This page contains all the readers’ comments on the “Auditory-tactile synesthesia” article, received between 2022 and 2026.
Comment by: Anonymous. December 18, 2022 at 12:05 PM
I appreciate you giving such a comprehensive description of
the way I experience this world. I feel sound exactly as described here and I’m
so happy to find a resource to validate my condition.
Comment by: Anonymous. May 1, 2023 at 2:49 PM
I have a patient who reports that certain sounds (usually
people's voices) make her "brain shake" she has normal UCL. Could
this be the cause?
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). May 4, 2023
at 9:38 PM
Hi! It’s difficult to say without a more detailed
description, and I obviously can’t give any medical advice. From what you say I
shouldn’t think so, but then I don’t know anything about what kind of
conditions she has. There are many other auditory-related issues involving
sensitivity to sound: hyperacusis, misophonia, sensory processing disorder, and
plenty of others, which don’t necessarily have anything to do with synesthesia
at all. I’d say that firstly if she’s experiencing something one-off or very specific
and unpleasant it’s very unlikely to be syn, and secondly that synesthetes
wouldn’t normally have just auditory-tactile, it would tend to be part of an
array of different types, so you would have to determine whether she was a
developmental synesthete “in general”: does she have grapheme-colour, colours
for concepts e.g. time units, does she associate sounds and/or music with shape
and colour? Those are some of the more common types and you would probably find
one or more of those in all synesthetes to start with. If she is a synesthete,
then you would have to find out more exactly about all the perceptions she
feels with the different kind of sounds and see if it ties in with
auditory-tactile (which incidentally is one of the least studied types and
really we’re just finding out about how exactly it manifests). There is of
course the rare but possible occurrence of auditory-tactile synesthesia from
brain damage, if she’s suffered some kind of event of that nature: adventitious
synesthesia isn’t my speciality but there have been some case studies I could
probably find links to if you wanted to see them.
Comment by: Vieira151. May 9, 2023 at 2:46 PM
Is it possible for this to be reversed? Im not sure that I
always get tactile responses to sound, but I have very consistent (for many
years) mental audio responses to touch. Running my fingers over my skin or
getting a Papercut or the feeling when I touch a bruise (on my own body) all
have distinct associations with sounds and pitch.
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). May 9, 2023
at 2:49 PM
Yes! Tactile-auditory synesthesia exists:
https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/03/tactile-auditory-synesthesia.html
Comment by: Anonymous. May 25, 2023 at 2:55 AM
Does anyone ever feel like the atmosphere is thick or thin?
Like the air is almost like an oil consistency or hair gel? Different
environments have different consistencies for me. In areas that I experience
extreme anxiety, or uncertainty, everyone appears flat and lifeless even-if
they’re moving.
Like cut outs of real people. But in a regular vibrant mind
state such as when I am taking a walk in the forest or hike, or calm and
engaged with friends or family, the air is thick like almost being underwater.
And I can feel it on my skin and the “weight” on my body. It is not unpleasant
at all. It is not the atmosphere or dew or pressure, it’s not environmental,
but instead affected by the environment.
It is a very specific immersion feeling. I’ve read a lot
about tactile audio synesthesia but I haven’t met anyone that has an
environmental, tactile ones such as this.
I do believe I also have mirror touch synesthesia because
when I see anything get hurt or killed, it makes me feel like I have lost my
breath and my vision gets tiny and foggy and it feels like I’m going to faint.
If I see an animal suffering on the side of the road or having been hit by a
car my chest caves in as if I have been impacted by the vehicle. Often times
appendages will go numb and weak.
This has happened since I was a child.
Not sure if mirror touch synesthesia can be specifically to
animals. But I am a park ranger and work as a veterinary assistant and maybe
that is part of the association?
Just throwing it out there cause I’m not even sure about
what I’m experiencing half the time I do know what limits me to some extent,
but for the most part, the environmental thick air feeling is very pleasant. It
makes me feel protected and safe and wrapped up in some kind of invisible thick
hug. Thank you all so much for sharing!
