I am a musician who does not possess perfect pitch, but recently I've been training myself to remember and differentiate between the twelve different notes, just for kicks. I had been working on this for a few months, and had gotten relatively good at recognizing a few specific notes (C, A-flat, G-flat, and D-flat) when compared to others. However, I had never simply heard a note/chord and INSTANTLY known what it was. I always had to think about it. The other weekend I decided to solo trip on LSD. Around the time I was peaking, I started listening to a Chopin playlist on Spotify. A few seconds into the first piece, the pianist struck a very strong major chord, which to my shock I instantly recognized as D-flat. It simply WAS D-flat major, I was so sure of it I didn't feel like I even needed to check (which I did anyways--indeed I was right). Even more shocking was that when the chord was struck, I saw a deep violet color across my entire frame of vision. I have heard of people having synesthetic experiences on acid, but this was totally unfamiliar to me. I instantly recognized every D-flat major chord (which now sounded permanently deep violet) from that point forward, as well as every A-flat major chord (which sounded like the color of maple syrup). Through the duration of my trip, I could perfectly recognize and recall these two notes, which now carried distinct identities in my mind. The next day, this effect had mostly disappeared, although A-flat and D-flat have both been quite a bit easier to recognize since then. I have taken acid a few more times since this experience, and recognizing/recalling any notes (but especially these two, and also C) is an easy task while tripping. I enter this inner-mind place where I can hear the distinct notes as clear as day. Even when I smoke weed I can occasionally access it. Anyone ever heard of something like this happening???
Some people who have natural synesthesia do have perfect pitch and they most commonly report associating notes with colors from what I've heard. I have seen music vibrate before but not while playing guitar, short term memory impairment, distorted sounds and a wandering mind usually make it difficult for me to focus while playing on LSD. I have never had synestesia while playing the guitar on acid and when I play, I often find my playing becomes more free form.
I'd say your preconceptions melted enough for you to find new connections in something that was already on your mind. Probably wouldn't have happened if you weren't thinking about it before, because you weren't looking for connections. Our senses aren't separate, each sense just picks up a different range of frequencies within a massive spectrum of frequencies. There are going to be patterns, D flat could very well be an octave of violet. Defining violet would be difficult though, and would be more effort than it's worth to try and prove because of all the possible harmonic relationships that would alter the end result..
Me too <- Chopin and LSD lover here as well. Currently "learning" his Barcarolle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alaLgb0zABs
The pitcher threw a no hitter on LSD, he beaned and walked some batters which disqualifies a perfect game.
Synesthesia is very interesting to me, it was one of the reasons LSD appealed to me actually. I'm hoping more research can be done with LSD and Synesthesia because I feel like it is more real than a hallucination. Did you know that people with synesthesia, literally have patterns with these crossed over senses? So let's just say the letter A always looks like the colour blue. This is true EVERYTIME, not some delusion of seeing a colour in a random letter. Meatymushroom had a good summary of how this works From what I have read it seems to be in question if Synesthesia is related to one's memories or not. Your experience is truly fascinating to me, I do believe your subconscious brought a lot of this about onto your trip (recent thinking patterns always seem to find a way into your experience), but I want to do a small experiment, and see if myself or any musician friend can experience similar colour to note crossed senses.
sounds like a really cool effect. i'm not a musician, so i don't think i've ever experienced this. i've seen colors when listening to music, but i don't think any particular color correlated with a particular note.
