Mirror-touch synesthesia

[DogwoodTree]

Mirror-touch synesthesia is when you feel being touched by seeing someone else being touched.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror-touch_synesthesia

I had no idea other people didn't feel touch when they saw other people being touched. I knew people were less reactive to it than I am, but I figured they just had better self control than I do, and that I needed to work on it.

See, the problem is that when I see someone being touched, I don't feel what they feel...I feel what I would feel from receiving that same touch. So...other people might enjoy light touch. But when I see someone being touched lightly, I feel the same painful, electric shocks that I would feel if the touching was happening to me instead.

This came up in therapy yesterday. I compared the experience to...if you're walking through a crowded parking lot on a really bright day, and the sun is glaring off a thousand windshields and flashing into your eyes, it hurts and eventually you get to where you can't see clearly. So when I'm around people where there's touching or the possibility of touching...even if they're not touching me but just touching each other...it's like I feel these flashes of electric shock on my own skin, over and over and over. I can choose to ignore some of it, but eventually even just the act of "ignoring" becomes exhausting and painful.

Does anyone else experience this?

Some of the websites I've been reading...they're fascinated with the idea of mirror-touch synesthesia being a form of empathy that might help in understanding autism. This doesn't quite click for me. Synesthesia is more common among aspies than in the general population, it seems. So I'm wondering if aspies with mirror-touch synesthesia experience it more like I do--where you experience your own interpretation of touch when seeing someone else be touched, rather than experiencing what they experience, which is what true empathy would be--or if maybe what I experience isn't actually mirror-touch synesthesia but is instead a result of C-PTSD or something else entirely.


P.S. I also have color-grapheme synesthesia, where I see a color when I look at a letter or number.

 

[AsheSkyler]

Is it an actual physical sensation exactly like being touched, or is like some kind of shadow/phantom or memory or sympathy sensation? 'Cause I can see a lot of physical interactions and feel a sort of shadow or memory of sensation in the same area, or sympathetic twinges if it's a painful interaction, but it doesn't feel like an actual touch. It isn't overwhelming though. I likely don't have mirror-touch synesthesia.

There's also that "referred emotion" where you can feel another person's emotions as they're experiencing it as if they were your own emotions. That one I experience regularly with my husband and son. I can tell what they're strongly feeling because it radiates off them like heat off a campfire on a cold night.

 

[DogwoodTree]

Is it an actual physical sensation exactly like being touched, or is like some kind of shadow/phantom or memory or sympathy sensation?

Hm, let me see if I can explain it.

So...with my color-grapheme synesthesia, I can see the colors of the letters/numbers so clearly that I can scan a page for a particular color and when that color pops out at me, there's the letter/number I was looking for. I can still detect the actual color of the font on the page...like, I know these letters I'm typing are showing up as black on my screen...but I also deeply associate particular colors with the letters I'm seeing. Like...S is a dark blue. I can't look at S and not think dark blue. I still see that it's typed out in black, but it is dark blue.

So then the touch thing...I can distinguish between someone touching me versus them touching someone else. But there is still a physical sensation. My body still tenses up just as if I were actually being touched (because I don't like to be touched). Not all touches that I see are "triggering", but the ones that are, are really uncomfortable to watch. At equine therapy the other day, I couldn't keep watching the horses while they nibbled at each other's shoulders. It was enjoyable to them...caressing and scratching each other's backs...but it sent shivers up and down my spine, and the skin on my shoulder tingled (not in a pleasant way) to where I had to look away and couldn't keep watching the horses.

So yes and no...it is an "actual physical sensation", but it's not "exactly like being touched", because I can tell the difference.

 

[Nitro]

That was very interesting to read. It shows another facet of how diverse auties/aspies can be.
We all spend time in very different parts of the spectrum,so I love to hear about how others experience their version of it.

 

[Nitro]

My TBI deleted my olfactory function about five years ago. Sometimes I think I can smell again and wonder if I really did smell again,or if it was a phantom smell like described by an amputee who still feels a limb.