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). June 19,
2023 at 9:59 PM
Hi! Thank you for commenting and sorry for the delay in
replying. I must say I haven't heard anyone mention what you say about feeling
atmospheres physically as thick or thin. I'm wondering if perhaps from what you
say the trigger would be the kind or class of emotion you are feeling. So maybe
you could take a look at emotion-tactile synesthesia and see if you recognise
anything? I'm thinking that in my own case, a feeling of wellbeing (when it
comes to me through a sense such as a taste or a tactile sensation, not just a
feeling of wellbeing alone) presents itself as a kind of squidgy cushiony shape
which I feel I am lying on or perceiving in front of me. But it is the feeling
of wellbeing caused by the sensorial event that causes the shape perception. Maybe
what you experience is something similar? I can identify with what you say
about it being pleasant and like being wrapped up. Perhaps you could think if
you have any more physical perceptions with other emotions.
Mirror-touch would be if you actually saw the animal hit in
the chest and felt it in your chest right at the moment it was struck, rather
than feeling it when you are seeing the after-effects. That sounds to me like
pain empathy, which is slightly different. But yes, all this can definitely be
specific to animals, and it's interesting that you're a veterinary assistant
and feel this kind of mirror involvement with them.
Comment by: Anonymous. June 14, 2023 at 8:13 AM
I just discovered this term, but most of my experiences with
this phenomena have been unpleasant. Velcro slowly being pulled apart causes a
very uncomfortable tickling sensation in my head. A video that I recently just
watched had a fast ticking sound in it that I could physically feel inside the
back of my neck a ticking sensation that was uncomfortable. The video is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ111VcweOA at 0:09 seconds the sound starts,
could this be what I am experiencing?
Reply by: trb43. June 18, 2023 at 1:59 PM
Velcro is terrible!
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). June 19,
2023 at 9:42 PM
Thank you for commenting! I couldn't hear any ticking at all
at 0:09, was it at 9:00 perhaps? I heard some ticking there and I wondered if
it might give me something tactile too, although with the sound of the voice
being much louder it seemed to me that it drowned out the ticking and prevented
any audio-tactile I might have had... although in music a small sound like that
can be tactile for me while a more dominant sound isn't. I'd say that your
reactions could be considered auditory-tactile synesthesia, yes, if you have a
variety of tactile reactions to different sounds and not just "grima"
or rejection of certain sounds that is exclusively unpleasant, and limited to
the series of sounds that often cause this like nails on a chalkboard, polystyrene
or, as you mention, velcro.
Comment by: trb43. June 18, 2023 at 1:58 PM
I feel sound everywhere, all the time. It's incredibly
overwhelming. Birds chirping feels like a little pulse in my face, squirrels
barking feels like wind on my face. Cars driving by blocks away feel like a
crumpled bit of tissue paper being pulled through the side of my head. Voices
tickle my forehead. Car doors shutting, footsteps upstairs, creaking in the
floorboards, sounds like this all feel like thumps inside my chest. I didn't
recognize that this wasn't what everyone felt until very, very recently. I've
been having a hard time explaining or naming it, because nobody I've spoken to
knows what I'm talking about... It would seem this could be auditory-tactile
synesthesia?
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). June 19,
2023 at 9:28 PM
Yes, I would say you could call all of that auditory-tactile
synesthesia. I hope you manage to focus on the pleasant sensations :)
Reply by: trb43. July 26, 2023 at 5:58 PM
Hah! I do my best :)
Comment by: Anonymous. June 22, 2023 at 8:19 PM
Where or who would you go to in order to get help with this
condition or a diagnosis?
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). June 28,
2023 at 8:18 AM
Probably a neurologist, or your doctor could refer you to a
related specialist if you describe what you experience. It depends on what
you're actually experiencing, of course. I'd note that most general medical
professionals, as is logical, don't have an in-depth knowledge of synesthesia.
I also think auditory-tactile is one of the more "difficult" types as
there are practically no studies on it (on the natural, developmental type that
a synesthete might have always had all their life, at least), and there are so
many conditions that involve sound and various reactions that we can feel
physically, and most probably shouldn't be considered auditory-tactile
synesthesia at all, especially if they're unpleasant. But I hope you get your
diagnosis and if you're having sound-related unpleasant physical sensations I
hope you get help in reducing them.
