The Synesthesia Tree: Emotion-sound synesthesia

Emotions triggering sound as a synesthetic concurrent is a rare type of synesthesia. It can occur with two categories of emotions: with one’s own emotions, or when other people’s are observed or intuitively perceived. The same emotion gives rise to the same sound perception, and the sounds are usually reported as being fairly simple in nature. It’s difficult to find reports of this uncommon type of synesthesia: in Sean Day’s study on 1,297 synesthetes only one of them identified as having this type of experience.

Here are some descriptions written by people with this type of synesthesia:

Hearing sound with one’s own emotions:

“Basically, when I feel emotions (specially on a high intensity), I hear a sound. Almost like a frequency. Each emotion has its own frequency and that frequency stays unchanging. It's always been like that for me. I've never quite come to hear the frequency for sadness, but I have one for almost all emotions, which I could quickly identify, and which I vividly hear.”

(Source: This post on the Synesthesia subreddit. 2025.)

“Whenever I feel a certain emotion, there's always a certain image that pops into my mind. (…) I can also "hear" my emotions, like neutral or indifferent would sound like a fan or TV static.”

(Source: This comment on the Do I Have Synesthesia? page of the Synesthesia Tree website. 2022.)

Synesthete researcher Lidell Simpson was interviewed by Maureen Seaberg for the website "Psychology Today" about his synesthesia (read the interview here), and one of the types he reported was emotion-sound:

Maureen: Which forms of synesthesia do you have?

Lidell: Motion to sound, touch and taste, smell to sound, emotion to sound - hell, just about everything has sound. Anything that changes state gives sonic information. I once called it Photonic Hearing. (…)

I guess it is the way I think in a non-verbal and non-visual manners. Totally sound.”

As a deaf person, and after researching in the neurobiology and brain imaging areas and having conversations with some leading scientists working in this area, Lidell has considered that his brain may have rewired itself so as to perceive sounds from other sensory stimuli in substitution of other external auditory input.

Perceived emotion-sound. Two cases of synesthetes who hear sound for other people’s emotions.

“The sound of a person who has got angry is really loud. For example, when two people have a quarrel. The voice is noisy of course, but the sound is also loud too. Two angry sounds crush each other in big volume, and after they stop talking, start ignoring each other, the sound still remains. That sound scares me a lot.

I understand people by hearing sound. Another example, the sound of loneliness. That sound is like breaking glass. It's clear, straight, a sort of beautiful, but it comes to stab in my chest, and hurt me so deeply.”

(Source: conversations with the synesthete Miho Ito. 2022.)

"Essentially, sometimes (not all the time) I feel people's feelings/their tone of voice as a musical note in my body. Like a reverberating piano note in my chest. Once, I was in a conversation with two people I didn't know, and as one person was speaking, I felt them get subtly offended. This felt like someone hit a sharp note on a piano in my chest. Then the other person responded and I felt that they were upset, and that felt like a flat piano note in my chest. If someone is anxious, it feels like a quick staccato series of notes.
It doesn't happen with every person, but the standouts are with strangers. That's when I notice it the most.
Sometimes it's not a note, but a flooding feeling where it can take me a while to figure out if the feeling is mine or the other person's."

(Source: a comment from synesthete Bea on the Do I Have Synesthesia page of the Synesthesia Tree. 2025/26.)

Related types of synesthesia:

Perceived emotion-to-colour (and other concurrents)

Pain-sound

This page first published: 6 September 2025.

This page last updated: 24 January 2026.