synaesthesia and insight---help please!

It's like "hearing" in imagination, or in a dream. It's definitely not a sound as it makes no ear sense contact. It's all mental so I'd have to call it a thought.

When I hear a note, or a voice, it also makes an (affective) sound. I assume you have this, too. Is the "sound" of a voice when you read a word different? (For me it's exactly or almost exactly the same.) EDIT: I wouldn't call my experience of subvocalization mental, but maybe only because I compare it to the affective version of things that have ear contact and notice that they are basically the same; so I'm wondering whether our experiences are the same or different.

Tazmic, any insight into your perception that you can't easily distinguish between sound and feeling for these experiences? The basic form of your motion-->sound experiences seems identical to mine (though from your description, your experiences seem to be more salient or stronger), and I seem to have the same problem distinguishing. I've been investigating some possibilities but haven't figured it out, so I'm eager to hear any thoughts you may have.

"You said you hear noises in response to animated icons "often"; does that mean "whenever you bother to notice, which is not always" or "only sometimes"?

About what "affective experience" means, it's a bit of jargon (but really useful in my opinion); I think the best I can do is point you to a recent discussion about it here (beginning with #18): kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/47...fr+Jack%3A+Mahamudra "

I hear the sounds whenever I bother to listen for them. Mostly they stay in the background and are not intrusive. Occasionally I will come across a very distracting animation, and this will have a louder sound attached to it that can't be ignored.

I looked at the thread you linked to. I've never noticed any kind of distorted copy of the sounds after hearing the sounds themselves. There's just the sense of motion, and the sounds connected with it. But then I don't think I've ever noticed distorted copies of anything in my experience, so I may still be misunderstanding what you mean by "affective" (which I guess isn't the same as "affect" used to mean emotion).

>Tazmic, any insight into your perception that you can't easily distinguish between sound and feeling for these experiences?

I'd have to conclude that the base of the experience is composed of Movement and Texture, that these can be understood as Sound and Feeling (Frequency, Vibration), and trying to decide which of the latter 'it is' is perhaps a blind alley (no strange pun intended).

"But then I don't think I've ever noticed distorted copies of anything in my experience, so I may still be misunderstanding what you mean by "affective" (which I guess isn't the same as "affect" used to mean emotion)."

It's actually similar in a way to the sense in which it means "emotion". My experience is that anything that 'I' identify, that 'I' seem to perceive, that 'I' have a direct reaction to or feeling about, is a distortion of an experience that lacks those qualities. And these kinds of things are like more basic versions of typical emotions.

For example, looking at the visual field, sometimes there's just vision, and sometimes there's 'me' seeing vision, or the sense that what's in the visual field is attractive or repulsive or neutral ('my' opinion, even if it doesn't exactly seem that way). The former is just a sense-object. In my experience, the latter seems to be a different thing altogether, a distortion of the former, even though they look similar (affects seem to have the property of inclining the mind to mistake them for sense-objects).

A lot of us think that this distinction is extremely important for our practices (though we may think of it in different terms), so maybe keep it in mind and see if it becomes clear at some point.

Still hoping for a response to my question about the "internal voice". Specifically:

When I hear a spoken voice, there is an affective voice that I hear, which copies it. (Typical, I think.)

When I read a sentence, there is an affective voice, apparently the same kind as when I hear a spoken voice, which speaks the sentence. (I *hear* the voice just as much as I hear the affective copy of a real voice.)

1) Is this, the similarity between the two affects, something that happens in anyone else's experience? Chris says the "internal voice" is not literally heard; is it clearly different from the affective voice that you hear when there's an actual voice speaking?

It does seem, sometimes, that the actual object underlying the latter is a thought of some kind. But, that would be extremely weird if it were true (the actual object would be in a different sense modality than the affective distortion [which I am sure, for me, is auditory]...a completely unique situation as far as I've seen). Other times, it seems the written word "sounds like" its pronunciation, and the affective voice distorts the sound of the word inhering in the written letters.

2) This perception of a sound in the word is *not* something that non-synaesthetes experience, right? (In which case, perhaps there are two affects for me, an inner voice and a spoken voice that drowns it out, and so two actual objects, a thought and a sound.)

EDIT: It seems silly that I have to ask such a strange-sounding question as 2, as if the answer should be obvious, but I assure you, the answer is *not* obvious to me...I suspect it's an atypical experience b/c I realized that I've never heard anyone else describe it. This thread has been humbling to me in a way, as I came to realize how completely clueless I am about what typical perception is like, and thus, that I know less about people than I thought.

Empiricaly speaking, whatever kind of "stuff" you have got, psychedelic meditation experience, synthesesia, etc. you should still be able to practice basic meditation techniques, so I'm not sure what all the rhubarb is about.

Can you respond to the question ---> The easy diagnosis would be confirmed if you have out-of-body experiences, mood swings & shifts, and sexual drive that alternates without cause between weak and strong, etc. ,typical manfestations????