 

[DogwoodTree]

So is this just completely foreign to everyone else, then? That, in itself, is fascinating to me...

 

[Nitro]

So is this just completely foreign to everyone else, then? That, in itself, is fascinating to me...

Yeah,I guess we all have something that would make someones head explode if they experienced it

That actually sounds pretty annoying the way you describe it.
I have an extreme level of awareness that is a slide and moving picture matinee around the clock that from what I have read will eventually bring on a form of psychosis...it's going to be pretty hard for them spot when I do go totally insane because I am beyond the halfway marker to begin with

 

[AsheSkyler]

Hm, let me see if I can explain it.

So...with my color-grapheme synesthesia, I can see the colors of the letters/numbers so clearly that I can scan a page for a particular color and when that color pops out at me, there's the letter/number I was looking for. I can still detect the actual color of the font on the page...like, I know these letters I'm typing are showing up as black on my screen...but I also deeply associate particular colors with the letters I'm seeing. Like...S is a dark blue. I can't look at S and not think dark blue. I still see that it's typed out in black, but it is dark blue.

So then the touch thing...I can distinguish between someone touching me versus them touching someone else. But there is still a physical sensation. My body still tenses up just as if I were actually being touched (because I don't like to be touched). Not all touches that I see are "triggering", but the ones that are, are really uncomfortable to watch. At equine therapy the other day, I couldn't keep watching the horses while they nibbled at each other's shoulders. It was enjoyable to them...caressing and scratching each other's backs...but it sent shivers up and down my spine, and the skin on my shoulder tingled (not in a pleasant way) to where I had to look away and couldn't keep watching the horses.

So yes and no...it is an "actual physical sensation", but it's not "exactly like being touched", because I can tell the difference.

So it's like that "after image" effect right after you've been touched? I can understand that.
I think I may have a very faint, er, touch of it. Pardon the pun. When I see contact, I instantly remember the feeling of my corresponding parts being handled in combination with the feeling of the method used (poke, prod, rub, etc.), and experience it in that weird phantom way memories operate. It may be the synesthesia, or it may simply be strong Aspie associations. I do not feel properly experienced in the matter to say for certain at this time.

Strangely, the color thing makes perfect sense to me. I don't have it or see it, but I understand it. I usually mentally associate colors with numbers based on how I feel about their shape and working with them mathematically. Colors I don't like go with numbers I don't like. Colors I like go with numbers I like. That deep, navy blue is one of my favorite colors, so 4 is navy blue to me. 3 is green because it's a pain. Too short, too much, hard to divide out evenly by hand if it's flour, sand, or food, just ugh!

In case it came across subliminally or something, in no way did I think you delusional or anything negative. I am quite simply insatiably curious.

 

[tree]

Hey AsheSkyler

3 is green to me, too.
And (naturally. lol) is blue.
Not your exact same hue, but
it is definitely blue.

An "after image" effect of being touched.....is why I want to
wash my hands after someone has insisted shaking my hand.
To get that gray off. Sometimes it coats my entire body, all
over, the gray from a person shaking my hand.

 

[DogwoodTree]

So it's like that "after image" effect right after you've been touched?

An "after image" effect of being touched.....is why I want to
wash my hands after someone has insisted shaking my hand.

I'm familiar with the "after image" sensation, too...someone shakes your hand or pats your shoulder or touches your cheek and it could be hours before that sensation goes away! Kind of like when you're around someone wearing perfume (ugh) and the smell gets all over you and won't go away.

But there's a somewhat different quality to what I experience when I see someone touching someone else. With a lot of touch, I'm able to ignore it, more or less, it's just draining to have it in my field of vision, because ignoring takes energy, too. If it's a triggering sort of touch (i.e., something that would be triggering to me if it happened to me...which is not necessarily the same thing as triggering the person being touched), it's like the touch is happening to me, and my defenses respond to that touch even though no one is touching me. It's like it's physical empathy...in the sense that it feels like I'm sitting in that other person's spot...but it's not emotional empathy...in the sense that I don't feel towards the touch what the other person is feeling, but rather, I have my own emotional reaction to it. They might like it, but I don't. So even though they're the ones being touched, I still feel threatened and invaded.

