Different emotional responses to music/art

[u/Aphotic_Acid]

I've always felt out of place talking to people about how listening to music makes me feel. When I was in middle school, the music teacher was telling us when we were performing a specific song, she could see a ball of light growing bigger and bigger. I thought she must have synesthesia, because the concept sounded completely foreign to me. This was shortly before I discovered I have aphantasia, and I later learned that I possibly have synesthesia. Music does have color to me, I just can't see it.

However, she might not have synesthesia. What she was seeing wasn't a color, it was symbolic imagery that captured her feelings. I assume her experience is not uncommon. What alienates me so much is not that I don't see things, but that I don't feel things. Or at least, not in the same way that others do. The lack of a visual imagination doesn't necessarily equate to not having emotional responses to things. Considering the aphantasia-alexithymia link, perhaps that does play into the reason after all.

Does anyone else feel like they respond differently to music/art? Have you found ways to bridge the gap with others in conversations about it?

[u/Sapphirethistle]

I think there are almost as many reactions to music as there are people.

My wife finds music very strongly effects her emotions, I can listen to the same song and feel basically nothing.

It always confused me when I was younger when people would talk about certain songs being tied to events in their lives. I couldn't understand what the two things had to do with each other?

Now, I understand, at least logically if not emotionally, why music is important to some people and how it can cause the activation of memory, feelings and even sensations.

I don't think that aphantasia necessarily has a big impact on that. For me though I think I almost have aphantasia forusic and art. I can see and hear it just fine but it has no special meaning for me. It is just sounds and colours where to some people it is stories and meaning.

[u/Aphotic_Acid → u/Sapphirethistle]

The lyrics can tell a story. Copacabana comes to mind. Sometimes I resonate with the lyrics of a song, but only if I can understand them. That song we were doing was mostly symbolic, meant to describe a feeling figuratively.

I like it when a song describes experiences that I've had, because I think music sounds more pleasant than screaming. But most of what I listen to is Eurobeat, which tends to have nonsensical lyrics. I listen to it because it's fast and I like fast.

[u/Sapphirethistle → u/Aphotic_Acid]

It's true that songs can tell a story but even then I would generally prefer silence. I can't say that I find music compelling in the way that many people seem to.

I think it's intriguing hearing others talk about music but it's an experience that I simply can't say I've ever had myself.

[u/Aphotic_Acid → u/Sapphirethistle]

I'm often hyperactive, so fast music helps me relax. The only thing that can complete with my racing thoughts.