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Hi - I was wondering if anyone in Hatrack is so fortunate as to have synesthesia of any kind. I'm quite fascinated with the topic and have read quite a bit about it, but I'd love to ask a few questions of someone who genuinely experiences it.
Any kind of synesthesia at all would do, though I'd love to hear from someone who sees colors in letters and words and someone who can see music. If people have a taste to you as well... bonus.
Anyhow, if you are out there -- I'd love to chat and/or post back and forth here.
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My family thinks I'm very strange because things taste certain colors sometimes. My most obvious example is that mango tastes green. I don't like it because of this - it's orange. It should taste orange. Not like an orange, but it should taste in a way that is congruent with its color, not taste like some other color entirely.
They think it's very weird when I talk this way so I try to keep it to a minimum. But I do have some experiences. Mostly, though, I think my experiences are due to being highly visual in how I perceive information, so it's very difficult for me to explain things sometimes, tastes in particular. I will describe tastes as hitting high or low, being broad or having a low note, a low smokey tone even though there's nothing smokey about the food, etc. I say that salt brightens flavors, something my grown sisters continue to tease me about to this day. All of this is an attempt for me to put into words something that I just sense. I get people whose names are similar lengths confused because when I meet them, I don't picture *them* - I picture their name. Written out in text in the air. And Jason and Peter look very similar when written out in the air.
Anyway - not sure this is at all helpful, but feel free to post any specific questions. I'm sure there are others who fit what you're looking for, as I think we've talked about it here before.
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Yes, I'm a color-letter/number and color-sound synesthete. It's not strong enough to interfere with life, but it actually exists over the letters, kind of like a translucent film. With sound it's discrete enough to be part of perfect pitch: I can usually recognize notes by their color, for all instruments except the human voice.
When I was younger and understood less about people, I used to see them (their names and personalities) in color too. As I developed more reliable ways of figuring out people, the colors kind of faded to the background, and now I can't always see them. I still remember clearly meeting the first person whose colors I couldn't see. That, and the fact that I can't name notes when they're sung, makes me think that one sense overrides another. In the case of voices, it's the words (or even nonsense syllables) that the person sings which override the color.
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KayTi, I do something similar with names and other things, spelling the words in the air. I rely on it enough that if I hear a new word and don't know how to spell it, it drives me crazy.
Otherwise, I believe synesthesia is a side effect of taking LSD. If you can find someone who's taken it, they might be able to tell you (if they remember). I used synesthesia in a story, because I found it very intriguing when I heard about it in a class called Licit and Illicit Drugs.
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Not sure I know what it is, so I'm pretty sure I don't get it.
I do get a seemingly-odd phenomenon, where I'll be reading, read a word, see it as one particular word, then take a second look and find it's another word altogether. (This morning, for example, reading the paper, I read a word in a headline first as "Nazi," then as "Naples." The story had nothing to do with Nazis, and Naples (Florida) was the town the story happened in.)
It ties in with another phenomenon, where I'll see some movement out of the corner of my eye, look directly at the source, and find nothing was there and nothing was moving. Was I seeing a ghost for only a moment? I didn't think so, but I couldn't figure out why this happened to me.
Recently I saw a science news article that, for me, had an explanation for this that satisfied me thoroughly. The human mind will see things happening in real time, and make projections into the future as it does. When I see something, my brain thinks it's seeing something else, and fills in the blanks. This accounts for looking at a page of print and reading one word as something else, or seeing something that's not there. My brain is trying to predict the future.
In a way, though, it's a sad explanation for what could have been a supernatural phenomenon...takes some of the mystery out of life, doesn't it?...
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I once stayed awake for 72 hours, and I began to see colors and hear sounds and see things move out of the corners of my eyes - all with no drugs, except caffeine.
Of course, three term papers due at the same time, might do that to you without the sleep deprivation.
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Dictionary.com says synesthesia is: a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color.
The way I've heard it used is, like I said, as a side effect of LSD and other psychotropic drugs, where your sensory lines are crossed with one another.
Let's say you're experiencing synesthesia and a car honks its horn outside your window. Instead of hearing a horn, you taste blueberry pie. You touch the upholstery of the couch, but instead of feeling it you see the color purple. You drink a glass of milk and instead of tasting it you hear a trumpet.
I've never experienced it, but those are the things I imagine.
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Have you seen the original Batman TV series with Adam West? Constant Synesthesia! Bam! Zonko! Pow! Instead of feeling or hearing the punch, you see the sound and see the feel. :P
I've also seen artwork that to me suggests synesthesia where a lone individual is surrounded by big cartoon bubble letters that describe the scene and sounds around him, rather than actually seeing the scene.
