# Music, visions and the senses



## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Sometimes, maybe while buzzed, listening to music can stimulate mental visions for me. This morning I noticed that a screensaver I'm using almost perfectly replicates a vision I associate with Rite of Spring:






The catch is that is must be the version conducted by Igor himself...

I also seem to hear rich overtones on almost physical level, suggesting a near-direct connection between hearing and tactile sensations. I don't mean like feeling a bass punch the gut at high volume, more like when some kind of harmonic strangeness makes the skin tingle... could the feeling of well-being aroused by music be related to some kind of sensual crossover wiring in our nervous system?

Please comment.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

It certainly happens to me, but I must be in a very special and highly perceptive mood. My favorite experience when this happens is with very colorful modern and contemporary music (e.g., Stockhausen's Oktophonie) or with Perotin (in his case, it can be really intense, his music is so profound, it's almost like finally finding what reality is and that it is a beautiful, pure and pristine thing; it's like with ancient Greek temples, they were the first examples of western architecture and nevertheless they touched such a high peak that it's difficult to surpass in beauty, proportion and elegance, particularly the Doric style; Perotin's four part music was the first four part music and in general some of the first polyphonic music, to me it's the Parthenon of western classical music).


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Synesthesia is a not unknown quality that some people possess. (Messiaen sees colors in response to particular chords or harmonies.) I don't have it, but can imagine it.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

A lot of music - not all, not even all of my favourite music - leads to my generating mental pictures of the music. It happens all the time and sometimes helps me with music I find difficult. I can't will it to happen and I can't influence it. It isn't logical and logic tends to inhibit it. It happens less with programme music, where my "visioning ability" (sounds grand but it really isn't) can be blocked by the intended story, but just occasionally I get images that may be close to those intended by the composer. Shostakovich 12 is an example. Sometimes the imagery I get is related to something I was reading when listening a lot to the piece in question. But usually there is no obvious sense to the images I get.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

philoctetes said:


> Sometimes, maybe while buzzed, listening to music can stimulate mental visions for me. This morning I noticed that a screensaver I'm using almost perfectly replicates a vision I associate with Rite of Spring:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


partly joking and partly serious, if you take LSD you will get even more strange sensations like that.


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