Ah, and just wanted to add that whereas getting a diagnosis
is beneficial for getting help with conditions that affect your life
negatively, but that isn't normally the case for synesthesia and it's just a
trait rather than a condition, so a diagnosis from the medical profession isn't
necessary and the vast majority of synesthetes don't have one, they just know
that they fit in with the descriptions of it.
Comment by: Anonymous. July 26, 2023 at 6:03 PM
I’m happy to see that this is a known phenomenon, but I
wanna back up the person above- it’s a negative sensation quite a lot of the
time. I don’t know if they can affect each other, but I have normal tactile
processing disorder, so maybe it’s just that I’m sensitive/averse to the
texture sensations that the sounds create?
This did help me clarify that I have this synesthesia,
though, as I’ve been struggling to convince myself I’m not ‘faking it’. it’s
consistent, and it’s more visceral than the sound-texture association you
mentioned. It’s still weird that it’s the only synesthesia I have.
Reply by: Anonymous. July 26, 2023 at 6:12 PM
(Same anon) To clarify, I don’t THINK i have auditory
processing disorder, though I thought I did previously. Once I learned that
auditory-tactile synesthesia was a thing, I observed that my negative reactions
to sound seemed far more related to their texture, rather than the sound
itself. Sound sensitivity by proxy, sorta.
Reply by: melissa bailey. May 25, 2025 at 8:22 PM
it can be extremely unpleasant when you take into account
that it seems as though any one of the hearing-motion, personification, and
associative forms of synesthesia can trigger each other and it feels like they
can build on each other too. Take into account that audio/visual/ and tactile
can coexist in a person...along with various other synesthetic
experiences...ALLLLLL of which you personally experience...when calm, it's
manageable and barely noticeable...With the only logical conclusion being that in
certain environments and situations they all just start dominoing into each
other, triggering into another...sounds trigger other sounds, that trigger
visions, that can trigger sounds again, only to then go and trigger
touch....take into consideration the various types of synesthesia, such as
auditory-motor, mirror touch, conceptual auditory, tickertape...and the almost
infinite ways in which they can combine...it can become extremely loud, and
extremely intense, and very disorienting...and physically painful... I work in
an OR...imagine what the music playing can do to a person like me, perfectly
alright most of the time ...then add in the other people in the room and the
sounds they make, machines, the breathing...all of it making noises and
sounds...words make visions, sounds make visions, you physically feel touch to
sounds all while nothing is actually touching you...tack on the fact of what
may, OR MAY NOT BE actually happening around you, because nothing is
coordinating and nothing is right in that room...a 1,001 stimuli triggers all
going off at the same damn time....and ALL you want to do is make it stop...and
make it make sense....because in that very moment you feel like you are a caged
animal and you are literally fighting for your life....and you have a job to
do, but the second you go to respond, you can't because it's quiet all of the
sudden...you are in the eye of the storm and you are petrified that if even
spasm of a muscle happens or you blink or hear a pin drop that you are quite
literally gonna explode...you can literally hear the blood going through your
veins, you not only physically feel the touch of your heart pounding against
your chest wall, you can put your hand on your chest and actually feel it
beating against it...but it's not actually beating that hard, and your blood
pressure has barely raised, and what you just witnessed was not actually right
in front of your face...but it was real to you. It can be an extremely
isolating and scary experience.
Comment by: Anonymous. August 6, 2023 at 3:37 AM
I think I have synesthesia but I’m not sure. When I listen
to music it feels more like a ghost of a feeling rather that if it actually
happened. For example the song halo by Beyoncé feels like a drumming/pins and
needles on the bottom of my feet and back of my neck but it’s not as strong as
if this was actually happening. Or engine revving like feels like a light shock
going up my spine but it’s not super strong and could potentially go unnoticed
if I was super distracted. Does this sound like synesthesia or something else?
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). August 25,
2023 at 7:58 PM
Hi and sorry I haven't been able to reply to comments during
this month of August!
