Are you a Synesthete?

Synesthesia is often described as a joining of the senses. i.e. seeing noises, hearing colours, smelling shapes, feeling in colours etc.

Could you be a synesthete?

Some synesthetes might see a dog's barks as peppery dots in the air for example. Some smells produce shapes too. Some people seeing someone else being touched feel as if they're being touched at the same time. Some people think that numbers are arranged in a certain pattern in the space around them. Never varying but sitting there, in the air, in their highly organised columns. Usually the numbers are colour coded too.
The variations are vast and more types of synaesthesia are still being found. It also runs in families.

I have synaesthesia, quite a common one, but not as strong as it used to be. I have a gender for every letter of the alphabet and every number from 1 to 10. The genders are
ABCDEGOPQSUVY and 23689 all female
FHIJKLMNRTWXZ and 1457,10 all male

They're equally split, that wasn't intended. It just is. The end of the alphabet confuses me a wee bit nowadays. I sometimes get the V W and Y mixed up. I see them as transgender, lol. But there has always been 13 on each side. When I was smaller they each had a colour, personality and age too. That's faded now but I still think of the letter A as female, aged early 20s. The letter G is middle-aged, and bottle green. The letter S is female and a grandmother. Weird isn't it!
I also hear music when something noisy is on, like the vaccum cleaner or washing machine.

My daughter often jumps about with a sore leg or stomach or whatever and insists someone's just been hurt there and she's feeling it too. I don't know if this is a synaesthesia or just her wild juvenile imagination.

www.syn.sussex.ac.uk...

www.uksynaesthesia.com...

Yes I have it too. Its colors for numbers and letters. Here are the letters:

A: light brown
B: dark brown
C: orange
D: brick red
E: icy silvery blue
F: medium green
G: bubble gum pink
H: Light yellow
I: Clear or white
J: Pastel pink and lavender
K: Yellow
L: aqua and marine blue with silver
M: marine blue
N: dark green
O: bright red
P: purple mixed with orange
Q: salmon pink
R: rusty or copper
S: goldish
T: light yellow and bright yellow
U: peachy light skin color
V: white and see through
W: green, blue and metal
X: dark yellow and bronze or gold
Y: yellow
Z: green and silvery metal

I never like how my name looked, its "Kathy" which is (basically):

Yellow, light brown, yellow, yellow, yellow.

Ew.

My favorite letters are: E,I, L, N, V (all rather cool colors)

My favorite letters are: E,I, L, N, V (all rather cool colors)

Hehe, my name would look pretty cool then i suppose (Ville)

(white, white, blue, blue, blue)?

No but seriously I had no idea such a condition existed. Sounds pretty cool to be honest.

Originally posted by wigit
Synesthesia is often described as a joining of the senses. i.e. seeing noises, hearing colours, smelling shapes, feeling in colours etc.

Could you be a synesthete?

Some synesthetes might see a dog's barks as peppery dots in the air for example. Some smells produce shapes too. Some people seeing someone else being touched feel as if they're being touched at the same time. Some people think that numbers are arranged in a certain pattern in the space around them. Never varying but sitting there, in the air, in their highly organised columns. Usually the numbers are colour coded too.
The variations are vast and more types of synaesthesia are still being found. It also runs in families.

I have synaesthesia, quite a common one, but not as strong as it used to be. I have a gender for every letter of the alphabet and every number from 1 to 10. The genders are
ABCDEGOPQSUVY and 23689 all female
FHIJKLMNRTWXZ and 1457,10 all male

They're equally split, that wasn't intended. It just is. The end of the alphabet confuses me a wee bit nowadays. I sometimes get the V W and Y mixed up. I see them as transgender, lol. But there has always been 13 on each side. When I was smaller they each had a colour, personality and age too. That's faded now but I still think of the letter A as female, aged early 20s. The letter G is middle-aged, and bottle green. The letter S is female and a grandmother. Weird isn't it!
I also hear music when something noisy is on, like the vaccum cleaner or washing machine.

My daughter often jumps about with a sore leg or stomach or whatever and insists someone's just been hurt there and she's feeling it too. I don't know if this is a synaesthesia or just her wild juvenile imagination.

www.syn.sussex.ac.uk...

www.uksynaesthesia.com...

Only when acid is involved or when mushrooms are digested. I have been trying really hard to accomplish this without the use of a catalyst though, but it appears the catalysts only make the experience more worth while. Maps.org if anyone's interested in that field.

Originally posted by wigit
Could you be a synesthete?

Anybody could be with the right...stimulus.

'___' produces it incredibly strongly. It suggests to me that people who suffer from the condition (if suffer is the right term) may have a slightly higher than average level of --whatever the chemical is that our body produces which '___' mimics-- (no-one knows). '___' produces effects at such low levels that the naturally occurring chemical must occur at trace levels.

