Synaesthesia anyone?

[sabrdawg]

A number is an amount; a digit is the numerical representation of the amount.
Difference Between Digit and Number

For me the individual digits have distinct colors.
For example 3 is Green, 4 Blue, 5 Red...
But the number 45 (forty-five) is not a combination of Blue + Red (which would be purple).
45 is just a Blue digit and a Red digit, in my head.

I am not saying that I don't grasp the concept of four tens and five ones equaling forty-five.
I am saying that, for me, the individual digits are colored.

Ah, now I get it! Thank you In my case, then, it would be the digits that have their own colors.

 

[tree]

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Can you see time?
Visions of a Synesthete
Experience Synesthesia In Animated Form | The Creators Project
The 3 links above are to a short article, a visual representation of personal experience, and an animation of images & sounds combined with description (sort of a lyric video of one person's synaesthetic array of senses).

Synesthesia in art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article contains a dozen links to topics regarding synaesthesia & art/artists.

If you are able to describe how you use your synaesthetic sensory experience to your advantage in life,
I would like to hear/see/read that. Hearing colors in voices helps me establish what emotion another person
is having. I make use of colored digits to help me remember phone numbers (543-8746, for instance.)

To what advantage are you using your array of sensory experience?
What good use are you getting from it?

 

[Cosmophylla]

Wow, I just learnt that seeing time is actually time-space synaesthesia! I never realised, just assumed it was a visual thinking thing. I'm so excited to know after so many years that other people have a calendar in their heads and can scroll along it.

I wrote about this recently in my intro thread. Taken directly from that intro post:

A few things I'd like to swap notes with others on:

- I am a visual thinker. I see time as a kind of line of boxes from left (past) to right (future) with the boxes as you would see on a calendar representing each day. The background is dark and hazy and the boxes have a lighter border. I can scroll through the days a bit like swiping left and right on a tablet. I've never found another person who "sees" time like this. When I've tried to describe it people look at me all funny! Is this familiar to anyone here? I'd love to find someone who thinks like me!

- Similarly to above, I see numbers in a line from left (low) to right (high) and although I can do maths the way I was taught at school my instinct is to do it by a combination of feeling/gut instinct and by visualising the line and taking the problem and using blocks of colour to halve, double, etc. for example, 210 divided by 3 can easily be worked out (21/3=7 x10=70...) but my first instinct is to see the number line and shade the block from 0 to 210, then kind of zoom out and use my eyes to visually divide it into three sections, then zoom back in to the line and see where the first section ends and look at what the number is there. So the single block from 0 to 210 is divided into three blocks, the higher two of which I just ignore because my answer is going to be in the first section. I know this is completely weird but there you have it. I always thought this was normal but it's only in the last year that I've learnt that other people do NOT see this stuff in their heads!

- I am a colour-grapheme synaesthete and am interested in others' experience of this. I'm curious as to whether synaesthetes are all visual thinkers, or whether only colour-grapheme synaesthesia is related to or even a result of visual thinking, or something else.

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I looked at the Visions of a Synaesthete page and some of the descriptions are much better than I've managed to come up with. Digits and letters are coloured for me, and they simultaneously are black and coloured. The first letter of a word or name or multi digit number invariably colours the whole word/number (like an aura) but when read the individual letter and digit colours come out.

Using the colour of names is my way of remembering them. It also kind of colours my thoughts of the person.

Numbers and codes and passwords I remember by colour and shape, too.

I do perceive soft colours from music and some patterns from sounds but it's not a big thing in my life at the moment as I don't listen to a lot of music any more. When I was at art school 20 years ago I did a series of paintings based on the colours I perceived from certain songs.

Emotions and some physical sensations do have colours. I don't "see" them with my eyes but I perceive them somehow. Emotional pain is a maroon blob in the chest, for example. Being physically intimate with my husband produces the most amazing colours and patterns in my mind. Every time is different but very vivid. The colours are always very bright, like light illuminating mist. The visions are part emotional, part physical. I haven't experienced visions like this with other people in the past.

I'd love to find other time-space synaesthetes!

 

[Hedgehog Instigator]

Neat wasn't aware there were different types I will have to investigate

 

[Hedgehog Instigator]

Neat wasn't aware there were different types I will have to investigate

Apparently I have ordinal linguistic personification neat!

 

[Sindri]

I'm a synesthete, but was only really made aware that was not common among everyone a little less than a decade ago. I hear colours, for example if I am listening to music, each note will be a specific colour, and higher notes are brighter, while lower notes are duller, and the continuum of colour is similiar to a rainbow.
Days are coloured for me as well. I also smell colours and they are almost all fruit based smells.

I also feel sounds very strongly but I think that may be more common...like a loud pitched sound will feel like a stab.

