Synesthesia is the visualization or association of color in conjunction with senses. There have been composers like Scriabin who were synesthetic and used this in their music.

Here's a good article on it.
Synesthesia: Seeing music, tasting in color

BRUCE SMITH

Associated Press

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. - Sean Day sees music in color and, in a manner of speaking, tastes in color as well.

When he hears a piano, he always sees sky blue. When a clarinet plays, he sees medium blue as though it were lacquered on wood. Tasting a cup of coffee, he sees a pool of oily green before him.

Day, who teaches English at Trident Technical College, has synesthesia, a condition in which a stimulus to one sense is also perceived by another sense. For Day, it's seeing colors when he hears instruments or tastes food.

About one in 200 people have synesthesia, which makes it about as common as Parkinson's disease, said Dr. Richard Cytowic, a neurologist whose research on synesthesia in the 1970s was key in bringing the subject back into the mainstream of scientific research.

About 15 percent of the people with visual synesthesia project colors in front of them, said Day, who generally sees a dinner plate size pool of color about arms length away for a few seconds when there is a new stimulus. He said he can reach out and swirl the colors with his hand.

"For the other 85 percent of people it's in their head or just an association," said Day, president of the American Synesthesia Association, which holds its fourth annual meeting at the University of California at Berkeley in November.


Day, who has studied synesthesia for 15 years, said of those who associate specific colors with letters, about 65 percent always see the letter "A" as red.

Cytowic, who lives in Washington, has written both neurology texts as well as popular books on brain function including "The Man Who Tasted Shapes," which focuses on synesthesia.

There was skepticism about subjective experiences like synesthesia in scientific circles three decades ago. "Even Alzheimer's disease among neurologists was a rarely studied phenomenon," Cytowic said.

Synesthesia was put down to many explanations.

"It's learned associations from childhood or they are old pothead hippies or these people are artists and everyone knows artists are crazy," Cytowic said. "You heard this endless litany about it and why it can't be real."

But scientists have discovered there is a rational explanation for a real condition.

The brain has a large excess of neurons and it's normal from before birth to about puberty for many brain connections to be trimmed. "It's use it or lose it," Cytowic said.

But in some people the connections are not pruned and the brain connections continue to work. "Synaesthetes are a minority who are more conscious than the rest of us," he said.

For Day, the experiences are second nature and the colors associated with music and foods always the same.

"Acoustic guitars are various shades of yellow, electric guitars are various shades of red and with those I can see right through them," he said.

Having lived with synesthesia since a child, many of the experiences of colors are mundane, Day said.

"If I'm concentrating on the having the experience I can have it come to the fore unless I'm nervous or upset or angry or have too much else on my mind," he said.

Normal everyday sounds, like a barking dog, won't cause Day to have a synesthetic experience. But put the barks together in musical pitches, as in the recording of the dogs barking "Jingle Bells," and the colors return.

Sometimes he eats certain combinations of food to get a synesthetic experience.

"A favorite thing of mine to do is drink very strong espresso coffee and take a sip of coffee and a jalapeno pepper," he said. "It tastes miserable, but it looks beautiful."

Spinach and cloves is another favorite combination, causing Day to see a purple color sparkling with emerald and sapphire.

But there is a downside, especially drinking a cola drink.

"Part of the color I see is a very ugly sweat-stained yellow. It's a real turn off. I don't want to drink something that's going to make me see that," he said.

Despite the ugly color, the cola tastes the same.

"The color doesn't affect the taste. I taste something and see the color, but that doesn't make me taste something bad," he said. "I don't get to choose what color things are."

So wouldn't having synesthesia cause a sensory overload?

"What if a blind person said you with all your looking you are always seeing something and don't you get a headache from that?" Cytowic asks.

"Of course not. This is the texture of my experience. Synaesthetes have a different texture of perception," he said.

More links:
http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/synesthesia.html

http://wearcam.org/synesthesia/synesthesia_long.html

http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/p...10-cytowic.html

Honestly Pam, you come up with this kind of stuff all the time...and I thought I was a geek reading my "Women in Late Antiquity" book by the pool in Arizona. Now where and/or how did you find this? It's cool!

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We sometimes catch a spark...

I know two people with this. They see colors...actual colors when they hear some music. It generally has to be pure.....a piano...a choir...a solo instrument....it's as real as day to them.

I've also known about this by research into some 20th century composers. It's really a trip. Guess the senses are just cross wired a bit.

Yep, I saw a guy once who would taste words.

As he read/heard words, he would get taste sensations.

KInd of a bad thing, tho, 'cause if anybody found out which words tasted 'bad', they could easily tease him by repeating the 'bad words'.

Wierd, huh ?

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"Just below the surface of our everyday world lie riches." - R. Fripp

wow again!!
VERY interesting articles indeed!
and now i wish I had that!! lol!
i often 'feel' a certain 'color' when certain songs play-but it just happens when it does-i cant pin it down to anything in particular, but now that i read this, i am wondering..
yes-it would be a hassle sometimes -overload indeed-but WOW!
can you imagine a convention of these 'sensitive' folk attending a yes Show??
now THAT is one group i'd hang out with after a show-just to hear which song was which color!
[i think i already have some idea myself, tho-lhehe]
lost-lol!! good thinking my man!!
now, if they could come up with a Dreadful color everytime someone smoked a ciggie or drank too much booze-THAT could be the 'antibuse' drug of the century, huh??
very very interesting indeed!!
i think i want to hear some 'blue' music today!!
not sad or even the blues..
just some 'blue' music..
[i LOVE blue lately for some strange reason! ]
and NOW-i am wondering if any of the people 'afflicted' compose music, and if so, do they use the 'colors' to write with?? [or NOT write with!]

Yep, Kathi. It was fashionable in the early part of the twentieth century to write "psychological" music. Here are three composers who incorporated the idea of synesthesia into their music:

Alexander Scriabin
Vasilly Kandinsky
Olivier Messiaen

Scriabin composed a piecce called Prometheus, Poem of Fire. In the score for this piece is a "color organ" which was supposed to project colored light as it was played. In Scriabin's lifetime, it was never performed with a color organ, though. The technology just wasn't there. Scriabin did want his audience to see what he saw when he composed the music. The synesthesia was a big part of how and why he composed that piece.

Vasilly Kandinsky may of may not have had synesthesia...but the idea of synesthesia was incorporated in the composition of pieces meant to induce an association of color and music to his audience.

Olivier Messiaen, one of my favorite composers, was proven to have synesthesia. He developed a system of "synthetic" scales associated with different colors. Of all the claims of synesthesia, his is the most believable. He was a devout catholic...very spiritual...did not take drugs to induce the association of color and music...and he used this simply as another way to think about music. He went through numerous tests by psychologists and his synesthesia checked out consistantly and repeatedly.

This goes to show one thing.

Some people just have a bad taste in reading material!

__________________
"Just below the surface of our everyday world lie riches." - R. Fripp

LOL! Reader's Digest...tastes great..less filling

after hearing dantalions and mike P's music, i absolutely DO 'sense' certain colors emanating from certain songs..
this is kind of scary-but kind of COOL, too!
hate to quote the monkees but
i'm a believer!!

There certainly are colors associated with sounds, Kathi
I've seen a conductor tell 90 people "think purple for this song" .....and by god that song turned purple!

dang!! i would sit in that conductors band ANY DAY, pam.
we had those mean military-style conductors..
Mean as all get out..perfectionists.. but by gosh, we WERE Good!!
count me in, man!!
listening to a 'blue' song right now!