Possibly it's related to '___' but I suspect it's more likely to be involved in sleep hormones and dreaming. I'm just guessing though, it's a pity the governments won't allow reasearch in the area.

Yes indeed I am a synesthete with the sound -> color synesthesia. I do not have the grapheme -> color variety with the alphabet, but for some reason certain months have colors and so do years.

Like others, at a young age I was surprised to learn that others did not experience this. As I became older I was more selective about who I discussed it with and either people didn't believe me or the more artistic types became jealous. My mother thinks his was caused by something she did during preganancy even though she didn't.

The worst portrayal I have ever seen of synesthesia was during an episode of House, which my mother implored me to watch for the first time because it was "about synesthesia". It had the laughable portrayal of a woman experiencing synesthesia who became psychotic during each episode of it. I was disgusted that Hollywood disseminated such a deep misunderstanding of synesthesia. Whatever.

Since it's so rare I suppose now I look at it as a bonus I get in life that others don't experience. In part it's lead to a lifelong career in music which has been quite a ride indeed. Anyway, great thread idea: a starry and flaggy day for you.

Originally posted by pieman

Originally posted by wigit
Could you be a synesthete?

Anybody could be with the right...stimulus.

'___' produces it incredibly strongly.

It's interesting the topic of intoxicants was brought up. Certain intoxicants do intensify the effect. Although illicit substances are not an option for me because of my job I have had experience with them. Alcohol and THC intensify the effect quite a bit. I've found that psychedelic substances may also intensify things but there are so many other effects that the synesthesia becomes secondary. Powdered substances seem to kill it as well as certain phramaceuticals. This may only be a result of my personal chemistry, others may find their substance-induced experiences differ from my own.

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


You might be able to offer an expert opinion on this tought.

Drums and rhythmic beats must a factor in the equation as well as chemistry, they are one of the few things that every culture has developed and uses and they are usually attached to the spiritual otherworldliness and religion.

I wonder if it's linked to the heartbeat in the womb. It's constant tick is probably the most prevalent sensory input while the brain is developing and hasn't yet rationalized the senses, before it decides "this is sound" and "this is colour".

You have to wonder if drum beats push the brain back towards this state.

[edit on 27/5/10 by pieman]

Originally posted by pieman
You have to wonder if drum beats push the brain back towards this state.

Believe it or not, rhythms that are outside the range of that of normal heartbeats are not widely accepted as popular music. Tempos running approximately under 50bpm or over 180bpm are usually employed in more esoteric genres of music. A lot of pop music/dance music runs in the 100-130bpm range which consequently is the approximate heart rate of a dancing human.

The "spirituality" associated with drums comes from cultures that believe their dead ancestors speak to them through the drums. This is largely an African concept. I'm uncertain as to whether the rhythms associated with drum beats can drive synesthesia so much as tempo appeals to our natural body rhythms. After all, synesthesia can be triggered by music with no drums whatsoever.

[edit on 27-5-2010 by traditionaldrummer]

Originally posted by pieman

'___' produces it incredibly strongly.

I agree. Though I've had this for as long as I remember, at least from when I first learned the alphabet, '___' does intensify the effects. When I first experimented with lsd I saw waterfalls of coloured letters falling in the air on my right side, (amongst other effects).

I still have this hunch today that these letters are actually there all the time but that we can't see them. That everything is there, layer upon layer of "things" but our brains can only pick up certain frequencies at a time. Usually just concensus reality. I think synesthetes are tuning in to channels that sit sit by side with our main one, if you know what I mean. And I think most people have it to a degree.


Another thing I get sometimes, and I think it might be part of synesthesia, is when someone scrapes galvanised iron, scratches a blackboard, or when I'm closing the freezer and there's a lot of ice-crunching, my mouth wants to turn inside out. The worst is when I squeeze a dry tea-bag between my fingers. I think I can feel it in my mouth at the same time and it's vile.

Originally posted by wigit

I have synaesthesia, quite a common one, but not as strong as it used to be. I have a gender for every letter of the alphabet and every number from 1 to 10. The genders are
ABCDEGOPQSUVY and 23689 all female
FHIJKLMNRTWXZ and 1457,10 all male

Yes! I do the same with numbers and letters, although noticed differences in what's female and male to me. =P

ABCDGOPQRSUVYZ are female.
EFHIJKLMNTWX are male.
2456890 female (although 5 confuses me)
137 male

I also have never done it with "10" like you do, instead I'd do "zero".

