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Neuroscience: News and Discussions.

Full History - 2012 - 01 - 24 - ID#ousip
1
Help me figure out my Synestesia! (self.neuroscience)
submitted 11y ago by [deleted]
Question, can Synestesia come/go because of anti seizure meds?
That is what I seem to have going on and it is quite disturbing.
My Neuroligist thinks I am just "an odd duck". He had never heard
of such a thing. Is this normal or somehting to worry about?
Is there synestesia/migraine cross connection or interaction?
Also am I normal?

Sorry it's a long story but one of the medications (Lamictal/Lamotragine) I have been taking for the last 9 months for migraine prophylaxis had a side effect that took away or at least perceptually lowered my synestesia almost to the non detectable level. Which was both a Blessing and Curse, more of a curse for me.
It did help a little with the migraines but not enough, and the side effects suck donkey balls.

Re Synestesia:
From what research I have done I have in tone–color (TCS) and tone-space synesthesias (TSS). In TCS, pitch chroma (e.g., Sol) elicits a color perception. In a TSS, musical tones are organized explicitly in a well-defined spatial array. I am very good with pitch.

Now that I am almost weaned off the Lamictal, it's coming back, and almost the same as before, Still trying to figure out the difference from what I remember. I am hoping it's back to normal as its like loosing a part of your body. Just imagine a leg falling off... It's been a part of me since birth and to have it suddenly taken away, while I have been sometimes OK with this it's been a rather depressing thing.
I didn't know it could go away. I thought you had it or didn't.

I have greatly missed the synestesia being around and it made
anything music bland. It was just like I had no music taste buds. Imagine listening to music with the treble turned all the way down, no bass, just a little nasal mids... no fun! So I just stopped listening. I work in Broadcasting as an RF Engineer and not enjoying music was really bothering me. I am in this field because of my intense love of music, all things technical, and I have the "Knack"...

see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlJsPa6UwcM

A couple weeks ago I was on a long road trip coming back from some
transmitter maintenance, So I popped in one of my favorite
CD's to try and stay awake. That's when I found out it was coming back. I got hit full on from nothing to all on in an instant. It was shocking like getting brain zapped, anyone ever get an occipital/trigeminal block and that instant the needle touches the nerve before the anestetic kick in shock..... Well that happened.
The old friend was back, it's like finding your long lost puppy bounding back down the road happy to see you. After about 10 minutes of the
experience I was just sitting in the jeep crying like a baby, it was quite overwhelming.

Is this like what people who use LSD have going on?

I am force weaning off of the Lamictal it takes 8 weeks. I am down
to 1/4 of the starting dose. I will be off next week I hope....... The
withdrawal has been one of the worst things I have ever been through.
Don't take it if they want you to, find something else. I will live with the migraines then have to go through the Lamictal effects again.

I will try at a description, it's quite hard and obviously highly subjective to myself and may change as meds are finally gone:
It's coming back in folds not quite as strong visuals, more textural oriented in a slightly different pattern. It used to be more behind me and wrap around, now it's twisted like 45 Degrees they whole works rotate clockwise. I think that is one of the side effects of Lamictal withdrawal the feeling of rotating. Most instruments, and every kind of percussion instrument has a specific texture-shape. There is a
color for each pitch, but sometimes there is no word for the actual color like "Yellow-Blue". I actually see Yellow-Blue. Each sound object spatially is like floating splotches of their FFT (Fast Fourier Transformation) spectrum but floating at a 45 degree incline both to the right and forward of dead center in my head. Strings insturments specifically tend to make bands, except things like Indian sitar, which has this red flame hyper-paraboloid object. Image a pringle chip rolling into itself at the frequency of the note.... I know weird .... Complex music like full orchestra tends to extend all the way around 360 degrees around a transverse plane even with my ears, and 180 degrees sagittally centered on my spine over the top of my face when laying down. There is nothing positionally over the parietal lobes. I can see and hear every instrument, all at once both individuall and as a whole. They each have positional areas always in the same spot, the notes change texture and color with frequency or intonation. Some of it is really damn hard to describe because of how complex the interaction is with all the other notes going on. I can't draw it, some the colors don't exist, and since it's just cross-wired neurons in my noggin, just mixed electrical signals not real visual input into the optic nerve.

I honestly didn't know everyone wasn't like that until my late 20's. It came up in conversation and they thought I was on LSD, shrooms, or something hit my head...
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