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Another weird thing that may not be totally related. It happened a half dozen times on a single car trip ten years ago. I was riding in the passenger seat and my brother was driving (I didn't have a license yet). We drove and drove for most of a week, so I reached a point where I would pass out within 5 minutes of getting into the car.
Several times on that trip I woke up as we were taking an exit off the interstate or something, and the world was totally green. I could still see everything, but it was all just shades of green like I was looking through green glass.
It's happened maybe 2 or 3 times since then, seemingly randomly. No idea if it means anything or if there's a cause. And I've often asked myself: why green? If it was red, I might worry that I have circulation problems in my eye, but green? no clue!
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steffenwolf, I am not a physician by any means, but what you could have been seeing is a color reversal. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that one's eye works much like a camera lens, it produces a negative and then your brain reverses the picture so you see the how the picture and colors really look.
If you stare at a red light and then close your eyes, you see green. If you had your eyes closed and you were exposed to a lot of light, I think it might be possible for you to open your eyes and still see the negative imprint on the back of your eye.
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Does associating personalities with numbers (just the first few digits, though: 1-9) count (pardon the pun)?
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steffenwolf, it's also called "afterimage" and you can see it if you stare for a few minutes at some brightly colored object, then close your eyes. You'll see the shape of the object, but in the opposite color.
You may have been sleeping in the sun so that the light coming through your eyelids was colored bright red because the sunlight passed through the blood vessels in your eyelids.
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Kathleen, Good point, those may very well have been sunny days. I knew about afterimages, but hadn't considered that this might be related.
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Wow - had no idea I'd get so much response on this one. Guess the reports I read about the occurrence of synesthesia being something like 1 in 23, as opposed to earlier estimates of 1 in 2000, were accurate. Either that or half of synethestes are members of this board.
KayTi - Thanks so much for replying. My question for you is, do you actually see the colors when you are tasting something? For example, you said mango tastes green. Is there just that connection in your head? If you close your eyes and eat a mango, do you actually see the color at all?
Pyraxis - Specifically with regards to your color/sound synesthesia: I've read different accounts of people who can see colors with sound. Do you also see shapes or textures with music? In particular, where do you see these colors/shapes/patterns? I've read "on the edge of my visual field" before, including accounts where the synesthete is perfectly capable of concentrating on these colors or shapes (bringing them into focus rather than on the edge). Do the colors obscure your vision at all? Is is the sort of thing where if you want to, you can focus on them completely and a picture on the wall would be obscured behind them, or if you wanted to ignore them you can kind of push them to the side and see perfectly well? I'm trying to think about how they may or may not be distracting. Also, is it all sounds, or just music? Do car horns sound a certain color, or only well-played cellos?
steffenwolf - Synesthesia is, according to what I've read, one of the most common effects of LSD. A person with synesthesia, or a "synesthete," however, has these coordinations of the senses without any chemical stimulant. Some modern research shows that all children start out as synesthetes; babies have a hard time separating their senses, but as we get older, our brains cull certain connections, focusing data from the eyes on the visual fields, etc. This does have one huge exception - almost everyone has smell/taste synesthesia.
Symphonyofnames - do you have any comments with regards to what I asked Pyraxis? I'm particularly interested in the way color/sound synesthesia works.
KDW - I have no idea whether or not personalities -> numbers counts. I've never heard of that one, but there are dozens and dozens of different kinds of synesthesia, and many sysnesthetes have more than one kind. Among the more obscure ones I've read are synesthetes that have a taste for each person they know, and -- in a far more racy connection, that I swear I'm not making up -- the connection orgasms -> colors. Can you describe one such connection?
skadder - I think that counts. Never heard of that one before either. How does time smell? In what sense do you smell it? The passage of time? Or does 12:00 noon have a smell, and 1PM has a different smell.
Thanks to everyone for your responses! My MC for my WIP is a synesthete (or at least it works very well with the plot and what he can do), and since I'm not one myself I really want to work hard not to screw up the experience. In his childhood chapters is where the reader is most in his head, so I'm really trying to imagine what he sees and how he sees it in an almost child-like fashion, though he is always mature beyond his years.
[This message has been edited by micmcd (edited November 19, 2008).]
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KDW - my apologies for the comically confusing sequence of my statements. I was trying to answer a lot of questions and ask a bunch of my own all at the same time. When I asked if you could please describe "one such connection," I meant to ask you to describe a personality -> number connection... not one of the other types, particularly the last on my list of obscure types of synesthesia.