If your tactile perceptions are fairly varied but consistent
for the same songs/sounds/types of music etc., yes, I think you could say that
what you have is auditory-tactile synesthesia. Although as we were saying in
other comments above, it's not a type that's been studied much and so there
aren't really any reliable descriptions of everything that really is and
everything that really isn't audio-tactile syn, so in general it can be
difficult to say. But I totally agree - from my own experience and other people's
- that it often isn't felt at all if you're distracted, concentrating on
something else or just hearing background noise rather than listening
undistractedly to music with headphones for example. I get the "feet"
thing too... and it's really strong when I'm relaxed and totally concentrated
on what I'm listening to, while I think it'd probably be inexistent if the
music was there but I was totally concentrating on something else.
Comment by: Anonymous. August 31, 2023 at 1:31 AM
I think I might have this, There are certain sounds that
most always provoke certain feelings in my body. Like the sound of my friend
crunching on a crispy potato I felt in my right knee. The sound of metal
grating on other metal (specific to something at work) always produces an
uncomfortable prickly feeling in my body. Certain sounds can also create
pleasant feeling in my head or other parts of my body. Like if I hear
scratching I can feel it in my teeth. I've been this way since I was young. I'm
very sensitive to sound though as well and get auditory overloads so I'm unsure
if it's that or synesthesia. What is your opinion?
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). September
13, 2023 at 9:01 PM
Hi! My opinion is that this could probably be considered
auditory-tactile synesthesia, yes. If the same sounds affect you with the same
tactile sensations in the same part of your body each time, and it's something
like as if the different sounds were in classes or categories and you're
perceiving the result of that through a different sense, tactile in this case,
then that would broadly fit the definition. If you are already a synesthete,
i.e. have other types of synesthesia, then it would be more likely that it
should be considered auditory-tactile synesthesia than another phenomenon.
Although they may of course be sensory processing issues that are not really
related, especially if you're not otherwise a synesthete. As we were commenting
in some comments earlier in this thread, "it's not a type that's been
studied much and so there aren't really any reliable descriptions of everything
that really is and everything that really isn't audio-tactile syn, so in
general it can be difficult to say," which is why perhaps it's just
impossible to give definite answers at the present time. The fact that many of
your reactions are pleasant or neutral rather than unpleasant would bring it
closer to synesthesia, in my opinion.
Comment by: Anonymous. November 18, 2023 at 12:39 PM
I don't know whether I have synaesthesia or not but whenever
I hear music, I kind of feel things in my head like some beats pulsate while
others swing like a pendulum and instruments are a 'scale' or a 'ramp' with
higher pitches higher up. I have to concentrate a bit and wear headphones to
get the full feeling.
Comment by: B. October 14, 2024 at 6:12 AM
Yes! Thanks so much for helping me figure this out! If this
is the same thing I’ve been experiencing it My whole life. I feel like I get
the pulsating feeling and it starts in my gut and travels up my body up my neck
and out of my head when I hear certain music. I’m also a musician so maybe it’s
just that. However, I also get this feeling when in very emotional moments. An
example, best friends that have been fighting for 10 years, That moment that we
make up. or when I do something super nice for someone. when I see someone do
something really nice for someone else. I have also always had the urge to
imitate other people, especially if they sound funny or very odd. I don’t know
if that is part of the speech mirroring thing? Thank you again for the enlightenment
and taking the time to read this.
Comment by: B. October 14, 2024 at 6:19 AM
Oh yeah, I forgot to explain this one that happened last
night, because I know I have ADD😝 but anyway, I woke up
in the middle of the night last night, and started playing the song. I’m
currently working on, in my head. And it came on very strong! The article says
it can happen when you’re very relaxed and I was just laying there in the dark in
my bed. Does this sound like synesthesia?
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). October 24,
2024 at 3:05 PM
Hi! I must say that the more I study the less I seem to know
with regard to auditory-tactile synesthesia, as there are so many different
kinds of tactile sensations that people can get in response to music, and
probably few of them have anything to do with synesthesia at all!
It think what you describe here probably couldn’t be
considered auditory-tactile syn, unless you actually have a range of different
tactile sensations that consistently correspond to different aspects of music
or musical series or sequences, such as notes, keys, chords, timbres, different
songs, different genres, etc. What you describe sounds like your own
idiosyncratic tactile response to an emotion – an emotion that could be
produced by music or musical creation sometimes – and not a range of tactile correspondences.
