Blogpost 4: Different ways that synesthesia can occur.

Synesthesia can occur in many different ways, one of it is through the use of some illegal drugs like ecstasy, cocaine and etc. It can also cause brain damage that gives a person an hallucination or an instant synesthesia. In this image we can see a person in pain being observed by a pain synesthete, he's imagination begins to widen as he see's a particular subject to be conquered by his synethesia. 
As I was searching the internet for answers, finding out that synesthesia can also occur due to drug use. It can create different kinds of hallucinations, and that depends on the situation of the person or what is going on through his/her mind, at the moment before taking the drug. These types of synesthesia is referred to as "acquired synesthesia". 

According to the book of Critien Van Campen entitled "Hidden Sense", that the use of drugs is often associated with the consciousness-expanding experiences and heightened sensibility. As I read more, I saw a story that caught my attention. I saw that some great poets that was induced with drugs through thier work, giving them the power to imagine and the power to expand and create great poems by using drugs.

Here are some names and info of the poets:

  1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1722–1834), for one, proclaimed that his poem “KublaKhan” was composed in a flush of opium-induced inspiration; when he wokeup, all he had to do was write it down.

   2.  Francis Thompson (1859–1907)noted on one occasion that he saw the sun rise “with a clash of cymbals”; onanother occasion, he described how “tunes rose in twirls of gold” when “lightthrough the petals of a buttercup clanged like a beaten gong.” He also heard“the enameled tone of shallow flute, and the furry richness of clarinet.”

       3.     Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859) distinguished himself by studyingthe effects of his opium intake, which he drank in the form of laudanum,a tincture of opium.

Opium 
- dried, condensed juice of a poppy, Papaver somniferum,  that has a narcotic, soporific, analgesic, and astringent effect and contains morphine, codeine, papaverine, and other alkaloids used in medicine in their isolated or derived forms: a narcotic substance, poisonous in large doses. It even causes dullness or inaction or that soothes the mind or emotions.
 
Through out all of this, it is amazing finding out that some great people did great things through the use of drugs. Using it into creative and artistic poems, and not for self desire or just for pleasure. But the bad part of it is, when it becomes to much of use and addiction, the worse may come. Because some of these poets does not only use drugs to acquired synesthesia, some of them drink alcoholic beverages.




I have an experience of observing people who use drugs, and it was a surprising experience. I was 4th year high school student when a friend of mine called me and told me that they we're looking for a drummer, and I accepted the invitation. The battle of the bands was one week away when they got me to join them, so we had a really short time to practice. 

To make the story short we got into the battle, we played our song, and what a strange thing caught my eye. The last band that was playing was on fire, not literary, but they we're super energized to play. So I began to asked my friends at the area, and knew that they we're on drugs. They took marijuana, a drug that could get you highly energized to do anything.

So in conclusion to this blog, many people specially teenagers like me use drugs to experience the good stuff that they think its good, while they are doing that they are experiencing an  acquired synesthesia which is common most artist in the U.S.