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Auras explained?

Jono

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Jono
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I recently read an article in a swedish science magazine where they had studied people at the University London Collage (it think that was the name) that said they saw colours around people and objects.

A theory established from this was ocular-estethics.
Meaning the mind really creates a colour around objects having the person associating with certain objects, people to certain colours, physically seeing them.

An ocular-estethic can see colours eminating from objects, taste colours and sound, feel music etc.

The senses are illusive, creating a seemingly real colour around a word or person, making the estethic believe they can actually see a colour eminating from the person. Hence they think it is a person's aura they're watching.

Have anyone else heard about these studies, theories?
 
A link or reference would go a long way to progressing this discussion!
 
A link or reference would go a long way to progressing this discussion!
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But I haven't been able to find it online as of yet.

It was an article in the last Illustrated Science magazine, swedish science magazine.
 
Camillus said:
Is this what you mean?

The article suggests seeing auras is a type of synathaesia.
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That's quite interesting, actually.

While I still think that the majority of people who think they can see auras are delusional, it's interesting to speculate that a few people who suffered from this could have kicked off the whole craze.
 
I have had an interest in synesthesia for a number of years, reading up a fair amount on the literature. Just recently, I've begun reading some of the online synesthesia web forums.

There's quite a number of people who relate their experiences of having personality -> color synesthesia, and their frustrations at being labelled as part of the kook crowd whenever they relate their experiences. Many of them are fully aware of the reality of the perceptual phenomenon ... they actually do perceive people to have a color based on their personality ... and are fully aware it has nothing to do with people's "auras" in the new-age sense.

It's the people who have this condition, but *don't* find out that it's an actual neurological phenomenon who then resort to the floofy woo-woo explanation ... and can you blame them? Up until recently, synesthesia was extremely obscure in the realm of general knowledge, and a person who had it could (at his own peril of being labelled crazy) ask hundreds of people about it and come to the conculsion that he and he alone had this "gift". How else would a lay person come to terms with something he *absolutely knew he saw*, but no one else did?

The entire field of synesthesia is incredibly interesting to me. A good introduction is Richard Cytowic's book, "The Man Who Tastes Shapes", and there are quite a number of good web sites available for the Googling.

- Timothy
 
One thing I'd like to know: Is it possible for a normal person to make himself temporarily more susceptible to synesthesia? I'm curious what it'd be like to play Rez like that.

For non-gamers: Rez is a fairly simple "rail shooter" for PS2, where you play the role of a hacker breaking into a supercomputer. Think Tron. It plays techno music, and most of your actions generate matching sound effects.
 
BronzeDog said:
One thing I'd like to know: Is it possible for a normal person to make himself temporarily more susceptible to synesthesia? I'm curious what it'd be like to play Rez like that.
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Idiopathic synesthesia is apparently present from birth. Acquired synesthesia can be caused by certain drugs and chemical imbalances, most notably LSD.

"No, officer, really! I'm just attempting to acquire synesthesia!"

- Timothy
 
Timothy said:
Idiopathic synesthesia is apparently present from birth. Acquired synesthesia can be caused by certain drugs and chemical imbalances, most notably LSD.

"No, officer, really! I'm just attempting to acquire synesthesia!"

- Timothy
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Dang. Guess I'll just have to have some tripper try to describe it to me.
 
Interesting. I recently saw a television program about a composer/pianist who tasted music.

Originally posetd by BronzeDog:

One thing I'd like to know: Is it possible for a normal person to make himself temporarily more susceptible to synesthesia? I'm curious what it'd be like to play Rez like that.
Click to expand...

Back in my younger, believer days, I saw auras. Actually I still do when I try.

I don't think in my case it relates at all to synaesthesia, but who knows.

For me, I could/can see auras best when the subject was in front of a light or (better) white background, though it wasn't always necessary.

The aura itself was always white and took on the a sort of haloed silhouette of the body. If I concentrated long enough (a key factor, I came to learn later) I would start to get colors, but they would not be solid throughout the aura. Shades of yellow (common) or blue (less common but not rare) or green (less common still) would "undulate" unpredictably throughout the halo.
A friend said she saw red auras, but I never did.

Another clue: I have poor vision at a distance. The auras showed up best when I did not wear my glasses. Even with glasses, they showed up if I squinted just a little and just right.

I can still see them if I try hard enough and take off my glasses, but I never look long enough to get past the pure white stage.
 
There is a type of synaesthesia known as "emotion-colour synaesthesia" and this particular variant may be the reason that some people see auras around others.

Emotion-colour synaesthesia

I believe that some people with epilepsy occasionally see auras too.

Sorry, I don't know enough about it to be a bit more specific.
 
richardm said:
That's quite interesting, actually.

While I still think that the majority of people who think they can see auras are delusional, it's interesting to speculate that a few people who suffered from this could have kicked off the whole craze.
Click to expand...

Synesthesia isn't a disorder or a disease; it's simply another form of perception. I have yet to interact with or read about a synesthete who would call their experiences "suffering". Personally, I find it helpful. I can remember peoples names and terms in class because I remember the color first, and then the associated word. I remember dates quickly because of my "time lines". In general, I'm glad I have it and I think most synesthetes would say the same.
 
I wonder if the chemical imbalances of puberty can affect this condition.

From the time I hit puberty until about the middle of my 19th year, I could see something around people. It was usually directly related to what I already knew about them, or what I was picking up from other signals - like, they were happy/sad/crazy, whatever. But it seemed to correspond pretty closely to a lot of color-blind-like conditions I was also experiencing at the time. Even today, I can't discern between similar shades; any dark shade is just 'black', and any really light shade is just 'white'.

Just wondering.
 
I don't think it can completely explain away how the concept came to be, because the concept is pervasive in different cultures and schools of thought, and is an ancient idea connected to other ancient traditions and practices. Auras are not really independant ideas seperate from other ancient ideas and practices. But it's an interesting idea, maybe.

And now, through modern science we know that there really are fields and auras around the body and many other things

For example the hearts magnetic field
soh_20_pic.gif


A field of the body trained in ancient times, was very similar to the fields of the earth
dipole_small.gif
 
Even though Kilik will ignore me:

Kilik said:
I don't think it can completely explain away how the concept came to be, because the concept is pervasive in different cultures and schools of thought, and is an ancient idea connected to other ancient traditions and practices. Auras are not really independant ideas seperate from other ancient ideas and practices.
Click to expand...
Fallacies: Appeal to Tradition, Appeal to Popularity.

And now, through modern science we know that there really are fields and auras around the body and many other things
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Which I doubt are relevant to the sorts of auras you talk about.

For example the hearts magnetic field
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Never heard about the heart generating a magnetic field. Evidence, please?

A field of the body trained in ancient times, was very similar to the fields of the earth
Click to expand...
Again, evidence, please?
 
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