Chromesthesia

The definition of chromesthesia is any type of synesthesia where the inducer is sound or music and the concurrent is (or includes) colour.

Chromesthesia is quite a commonly-used term, and in practice people normally use it to refer to synesthesia involving music as an inducer (rather than just general sounds) and colour as a concurrent (colour impressions, particularly when the music creates the perception of several different colours, usually with movement and a spatial component and also when the colour impressions are in the form of shapes, lines, etc.).

So basically it's referring to auditory-visual synesthesia in general, EXCEPT for the type where there is no colour involved (synesthetes who only get colourless, black-and-white or greyscale visual impressions from music and sound, which is not as common as the coloured variety but some do experience it like this, usually in the form of geometric shapes).

Like all the other visual types of synesthesia, chromesthesia can be associative or projective: most chromesthetes are "associators", meaning their colour perceptions, which can be extremely vivid, occur in their mind's eye or just as an impression of a particular colour or colours, while others are "projectors": this is a stronger manifestation, where they actually see the colours as if they were in front of them in real life. It's also interesting to note that some associator chromesthetes have occasional experiences of projection (if they're extremely tired, for example, or perhaps in an unusually emotional state or smoking cannabis to relax). For projector synesthetes the impression can even be so strong sometimes that the colours block out other visual stimuli, although it's fairly rare for this to be the case. When it is, it can cause problems for them, making activities like driving while listening to music impossible. But the vast majority of people with chromesthesia just enjoy an enhanced experience of music and it can often increase their interest or talent in this area, so chromesthetes can quite often be found in the music business, as musicians, singers or producers, using their colours to help guide them in their creation and interpretation. And for some people whose specific type of synesthesia is tone-to-colour (a colour is automatically visualised for each musical note), it can be a strongly contributing factor in the case of their having absolute or perfect pitch.

All the following types of synesthesia can be called chromesthesia (the links go to the pages on each type):

Musical note-colour (=tone-colour)

Chord-colour

Timbre-colour (and timbre colour/shape)

Key signature-colour

Musical mode-colour

Song-colour, musical genre-colour

General sounds-colour (and general sounds-colour/shape)

Voice-colour (and voice-colour/shape)

This image: Loria187, on Reddit/Synesthesia. 2020. 

Go to the page on all the music-related types of synesthesia (not just chromesthesia)

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This page last updated: 26 March 2026