please explain your statement in a more descriptive way, also the "TCMS" acronym.

Rhody...

 

[IcedEcliptic]

Iced,

I haven't tuned in synesthetically to your mode of communication yet, lol, please explain your statement in a more descriptive way, also the "TCMS" acronym.

Rhody...

Heh, ok I understand. First, TCMS = Trans-Cranial Magnetic Stimulation. The rest, I mean to say that when we act in the charge of adrenaline, or on a subliminal clue, we do not necessarily think as we are used to. Pain is FAST, so from his periphery he notes that his child is about to have her fingers slammed, and his reaction is a bit like men watching a vicious shot to the junk; not synesthesia, but immediate and sympathetic pain. Thinking back on the event, the mind constructs a narrative for how and why events unfolded, and each time that memory is recalled and placed back into storage, the mind edits details.

 

[rhody]

Heh, ok I understand. First, TCMS = Trans-Cranial Magnetic Stimulation. The rest, I mean to say that when we act in the charge of adrenaline, or on a subliminal clue, we do not necessarily think as we are used to. Pain is FAST, so from his periphery he notes that his child is about to have her fingers slammed, and his reaction is a bit like men watching a vicious shot to the junk; not synesthesia, but immediate and sympathetic pain. Thinking back on the event, the mind constructs a narrative for how and why events unfolded, and each time that memory is recalled and placed back into storage, the mind edits details.

Iced,

Thanks for the definition. I pose the same question to you as I did zooby, how would you design a test to see if it was synesthesia versus sympathetic pain ? Feel free to think outside the box.

Rhody...

 

[IcedEcliptic]

Iced,

Thanks for the definition. I pose the same question to you as I did zooby, how would you design a test to see if it was synesthesia versus sympathetic pain ? Feel free to think outside the box.

Rhody...

This requires some thought (and sleep) to answer. I will do so later tomorrow, and ask a colleague for their opinion as well. At first blush, it seems easy, but to make it truly rigorous, complications arise. I do know that I'd want a large sample size, to test people who have young children with videos or images of an injured or unhappy child. I would image this, and compare to activity associated with "from birth" synesthesia. For a real answer with some merit, I must consider this with more depth, and outside of the box, as you say. Thanks for the worthy challenge.

 

[zoobyshoe]

zooby,

Fair enough, you have a valid point, so my question to you is, how would you design a "fair test" designed to discriminate between real mirror touch synesthesia and psychosomatic reactions, briefly of course, what tricks, tests would you suggest ?

This was a quote from my previous post #121, maybe hyperactivity is the brain activity that identifies mirror touch synesthesia:


Rhody...

It's really a matter of definition, not testing. Psychosomatic pain reactions should produce the same activation of pain areas of the brain as physiologically caused pain. Pain, like color, is created in the brain as it is: it's as real as it feels. As far as I can see, the only reason this "mirror-touch" phenomenon is called "syesthesia" is because it happened to be discovered by a lecturer on synesthesia. Had she been lecturing on psychosomatic phenomena, it would have been a new psychosomatic discovery.