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The color is the main thing for me, but sometimes it's more than that, depending on how well I know the song, the type of music, etc. It can extend to more of a landscape, if you will; the color gets some depth and some shape. It's hard to make out what it is, because I don't see it very clearly. It is kind of on the edge of my vision. It's not that strong, so it doesn't obscure vision or anything like that. Maybe if I concentrated I could bring it more into focus. Hope that helps.
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Isn't experiencing colors (and images) during sex normal, at least for imaginative people? If it's not, micmcd, do you know of any websites or online books that discuss this?
I worked as a kid to minimize color associations, because I figured they were a sign of weakness. Associations still happen but not to the point where I think I'm a synesthete. I figured visual reactions to extreme physical actions (sex, sudden injury, etc.) were normal, though. Or at least connected to an ability to manipulate and remember dreams.
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Yes, like a burst of color (it's a bright colored green, if that's of any help, LOL.) But you see, I dislike mango because of this discontinuity, so...I try not to eat it very often. But it's smell is "green" to me as well.
The thing is, though, (and I suspect this is true for many of us) - I have learned to mostly ignore this part of my sensory experiences, since it's not the norm. I agree with a previous poster who talks about it at the periphery, not occluding vision, for example. That is true for me as well. I'll try to pay attention better for this week and see if I can give you more. I do believe smell conjures color for me as well, but it also conjures images and memory (smells are one of the strongest memory triggers that exist.)
So again I may be confusing multiple inputs/sensory experiences, but I'll try to pay attention and see if I can give you anything else. There have been some great synethesia speculative short stories. I can't remember the name of one (for some reason I think the word "elephant" is in the title, though I'm 99% sure I'm wrong and it's some other e word that is shaped similarly) that is about a young man who experiences full visual disturbance when he eats coffee ice cream (and then drinks coffee...) Expertly done. It's online somewhere and I suspect someone here knows the one I mean and can offer a title or author.
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I have a slight letter color connection. It was stronger when I was kid. I would be annoyed and uncomfortable when I saw a letter colored the wrong thing. As I've grown older I started accepting that letters wouldn't be the right color until now it's only a vague feeling. But, for instance A should be red, B blue, C Green, D is a blue green color, E has to be black, F brown, H yellow, I white, J light purple, K dark purple, ect. When I see a letter in it's right color it feels soothing, like all is right with the world. I no longer look at letters and see the color, but if I think a letter in my head it's always in it's right color. I hate writing in different colored texts because then all the letters but one are wrong. I learned to accept black text. Posts: 968 | Registered: Jul 2008
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Thanks KayTi. I'll look around for that short story. It's most exciting to hear from synesthetes themselves, though, rather than read from someone else who interviewed them. In your case, I'm not surprised that smells trigger the same colors as tastes, as smell/taste is the one pairing most people never grow out of. According to the book I've been reading (The Hidden Sense), that is a genuine type of synesthesia, as the taste can be triggered just by the smell and vice versa, and it is an unconscious binding. Most everyone has had the experience of eating a familiar food when they have a cold and finding that it doesn't taste the same b/c they can't smell it.
The MC in my WIP is a synesthete with multiple connections (I read it was very common to have more than one, with some people counting as many as five distinct bidirectional couplings). He has letter->color, sound->color&shape, and (insert the spec part of my spec fi) magic->color&shape, as the "physics" of magic in my WIP makes it something that can be sensed just as any other stimulus by the brain, and his synesthesia gives him quite a few advantages in what he does. I'm considering how best to have his sensory couplings affecting his daily life, and in particular how they shaped his childhood. My idea is that his brain never culled many of the connections that make us all synesthetes as infants (if The Hidden Sense is to be believed). It fits quite well with a part of him never having been allowed to grow up.
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micmcd - There's evidence that synesthesia is more common among artists of all types. I actually did a simplistic survey for a psych class when I was in college. It was an art-focused university, and just putting up posters around campus for a couple weeks, calling for anyone who'd had a synesthesia-like experience, I got about 25 responses. I figure there must have been a lot more, if those were just the ones who saw the posters and bothered to fill out and return a 3-page survey.
quote:I've read different accounts of people who can see colors with sound. Do you also see shapes or textures with music? In particular, where do you see these colors/shapes/patterns? I've read "on the edge of my visual field" before, including accounts where the synesthete is perfectly capable of concentrating on these colors or shapes (bringing them into focus rather than on the edge). Do the colors obscure your vision at all? Is is the sort of thing where if you want to, you can focus on them completely and a picture on the wall would be obscured behind them, or if you wanted to ignore them you can kind of push them to the side and see perfectly well?