Perhaps it’s just the physical feeling of happy pleasure, as you feel it (some
people might get butterflies in their stomach, you feel this). It’s difficult
to say what it is, of course so I'm just kind of speculating. I must say I have
something similar which I get a lot, with both emotions and musical sounds, in
my case starting in my hands/feet and progressing along my arms/legs, it would
be like a very strong tingling (not usually pulsating in my case). And to be
honest I don’t know what it is or what it would be called, and whether it’s
synesthesia or not. I’m thinking probably not.
Because of the parts of the body involved in your case
(although the direction of travel is the opposite way round perhaps!) I wonder
if you have experiences with ASMR? Perhaps it’s connected to that in some way?
Did you read the chart on this page with ideas about distinguishing between
what might be auditory-tactile syn and what might be ASMR?
The urge to imitate, no, again that’s probably not connected
with mirror-speech, which would be more like physical sensations actually
happening to you, your throat reacts for example by tensing up as if you were
the person speaking. However, if the urge is produced by firstly having that
kind of physical sensation and then feeling compelled to exteriorise it, then
you could consider it mirror-speech, yes.
Comment by: Anonymous. February 5, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Really like all that information being out there.
Does feel like sound having more context to it that simply
what it says, like feeling where it originates and where it goes, like a
physical thing that gives a feeling and intention and emotion, always if not
almost always.
Comment by: Anonymous. April 28, 2025 at 8:37 PM
ok, mine is kinda different. It's very consistent, between
myself and my best friend. Regardless of distance or line of sight, I feel it
as a muscle spasm whenever my friend is hurt, or particularly sore. Also, its
mirrored and instant
Comment by: Anonymous. July 16, 2025 at 2:24 PM
I have something like this, but certain words also trigger
sensations and images/textures, just by their sound. For example: the word
lavender is very pleasant, I can see little crystal blue butterflies, and it
feels like cotton candy. Is this synesthesia as well?
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). January 9,
2026 at 1:56 PM
Hi! Sorry for the shockingly late reply... I got a bit mixed
up over summer and didn't see all the questions.
That's interesting what you say, and I think you could
probably consider it synesthesia, yes, if the associations are automatic (you
don't have to even think about them, they just always come up), consistent and
unchanging, there are many of them and not just a few, and they just seem to
have always been like that. It would be particularly likely to be synesthesia
if you had other types of synesthesia as well as this. (If you don't, then it
might just be associations of course). If colour and texture are very present,
that would point to a synesthetic connection too. You could read this Tree
page:
https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/03/grapheme-shapetexturecolourimage.html
if you haven't already, where there are some similar
descriptions, and see what you think.
Comment by: Anonymous. July 30, 2025 at 5:35 PM
I think I have this but I’m not sure. I feel sensations with
certain words and I have other types of synesthesia including OLP, grapheme
color, and grapheme texture. Some examples would be when I hear people singing
songs like “boogie woogie bugle boy of company B” when they sing it in that
weird scratchy country ish voice I feel like I’m being scratched in the arms
(and I kind of see woven baskets) is sight also a part of this? For example, if
I see colors or images with certain sounds? Example: when people say “shhh” in
the waterfall way (like how teachers do it) I not only feel sensations, I also
see a kind of blue ish color and I see little butterflies. Does any of this
sound like it fits in this type of synesthesia? And if the sound-color thing
isn’t this do you know what other types of synesthesia that could be? Thanks
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). August 17,
2025 at 6:40 PM
Yes, the sensations with auditory-tactile synesthesia can
certainly be accompanied by a colour, texture or shape as part of the
experience, and what you're describing fits in very well with that.
If you also have experiences with sound that evoke colours
(or colours/textures/shapes) without actually having physical tactile
sensations at the same time, then they might correspond to this type:
https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/03/timbre-colour-and-timbre-shape.html
Or you could read these pages which list different types of
sound/music synesthesia and see if you perhaps identify with some others:
https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/02/auditory-visual-synesthesia.html
https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/02/chromesthesia.html
And here is a page with a wider list of music-related
synesthesias:
https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/02/chromesthesia.html
Comment by: Anonymous. February 25, 2026 at 1:20 PM
I've always found my experience difficult to describe. I
describe myself as an audiophile, but it's something more than that. I'm
listening to the music that causes this as I type it. Sorry, this ended up
being long, but I wanted to try and document this in real time.
