posted
My apologies if this topic has been discussed here recently -- I don't get a chance to read Hatrack much anymore.
I'm trying to decide whether certain experiences I have can be correctly called synesthesia.
The first is that I associate the seasons of the year with the four sides of my parents' house. When I think about winter, I sense the front walk, with snow on it. The spring equinoz is a certain bush that was next to the end of the driveway until I was in high school. Spring is the whole driveway side of the property. Summer is the backyard, and fall is the side of the house where the day lilies grow.
The other experience is that I get a distinct metallic taste under my tongue whenever I accidentally stick myself with a needle (I do this a lot in my work as a seamstress).
I just learned last night that my mother thinks of numbers as being on a curving continuum, a shape that she pictures whenever she thinks of someone's age, etc. And wikipedia tells me that synesthesia is most often found in women and that it's believed to be hereditary.
But the wikipedia article doesn't give as much information as I'd like. I don't have colored letters or numbers or sounds -- I don't have the most commonly described forms of synesthesia, and I can't find information on the web that will let me decide whether my experiences (and my mother's) are really synesthesia or not. Can anyone provide a link, or recommend a book or article?
Posts: 1785 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
The metallic thing sounds like synesthesia, the rest seem more like associations, the way I associate certain songs with certain memories and feelings. But it could be... I'm not sure about a book or article though... There was one ages ago in a science magazine. I'll have to dig more info when I return.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I was going to say the same as Synesthesia, but I'm basing that strictly off the wiki article.
I do the association thing, myself. I've always pictured the year as a horizontal flat donut with the line between Dec. and Jan. at the 12 'clock position. I also usually think of the year from the position I would be on the date I'm thinking "from". I.E. Right now I think of summer and I picture the wheel as if I'm standing between 2 and 3 o'clock, looking toward 5-8 o'clock. But if I think about how long it is from the 4th of July, to Christmas, I picture myself standing just a hair past 6 o'clock, looking toward midnight.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Seasons to me have smells... Winder has a specific smell, spring, not just an air smell either, but a head-smell
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, they do, Syn. Spring has a certain smell that I know call a "biologically active soil" smell. Fall has that dead leaf smell. Winter has a smell you can feel up in your sinuses. Summer, too, but in a different way. Maybe you're just sensitive...
I've noticed that I can smell a tiny bit of blood from a scratch now. Perhaps I'm becoming a shark...
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote: I just learned last night that my mother thinks of numbers as being on a curving continuum, a shape that she pictures whenever she thinks of someone's age, etc
Well, I do that too. I just figured everyone did, in some way or another.
posted
Farmgirl, I don't think of numbers as things one could place on a line, as my mom described to me. She sees 1-12 in an almost-circle like a clock face and then 13 and up curl out from the top of the circle. It seemed specific enough to me that it could be synesthesia.
I learned pretty early that my associations with seasons and my parents' house weren't universal -- even to my brother Mike, who grew up in the same place and about the same time as me. But it wasn't until very recently (the last five years or so) that I learned that not everyone gets that metallic taste from a pinprick. I guess I thought it was universal because of REM's line "aluminum tastes like fear," except that the taste I get isn't exactly aluminum, and I don't get it when I'm afraid, I only get it in very specific situations -- a "finger stick" blood test at the doctor's doesn't do it because it's not unexpected.
Posts: 1785 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think the deciding factor on synesthesia is that it involves one sensory experience triggering the experience of another sense unrelated to the actual physical trigger. Like the feeling of a pin prick triggering a taste of metal.
However, associating abstract concepts like seasons or numbers, etc., with other concepts like shapes don't seem to me to be the same thing and probably aren't instances of synesthesia. I'm not even sure that associating a season with a smell would since there is no physical stimuation of a sense going on.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
The closest I come to the pinprick thing is that I get a distinct metallic taste whenever I unexpectedly land on my head. (This happens more than you might expect.)
Up until when I was in second or third grade I had very strong word-image associations. Like if I said or heard the word "if", a large cartoon sun would fill my vision (though I'd still be able to see normally). It didn't happen with every word, but there were a good dozen or so of these associations. If this is synesthesia, it's a rather mild form, but it was much stronger and more immediate than any associations I have these days.
The seasons of the year, for me, go counterclockwise around a circle or ellipse. Winter is at the bottom, spring on the right, summer at the top, and fall on the left. Except that when it's summer fall is to the right, you see. That is, the circle doesn't change, I'm just standing at the top of it. So, although I don't have the direct association of the seasons to the sides of our parents' house that Martha does, I can't conceive of a different mapping of seasons to sides. Or I can, but it just seems wrong otherwise.
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
KarlEd, thank you for making that distinction. Seasons and numbers, because of their inherent abstractness, must prompt people to unconsciously come up with mnemonic-related visual representations. I imagine this happens during the first four or five years of life, and so by the time we get around to comparing notes, people's personal concepts of how the year or the numbers are laid out seem as strange as the idea of synesthesia.
I still have trouble believing that the metallic taste under my tongue when I prick my finger is synesthetic. It's so real! There must be other people who have the same experience. Well, Mike's sounds similar. I wonder if I'd get it from falling on my head or if he'd get it from sticking his finger... Ah well, occupational hazards. I'm not curious enough to find out.
Posts: 1785 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
That is, the circle doesn't change, I'm just standing at the top of it. So, although I don't have the direct association of the seasons to the sides of our parents' house that Martha does, I can't conceive of a different mapping of seasons to sides. Or I can, but it just seems wrong otherwise.