I'm trying to think about how they may or may not be distracting. Also, is it all sounds, or just music? Do car horns sound a certain color, or only well-plaid cellos?
I don't often get shapes or textures - my mind is very attuned to color. With sounds, it's not strong enough to actually appear in my vision, so it doesn't obscure anything except to the degree that a loud noise can temporarily distract you from something you were looking at. It's more like a mental space in my head where the colors appear, the same place you'd see a tree if you imagined the word "tree".
From what I've read, I understand it's stronger for other synesthetes, though. I remember reading about a woman who couldn't drive with the radio on because the colors would distract her from road signs.
I get colors for all sounds, not just music, though the further sounds get from pure instrumental tones, the harder the colors are to distinguish. Often they're multilayered and shifting enough that it's hard to tell whether it's synesthesia or just the mental association of the moment. I understand one of the tests for true synesthesia is the colors for a particular sound stay constant over one's lifetime, but I haven't tested mine with enough specifics to determine that. I know that my colors for letters and numbers have stayed constant since I was about thirteen, though.
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micmcd, my numbers with personalities are probably not synesthesia. I wouldn't mind having it, though.
The numbers more or less developed their personalities when I was in elementary school, learning how to do arithmetic. I'd tell myself stories about them as I was adding and subtracting them. Now that I look back, it seems that they were really quite stereotypical, and not real personalities at all.
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lol, Kathleen I did that too. When I subtracted them I use to pretend the two numbers were getting married the solution was their baby. I made up personalities about them too.
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When I was a kid, I used to act out little plays with (1) my books, as late as my early SF purchasing days, and (2) decks of cards.
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Thanks for the descritpions, Pyraxis and satate.
I've also read that synesthesia is more common among artists, but I suspect that's somewhat of a causal thing - if I saw beautiful patterns whenever I heard music, I might be inclined to spend my life creating said patterns. As far as just creativity being a link to synesthesia, I don't know whether or not I believe that. It certainly missed me, though there is the distinct possibility that I'm simply not very creative.
I see colors in numbers and also I get very immersed in the mood of the music. I don't know if this is also synesthesia but if I watch a movie I actually start behaving a bit like some characters. If I close my eyes and picture myself looking at a mirror I will see the character's face instead of my own. It usually only lasts until the end of the day.
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You are all scarin' the willy's out of me. I though I was crazy!
I cannot imagine this sort of color association, and it lends me to think there is something very special about you all (special in creepy non-good way ). However, I should add that I am color blind, so maybe color association is something I would understand better were I not.
Very interesting topic, and there seem to be more of you(weirdos) out there than you realized.
Most sincerely(especially about the weirdos part) Patrick James.
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I don't believe this is synesthesia but I 'see' (experience) personalities as an ovoid object that is distorted in areas; the areas consistently relating to the expressions of personality.
For example, I 'see' someone who is enraged or always upset about something as displaying an extended forefront. Someone else who always relates to the world in terms of 'me' as being very globular. A person who has been traumatized as missing pieces of the ovoid.
Maybe just an overactive imagination? That is, a quivering ovoid? :0
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Kathleen, with the nine personality types, are you talking about the enneagram? (http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/)
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Hmm. I don't know, BoredCrow. I never thought about the personalities that way (when I created them, I knew absolutely nothing about anything like the enneagram -- I was only about 6 or 7 years old at the time).
I'll have to see if I can match them up, possibly.
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Even cooler then that you came up with nine different personality types on your own! I think I'm to absent-minded to organize things so neatly (so I need a published system to do it for me .
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I had no idea there was a name for this sort of thing. I'd not even given the phenomenon conscious thought. I tend to associate good things with even numbers, bad things with odd numbers, and illnesses with colors. The word "cancer" has always been a sickly, ugly yellow, like chicken fat. Weird.
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But I do have some experiences. Mostly, though, I think my experiences are due to being highly visual in how I perceive information, so it's very difficult for me to explain things sometimes, tastes in particular. I will describe tastes as hitting high or low, being broad or having a low note, a low smokey tone even though there's nothing smokey about the food, etc. I say that salt brightens flavors, something my grown sisters continue to tease me about to this day. All of this is an attempt for me to put into words something that I just sense. I get people whose names are similar lengths confused because when I meet them, I don't picture *them* - I picture their name. Written out in text in the air. And Jason and Peter look very similar when written out in the air. 
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