* The physical:
It feels as if my body is blooming and transforming.
It starts in my upper chest, neck, and arms, and shifts very
suddenly into my legs and head usually after a moment.
It flares as warm pressure, and then I feel like my body
becomes part of the air and I sort of lose sensation of my spatial awareness on
a deep level. There are no barriers between myself and the air. All pain
ceases, and I become physically stronger and don't experience exhaustion as
easily. I can't help but need to move (I'm very fond of dancing), even just a
little bit.
* The mental:
I lose some mental awareness of my immediate surroundings
and the present, though I am still able to think and act within it, if a little
delayed. However, sometimes it can be very overwhelming to try and balance the
outside world and what's happening in my inner mind, so I need the music to
stop.
I've described certain melodies as "hitting" the
parts of my brain that cause crying.
I'm not sad, and it's somehow quite pleasant. The way
something is sang or the way a melody goes... It's specific and needs to be
that certain sound, and it's like clockwork.
It's like I'm suddenly in two places, or seeing two places.
I describe it like hallucination, but I'm not tricked by it. I automatically
visualize a fire spirit? Moving and flowing. There's yellow and white and it's
very bright and makes trails. If I shut my eyes, there are also bright
light-blue laser-like starbursts spinning. Sometimes these lights bend into a
parabola depending on the sound, and sometimes they "widen". I can't
keep my eyes closed long because I can feel dizzy. The stars are faint with eyes
open.
* A recent irl example of someone noticing how this happens:
I was experiencing an illness that was causing me to be in
10/10 pain. I was crying and wailing pretty badly. Every movement was horrible,
even breathing felt like knives, so I was breathing super shallow.
My husband came to tend to me since I couldn't move, and
trying to think of how I could feel better, I realized... I (near-incoherently)
begged him to turn on music, and specifically play this track:
https://youtu.be/vYqZrlbKteY
Within 1 min, I stopped crying, by 2 min I was breathing
deeply, and by 3 min, I was physically upright again and moving the part of my
torso that was hurting me.
By the end of the song, I was able to get off the floor and
sit on the edge of the tub. Playing another song in a similar vein soon had me
able to move again. I laid down, and kept my playlist going under my pillow and
fell asleep. All of this was absolutely impossible beforehand. My husband
described it the next day as "genuinely incredible to see."
He added, "I didn't realize the pain-relief aspect was
that strong for you, but now I know what to do when you're in a bad way."
Anyway, someone recently described this experience as
synesthesia. I had ALWAYS thought this was just a colors and smells thing, I
suppose. I had a boyfriend about 15 years ago with synesthesia, and I can tell
you, the wikipedia page on the topic has evolved.
But it's your blog that helped me realize... this might
actually be a weird form of synesthesia.
Thanks for your work.
Comment by: Anonymous. March 13, 2026 at 1:07 PM
I appreciate reading all the experiences here. I’m trying to
figure out if I have auditory tactile synesthesia. When I am very relaxed I can
feel sounds as vibrations. For example, I can be watching TV and I start to
notice vibrations that sync up with the voices coming out of the TV. Imagine
standing in front of a huge concert speaker…you can actually feel the singer’s
voice pumping in your chest as intermittent vibration, or when you’re speaking
and you put your hands on your chest, you can feel your voice vibrating through
you chest. Well I get that kind of vibrating feeling listening to the TV at a
normal volume. It’s not always in my chest. I’ve had it originate in my lower
abdomen and I’ve had it originate in my hands and arms. I’ve always just thought
I was feeling the sound waves, like everyone feels a crack of loud thunder in
their body. Sound waves move air, so I figured this is part of experiencing
sound. I’m learning that not all people can feel sound waves. I don’t see
colors or shapes. There’s no sense of pressure or tickling. It’s just
vibrations, so is this auditory tactile synesthesia, or was my assumption
correct…I just happen to notice what sound waves do (move molecules)?
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