On the bright side, when I see touch that is relaxing to me (like a deep-tissue back massage, so long as there is no light touch and no wandering to the sides or other body parts)...it almost feels like the real thing in a good way...very relaxing.

In case it came across subliminally or something, in no way did I think you delusional or anything negative. I am quite simply insatiably curious.

No worries at all. I'm just really intrigued that most people don't seem to have a clue what I'm talking about. It took my Ts two sessions of putting together things I had said before we even realized that I was experiencing something they weren't, and the general nature of that difference. And I've been researching the hell out of it since then. I can't believe I never realized before now how unusual this is.

Apparently, the first "confirmed" case didn't happen until about 2005. And it took a while before they started finding other people so they could conduct research studies. I guess all of us out there who have this just don't have a clue that no one else is experiencing remote touch the same way we are, and so we never say anything about it. Honestly, I'm shocked that other people don't experience the world this way. It must be very peaceful to have that space for your own experience of the world... (unless you're someone who really likes touch, and then I guess it would feel more lonely)

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

I don't know if this is the same or not, but...

When someone is describing an injury, I become painfully aware of my own body. The body doesn't hurt, but I go into...shock, I guess. I fainted during someone's description of a skiing accident. Certain scenes of movies or TV I can't watch. I can often read them, without much trouble. But hearing the sounds makes me pale and sick.

 

[Progster]

I get this 'after-image' when someone touches me, as others have described. I can feel it for ages afterwards.
I also have strong associations (but not synaesthesia) in that numbers I like have colours I like, or I associate words with deeper sounds with darker colours. I think this is very common.
I sometimes go smacked when I was a child, and for years after whenever I felt that I'd done something wrong, or guilty, I literally felt the sensation of having been smacked on my bottom! I think that this is some sort of Pavlov's dog automated response.
I can feel being touched in anticipation, before the touching begins. At the hairdresser, I have a sensation of my neck being touched even before the hairdresser starts working there.
Sometimes if I'm touched on one part of my body, the feeling will manifest itself in an entirely different part of my body - I'm touched on my arm, but feel it on my lower back, for example.

 

[anja]

I don't know if this is the same thing... Maybe someone can help me out. When I watch someone I start to feel what they are experiencing. If I see two people hugging I automatically tense my body and clench my jaw. If I see someone being sick I get the same physical sensations and have to look away before I'm actually sick. If I watch someone drop something I jerk my body thinking I've dropped it? And if someone loses something like a bit of food from their mouth, my mouth flinches in an effort to catch the falling bit of phantom food from my mouth? Does this make sense to anyone... Certain words and names particularly have a taste and colour to me. For instance Ivy and Quinn are cold and like marble. And I can easily group names together based on their "feel"

 

[Mazz1990]

So I realize this post is old. But any updates? And when u experience the other person bein touched do you think about how they feel being touched or how you feel being touched? Kind of an adaptation or compensatory mechanism - if you can wrap your head around how NTs feel when someone touches them (difficult), it kind of creates a top-down effect to counter your own intuitive hyper-sensitivity.
That's been my experience anyway.

 

[DogwoodTree]

So I realize this post is old. But any updates?

Not really much to update about, I guess. At least now I understand why it's so hard for me to be around people who are touching each other a lot, and it's interesting to realize this is unusual.

I went out to eat with my sister and her kids the other day. She kept caressing one of her kids, just in an affectionate way, with a light, tickly touch. It was totally sending my system into bezerk-panic, but I couldn't figure out how to leave or ask her to stop without being rude. So it's easier if I just avoid people who do a lot of touching, even if they're not touching me. (We've actually switched churches to a place where they only shake hands during that awkward "welcome" time, rather than hugging like our previous church did...it's much more tolerable this way.)