 

[nosouvenirs]

I have a few of the visual forms of synesthesia, which I've read are the most common. I see colors in letters and numbers, and I also see music as colors, and all different sounds for that matter. Each letter and digit has a distinct color (capital letters can differ from lower-case), but when grouped together in words or bigger numbers the colors come together, but in a really weird way. The only thing I can liken it to is relatively thin sheets of colored glass, overlapping each other, only I can see every color distinctly, and the mixing of colors is vague at best. It's more like a 3D grid of square pieces of colored glass, that I see equally from the side or at an angle just as much as from the front - perhaps more so.

I wonder sometimes if this is part of why I get so overstimulated so easily. When I hear any sound I see colors, and so combining that with "real" visual stimuli would automatically be more overall stimulus than non-synesthetes get. Then imagine if the "normal" world contains bright lights, the sounds are louder, people's talking voices become a big jumble, smells are strong, etc...

On the other hand, there are parts of the synesthesia I love. When listening to music, I don't need to do anything visual. If I am listening to a symphonic piece, I can simply close my eyes and watch the colors as well as visualizing the instruments in my head, and watching notes go up and down the sort of "maps" in my head -- I "see" things going up and down in scale-like ways, and how I see it may differ depending on the instrument. For example, with a piano, because I used to play, I'm usually seeing the actual piano, the black and white, picturing how someone's fingers might be moving up and down the keys. With something like a trumpet, though, I'm just seeing the notes move upwards or downwards, mostly independent of any other visual stimuli.

I also think that digits and letters having colors is something that has made memorization easier, particularly when it comes to things like spelling. It also helps me figure out which number I'm remembering incorrectly if, for example, I'm not sure whether a date was one year or another. Eg: If I wasn't sure if something happened in 1973 or 1974, but know the number had no green in it, I know the correct year was 1974. I also think it's the synesthesia which has probably helped me develop perfect pitch, stemming from my instinctual knowledge of one note, that note being middle C.

So I am one of the 4 or 5 people out of one hundred experience some type of synaesthesia. (The color of 5 isn't quite correct though... it also involves black, and some very dark green as well. Weird synesthesia, right?)

 

[Hedgehog Instigator]

I have a few of the visual forms of synesthesia, which I've read are the most common. I see colors in letters and numbers, and I also see music as colors, and all different sounds for that matter. Each letter and digit has a distinct color (capital letters can differ from lower-case), but when grouped together in words or bigger numbers the colors come together, but in a really weird way. The only thing I can liken it to is relatively thin sheets of colored glass, overlapping each other, only I can see every color distinctly, and the mixing of colors is vague at best. It's more like a 3D grid of square pieces of colored glass, that I see equally from the side or at an angle just as much as from the front - perhaps more so.

I wonder sometimes if this is part of why I get so overstimulated so easily. When I hear any sound I see colors, and so combining that with "real" visual stimuli would automatically be more overall stimulus than non-synesthetes get. Then imagine if the "normal" world contains bright lights, the sounds are louder, people's talking voices become a big jumble, smells are strong, etc...

On the other hand, there are parts of the synesthesia I love. When listening to music, I don't need to do anything visual. If I am listening to a symphonic piece, I can simply close my eyes and watch the colors as well as visualizing the instruments in my head, and watching notes go up and down the sort of "maps" in my head -- I "see" things going up and down in scale-like ways, and how I see it may differ depending on the instrument. For example, with a piano, because I used to play, I'm usually seeing the actual piano, the black and white, picturing how someone's fingers might be moving up and down the keys. With something like a trumpet, though, I'm just seeing the notes move upwards or downwards, mostly independent of any other visual stimuli.

I also think that digits and letters having colors is something that has made memorization easier, particularly when it comes to things like spelling. It also helps me figure out which number I'm remembering incorrectly if, for example, I'm not sure whether a date was one year or another. Eg: If I wasn't sure if something happened in 1973 or 1974, but know the number had no green in it, I know the correct year was 1974. I also think it's the synesthesia which has probably helped me develop perfect pitch, stemming from my instinctual knowledge of one note, that note being middle C.

So I am one of the 4 or 5 people out of one hundred experience some type of synaesthesia. (The color of 5 isn't quite correct though... it also involves black, and some very dark green as well. Weird synesthesia, right?)

Funny you mention that about 5 my numbers specifically have colors too.

 

[MissyMoo]

Anyone have any form of synaesthesia? I recently discovered I have Lexical-gustatory synaesthesia, which is one of the rarer forms of synaesthesia, in which spoken or written words evoke vivid sensations of taste. Which basically means whenever I hear, read, or articulate words (inner speech), I experience an immediate and involuntary taste sensation on my tongue. Also I experience it to a very high degree when viewing pictures/photographs or watching television.
Until I discovered LGS, I though everyone smelled words and pictures (who need scratch and sniff stickers eh??). I thought everyone could smell a city they have never been too or atmosphere and objects they have never tasted/encountered. Odd, but the I have always experienced it this way; The landscape sets the course for my olfactory experience. Besides my inept view of synaesthesia was somebody experiencing music visually, I would never have put to and two together if it wasn't for my inquiring mind. I never questioned it up until recently, when I began to question the stark difference in my experience, thoughts and senses about the world to everyone else's.