I wish I had a color synesthesia though =[

Originally posted by cLOUDDEAD

Originally posted by wigit

ABCDEGOPQSUVY and 23689 all female
FHIJKLMNRTWXZ and 1457,10 all male

Yes! I do the same with numbers and letters, although noticed differences in what's female and male to me. =P

ABCDGOPQRSUVYZ are female.
EFHIJKLMNTWX are male.
2456890 female (although 5 confuses me)
137 male

Interesting our letters are almost the same. Can't help noticing too that the females are curvy and the males more angular. I used to have colours for them but that seems to have faded with the years.

OP: You really have 1-10 and not 0-9 ?

How about the number 11 ? is it just the same as one-one ?

Yep, I'm a Musician with Chromesthesia (type of synesthesia), like many people with this I didn't know any different, I though all people see colours when they listen or make music.. I didn't have a clue until I saw a program on the TV about five years ago explaining synesthesia, my daughter who's six also has it, I asked her as soon as I was able to communicate with her what she saw when in my studio with loud music playing.. "pretty lights" is the response I got...

I think she may have it to a larger degree than myself as she just about freaks out if a helicopter or an aeroplane is near making very loud noise, I have to cover her ears and bring her close to me if we encounter any unreasonably loud noise.

For me it's like I have a built in graphic equaliser within my brain, I can see dark colours for low frequencies i.e. Bass= brown/black, midrange= orange/red, high/tops= light blue or light green.. it's something as I said I thought each person has, I was quite adamant with my parents when I found out about synesthesia "we all have it surely" but nope.. they don't have it, turns out my grandmother on my Mothers side had synesthesia that seems to have been passed down to me.. I feel no different to any other normal person (whatever normal is) in fact I find it helps me produce music, I actually I feel I have an advantage over other people who produce music because I can SEE and hear if the frequencies are wrong in a tune...

Originally posted by above
OP: You really have 1-10 and not 0-9 ?

How about the number 11 ? is it just the same as one-one ?

Yeah, I'd say 11 is male 12,13 female 14 male. Come to think of it though, all the twenties and thirties, I think they're all female numbers. Dunno why. I think zero is male. Don't ask for an explanation lol. I have none. It's all quite meaningless to me, like an eccentricity that does nothing.

But for the folk who see rows of numbers in the air all organised into infinity, I bet that comes in useful for some. I expect loads of artists have synesthesia too. I think we all do really, if you think of mint, you probably see white or silver and a smooth shape in your mind.

I do think we learn some of this though. At primary school when we first learned our letters there'd be banners along the classroom walls with ABCD etc. A was always for apple and it was always a red one so that probably explains why most synesthetes (not all) think A is red.

Curious, do you think you have at least some subtle emotional associations packaged in your linkages?

I wonder if emotions might [or might not] be a common theme.

Virtually all normal humans have some degree of synesthesia, it is only identified in people with beyond average tendencies in it, as per Ramachandran.

One would have to have some mechanical mind like a computer to not at least identify similar concurrent overlays. We all see and categorize ascending/descending graph representations. That is how we sometimes identify associations or cause & effect relationships between things.

In a sense isn't anthropomorphism synesthesia?

We associate natural events or lack thereof as projections of some humanoid personality(s).

Your association of male & female numbers is sort of anthropormorphic or at least bio-morphic(?).

I wonder if people who link color & numbers ever do so on a kind of not-very emotional or anthropomorphic way?

Clinical/dispassionate synesthesia? I wonder if that ever happens.
I wonder if Autistic people ever have much of it? Social associations/empathies?

The fact that we link meanings [invariably emotional biases] with identified circumstances, events or objects is a kind of syesthesia, isn't it?
objective experience would be [relatively] pure patterning, but we usually skew it with emotional casts/weighting as well.

[edit on 28-5-2010 by slank]

Originally posted by slank
In a sense isn't anthropomorphism synesthesia?

The fact that we link meanings [invariably emotional biases] with identified circumstances, events or objects is a kind of syesthesia, isn't it?

Not for me. Those examples are intentional methods of reasoning. Synesthesia is an unintentional sensory response in which stimuli from one of the senses activates response in another of the senses.

Originally posted by slank
Curious, do you think you have at least some subtle emotional associations packaged in your linkages?

I think so. It's like how we feel in a blue room as opposed to a room that's soft green with a hint of pink. I know which one I'd choose, lol. When we're learning we've probably taken in some surroundings as well. Maybe stuff is wired like that in the brain.

My daughter hates the number 4 and I have no idea why. Maybe the sums I give her look harder when there's lots of 4s, just cos a 4 looks kinda bigger than the rest? Maybe she sees it as square and dull grey/blue like I do, lol.

Originally posted by slank
In a sense isn't anthropomorphism synesthesia?

I think that could be classed as a type of synesthesia, and pareidolia too. They're kinda close. I'm not sure if the experts would think that, but they like to categorise things neatly. I think there's a very fine line.. and it's all in the mind.

[edit on 28-5-2010 by wigit]