And when u experience the other person bein touched do you think about how they feel being touched or how you feel being touched?

I feel what I would feel if I were being touched in that way. My niece was obviously enjoying her mom's caresses when we were eating out, but I didn't feel that "niceness" or comfort at all...I was feeling shivers all up and down my body and getting more and more defensive and tense with every stroke.

Kind of an adaptation or compensatory mechanism - if you can wrap your head around how NTs feel when someone touches them (difficult), it kind of creates a top-down effect to counter your own intuitive hyper-sensitivity.

I've really tried to perceive others' touching each other this way...to relate to what the other person is feeling, but it doesn't work. I feel more like a voyeur if I look at people touching each other for too long (like, any more than a quick glance, long enough to recognize that they're touching and then look away). On Facebook, I look at photos of families hugging each other and try to imagine the sense of safety and calmness they seem to be feeling, but I don't get that sensation at all. I just feel the tingly intrusiveness of being touched when I don't want to be touched.

 

[D'Andre]

OK...this might pertain to me as well...I have an issue with touch (particularly being grabbed) so I actually chase the image of seeing someone grabbed by the ribcage or waist. NOT sexually or violently, more of a banter or affection. I'm mostly alone so I give myself that touch(I look ridiculous but...) It got to the point I was so starved of "trusted touch" I was aggressively trapping my own body in a corner...OK maybe that's too much. Sorry but I'm learning a lot about myself and other people actually relate

 

[D'Andre]

I get this 'after-image' when someone touches me, as others have described. I can feel it for ages afterwards.
I also have strong associations (but not synaesthesia) in that numbers I like have colours I like, or I associate words with deeper sounds with darker colours. I think this is very common.
I sometimes go smacked when I was a child, and for years after whenever I felt that I'd done something wrong, or guilty, I literally felt the sensation of having been smacked on my bottom! I think that this is some sort of Pavlov's dog automated response.
I can feel being touched in anticipation, before the touching begins. At the hairdresser, I have a sensation of my neck being touched even before the hairdresser starts working there.
Sometimes if I'm touched on one part of my body, the feeling will manifest itself in an entirely different part of my body - I'm touched on my arm, but feel it on my lower back, for example.

When someone means a lot to me (usually to the point I'm nervous around them, a simple pat on the shoulder is like an imprint. But the rest of your post is also so insightful

 

[D'Andre]

And light touch, for me, is only tolerable by huge strong hands

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

You never know how the brain works, If some one touch's my left hand or arm it's sort of painful. due to the damage the stroke did to my brain. The last thing I Want is being adverse to some one touching me.

 

[Jeepcarpenter]

I’ve always had it referred to me as mirror-pain synaethesia.. but mirror-touch as well I guess. It’s I think one of various reasons why I prefer cartoons and such, as numerous realistic TV shows, movies, horror and even things like news or emergency shows; can have a drastic impact from such. Not as bothered by seeing others touch or people sharing physical contact/intimacy but across various scenario’s and instances, the most prominent being pain; I feel what I see like it were happening to me. And as I believe the OP stated, how -I- would experience it, not as they do. I have caught my mind doing whatever it could, ridiculously trying to manifest things it did not yet know how to interpret. Not to be confusing, things I still interpreted as painful but had not yet experienced something similar, so would get an outlandish sensory response which was much easier to dissuade, knowingly not feeling as authentic.

But in times where my mind knows all too well…. Devastatingly excruciating.. I thought it was related to PTSD somehow at first but later was established that it differs entirely.
At times when caught off-guard it can destroy me for periods.. if prepared, could possibly be brushed off in mere instants. And yet for me it can by bypassed when witnessing an actual emergency, but seem like I’m experiencing an emergency while simply relaxing at home watching TV. Crazy how the mind can work.