- h a n s e n - -

Hansen, I don't have any "kundalini" phenomena happening for me. No out-of-body experiences, no mood changes (at this point it's hard for me to even say that I have a "mood"), no sex drive changes.

For the sake of promoting understanding...all I can really say about your claim that this is "stuff", is, it isn't "stuff", it's part of the basic fabric of my experience, always has been, always will be, just like your ability to see is part of the basic fabric of your experience. It's not "psychedelic" (except in the sense that people who don't have this kind of experience by default could probably have it or something like it after taking LSD or another drug; but I doubt my experience shares very much else with what would happen on LSD, as it's completely prosaic for me, not like being intoxicated). There's nothing "weird" or uncommon or out-of-the-ordinary about it for me...if these experiences suddenly stopped, *that* would probably be extraordinarily disorienting and weird to me, as, again, things have never been any other way for me.

My practice focuses on seeing the difference between "actual" experiences and "affective" experiences. If that was your practice, and if you had an affective visual experience but had no idea whether it was visual or not, and thus no idea whether it was related to an actual visual experience or an actual hearing experience or an actual tactile experience (etc.), that would be getting in the way of your practice to the extent that you had that affective visual experience during the course of your daily life, right? Same here.

So, now that I've answered your question when you hear a voice and notice it copied "in your head", does the copy sound the same as the voice you hear "in your head" when you read a sentence?

Just in case some of you don't know about the condition...synaesthesia is a random thing that happens once in a while for some people, but there are other folks (like me, Cliff, jhsaintonge, and tazmic) whose brains are simply built in a way such that it happens all the time. It's not temporary, it's not disorienting, it's not extraordinarily rare, it's not an illness, it's not a problem, it's just the way things are for some people. The only thing I can say about it is that it's interesting, just like the fact that you can see is interesting.

Sometimes it's useful and sometimes it gets in the way, just like your sense of smell (useful for finding food, getting in the way when e.g. strong perfume gives you a headache).

If someone reports life-long experiences like these, there isn't a need to search for any explanation other than that their brains function in this uncommon-but-healthy way.

I received this email from an AFer in regards to what is being talked of here concerning 'affect' especially in this thread. You may ignore it or take it on board as you see fit. I chose to post the unaltered email I received so as to not lose its important meaning.

"Something heavily missing from the discussions about and definitions
of what constitutes 'affect' recently found on kfd is mention of the
instinctual passions. To consider affect as being merely a cognitive
distortion is insufficient for bringing about an actual freedom from
the human condition, as, simply put, what is required for extirpation
of that condition (which is the extirpation of the identity in toto -
self-extirpation) to take place is the recognition of its thoroughly
*passional* nature. 'i' am 'my feelings', at root, means that 'i'
('being') am the passions; without the passions, there is no 'me', and
without 'me' there are no passions. Further, as without the
instinctual passions, there is no emotion (the entirety of emotional
experience is rooted in the passions, and the experience of actuality
is entirely passionless, and thus emotionless), it is worth
understanding that all emotional experience is, without exception,
affective. Miss this, and whatever extirpation of 'affect' which may
take place will not be the extirpation which brings about an actual
freedom; rather, such 'self-extirpation' would be as much a distortion
of the term as what is meant by 'affect' is held to be, by current kfd
correspondents, a distortion of actual experience. Such an aberration
would not be the end of 'being'."

(EDIT: I'll just copy my original reply from Alex's practice journal, as I want to make clear that the understanding expressed in the email is exactly right, and so to make sure that no one who has been influenced by what I've said about affects, takes my terminology to mean anything different from this email...and if they have, to investigate the issue in their own experience further.

"[...] my understanding of 'affect' agreed completely with what you posted. I understand affects not to be "cognitive" distortions, but "passional" distortions (distortions that themselves are 'me', 'mine', 'experienced-by-me', 'reacted-to-by-me', etc.). 'My' feelings, where "feelings" means something much broader than it does in everyday usage. And there is no 'me' apart from affects; anything that is 'me' is an affect by definition, and anything that is an affect is 'me' by definition. (i.e. e.g. 'experienced-by-me' is a different way of describing something that is 'me')

It does seem that my terminology and ways of using words is pretty idiosyncratic, so I advise everyone to make sure that, if they care to take on my terminology, they make sure they understand my terms in such a way that their understanding of them agrees with this email (and agrees with what AFers and other advanced practitioners are saying)."

It may be that I talk about "emotions" very little nowadays because I don't seem to experience gross emotions anymore. But, any subtle affect may well be called an emotion, as there isn't a fundamental difference between the two (although there is a difference in how natural language names the two experiences).

excellent! That clears up some major points for me on this topic. Thanks for your succinct reply. I can easily see how that adds another dimension to the Theraveda-rooted meditation practices. And, it also makes clear that it isn't so much as a difficulty as it is situation which requires its own strategies.