So, of course, I did a little research. Okay a lot! But there really isn't much out there about LGS, mostly a lot about the auditory/visual (musical version) of synaesthesia. Apparently the Neural basis behind Lexical-gustatory synesthesia may be due to increased connectivity between adject regions of the insula in the depths of the lateral sulcus involved in taste processing, that lie adjacent to temporal lobe regions involved in auditory processing (Ward, Simner & Auyeung 2005). I know their is a higher degree of the synaesthetic population who are able to see music and am just wondering if anybody else here has any form of Synaesthesia? Any unrelated auditory, visual or tactile sensations accompanying certain stimuli?

I never realised that smelling words and photos are a type of Synaesthesia. Up until I read this, I thought thats what everyone experienced.

 

[wight]

yea, for me it is smells that have colors. Or maybe it's colors that have smells. I also associate time with distance, like 1 year ago is closer than 10 years ago. Though it's not quite so linear as that.

I figured out that most people don't do this when I said something like "didn't you smell that red?" to someone and they looked at me like I was speaking gibberish. When I explained what I meant, they still didn't get it. Oh well, their loss.

 

[hoeffelt]

This is all very cool. I thought I was nuts, but it seems I am not alone. Apart from smelling things I also have a structured number in my head. They are not consistent as I find them too easy to manipulate mentally. I count a lot to fall asleep and the numbers I see in my head can be manipulated into various activities. Sounds crazy I know, but I make them jump like counting sheep. Or ring them up on a sort of cash registrar. Even run them off a cliff. I also have an addition of tastes/smells with the lower end of the numerical scale. So number 1 is yellow and tastes like buttered popcorn, 2 is like orange pastel lollies, but twelve is like fake watermelon flavouring (like nerds flavour). This is a reoccurring theme with me. Most numbers smell more like food additives to me, like banana lollies and food colouring. I also have some really strange ones for ordinary words. Food words, generally smell like they are. Cinnamon, is cinnamon. But a word like love, which rightly should imbue pleasantries and delight but to me (the word) tastes like a cheap gritty chocolate love heart, wrapped in red foil (you know the kind) and liberally smothered in lubricant. Yep. Lube. Just disgusting! Don't get me wrong. It's not the feeling of love, it is the word that is gross.
I also have noticed Aspergers is always eggplant/Aubergine. The colour of it, the taste of it. Gee, glad I enjoy eggplant. Most people would go straight to asparagus, but for me it is Aubergine. Green, purple, white and tasty Aspergers i still don't understand why I can taste countries I have never been too. The taste of the air, the tangible atmosphere. It makes for quite interesting (if not disturbing) television viewing. I try to tune out to it because it becomes overwhelming at times.
Oh and outerspace tastes like a battery or something. Electric buzzing. Pop rocks on a battery. That is something! hahaha

I find this interesting, do all words have a taste? I imagine this could get really annoying at times, especially if certain topics had a bad taste with many of the words. Do you speak a second language, it would be interesting if the second language had the same tastes for the same word or different tastes or none at all.

 

[Nomen Dubium]

I think I have a very mild sort of synesthesia. We were discussing the condition in the chatroom last night. Mine's not intrusive in any way and it's tricky to describe, so bear with me if this doesn't make any sense. When I listen to music some of the tunes - not all of them, but enough for it to be noticeable - have what I can only describe as a physical shape. I can't see or feel the shape, I just know it's there, inside my mind. More than once I've listened to a piece of music in my van at work and thought to myself, "wow, that tune is an odd shape." It's as if my brain is somehow mis-filing the auditory information. Insofar as visual signals are concerned, the affected pieces of music appear to be on the other side of a sheet of thick glass, so I know the shapes are there and I can feel them, but they're too fuzzy to describe. They're there in my mind's eye, but they have that dreamlike quality to them in that the more I try to focus on them, the less tangible they become.

In ordinary circumstances it's never more than a background effect for me, something that goes on in the next room, so to speak. It really became a problem when I used to go to the cinema with family or school, and it's one of the reasons I stopped going (quite apart from the anxiety of being with too many people). In a cinema - especially one with surround sound - I get the full broadside effect of the film's soundtrack, but my brain feels like it's in a pillow fight, constantly being socked with shape after shape, with no time to recover from the last one before the next arrives. They aren't hard, sharp blows - it feels more like concussion, like a mallet wrapped in feathers - and when I leave at the end of the movie I'm disorientated and feeling sick and, as a side effect, my speech patterns can be the same as some of the film's characters, which leads to some odd conversations as well.

So, does this make any sort of sense?

 

[Ranunculus]

I recall having chromosynthesia, which is basically having sounds as colors, and vise versa. This allows me to figure out what pitch is being played based on a painting, or what color the sound of a car horn makes. Though, it's been hard to describe key signatures to people, because I would say something like "it's more purple" when talking about a Db key signature, without people questioning my sanity.