Synesthesia

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So how many people here have some form of synesthesia? I have two major ones:

1. Sound/Color - Specifically music and color; particularly with electronic music. Like, a lot of trance and industrial I listen to evokes darker, cooler colors in my mind; lots of black, deep purples and reds, all shades of blue, maybe some greens in there somewhere. Rock and metal tend to evoke black, reds, oranges and yellows, too.

2. Voice/Face - I seem to have a very strange knack for being able to imagine, relatively accurately, what someone looks like just from listening to their voice. I can listen to them, then meet them in person or see a photo of them, and my mental image of them is usually quite close to what they actually look like.

I know other types are like with colors and numbers, letters, days of the week, months, etc. but I don't really have any of those. Just really the two listed above.

So what are yours, if any?

Yes, I am a synaesthete & w/ sensory integration disorder, which are essentially synonymous. In fact, a major component of my autism is sensory. I think a major part of why I do well is because I've learned to use it as an advantage. BUT, that being said, it can be hard too.

Synaethesia (for myself) equates to 'hearing' light/color and 'seeing' sounds. I am and have been nearly unaware that this IS a difference but I've learned others do not have senses attenuated in this way. My senses are not any different than anothers, but just more focused and overlap. When I hear certain distinct sounds, I see it (as light/color) - and vice versa.

I am unsure, but I do 'see' waves off certain liquids (that others do not) - will note here this comes in handy in the lab! But I know to NOT stare at certain stimuli, like pools of water, glass, etc. as I can become 'lost' and forget to un-stare.

As I understand, synaesthesia regarding colored letter/numbers are more fundamental....I do wonder if others (NT) just naturally 'associate' a certain number/letter with an assigned color just by memory, which isn't really a function of synaesthesia but just associating, which is considered normal.

Maybe difficult to 'report' synaesthesia signs (to another) since (1) I am not necessarily aware (since I cannot know differently) and (2) NOT relateable/understandable for another. I do note that my eye-doctor is tremendously understanding of this, and somehow 'gets it.' But quite a many other physicians/medical practitioners just do not. However, synaesthesia is part of my Dx.

Tip of the day: Never tell someone you don't know too well that you 'see' sounds, etc. .....they will jump to wrong conclusions, I promise ......or you'll get a "What the ????" response.

The closest I've got is getting the smell of urine whenever I think of World War I.

Yes, with some music at certain times I see the sound, it is clearly in synch and very beautiful. I cannot be very descriptive other than comparing it to the Aurora Borealis footage I've seen around the internet. But not the type that is vertical, it's always in the form of the swirls and waves, never any straight lines. However it's point of origin is very obvious as well as it's destination.

It makes going to the symphony an overwhelming experience. When I worked in theater, this was not a problem so much as my focus and mindset rarely allowed me to drift into the overwhelming fascination.

Those two forms sound really interesting to me. I'd probably be totally freaked out if I suddenly started experiencing them, but still, it's an interesting way of being wired. How does the 'seeing waves' thing work; or is it not really explainable? Are they like residual images, like the ones you get from staring at something for too long, kind of, or like heat waves which actually appear to have physical substance, so to speak?

Well, wait. I think I might know what you're talking about... Is it kind of like heat waves, except you only see them through/reflected off glass and some liquids? If it's anything like that, I probably have a bit of it too. Or what I keep noticing may just be weird refraction/temperature stuff...

I don't really know if it's synesthesia but

-when listening to a song I see colors and lines, the colors don't have a meaning to me, while the lines follow the voice of the singer or a musical instrument I focus on.
I listen to the same song over and over,until I remember the the lines. I like singing and to sing I make my voice(another line) follow the lines of the song, I can sing pretty much everything with this method.

-I see the hours of the day, they have different colors(not always the same colors) and look like steps of a stair; I'm not good at time management, the steps don't have the same height and it' quite difficult for me to manage my time, I always have to keep in my mind that 1hour is always 60 minutes

Ive been able to see as well as feel music on my body on a few occassions. I percieve this as being the energy of the actual music.

Each music is different.. it can appear as these beautiful waves, raising up magnificatly high before me before gently coming half down before raising up again or it can be like light tapping on my head or body like rain.

i'm not certain but i have been told i have it.
I can smell and taste sounds. only sometimes. one of my friends had an eggy voice. american's sound salty. often i will describe music as sweet ar tasty but i am not sure where that comes from as i usually do not actually taste it.

sometimes i think i have a sound to kinetic synaesthesia but that is only when i am stressed or tired and it is something unexpected. I feel a wave of what feels like movement come over my body even if i do not move. I'm not convinced on this one though.

I think most people have the capacity for some synesthesia and it is my belief that for some it can be highly contextual.


I am also more and more smelling my own thoughts and memories. I don't think this is synesthesia but maybe it employs some similar mechanisms. like often when i think about smoking i smell tobacco or weed smoke, only briefly though. for a while when i thought something then realised i was talking poo i would literally smell a faint whiff of excrement...

I actually get something like that from time to time, except it's where I'll, for lack of a better description of something, associate and compare a smell with a texture. Like nitrous oxide for example, or at least the plastic/rubber hoses they administer it through, has a 'fuzzy' smell (and that's not just because of the confusion and hilarious stupidity it induces).

As part of an overall package of completely screwed up sensory processing that leaves no aspect of perception intact, I have three forms of synaesthesia:

1. Olfactory/colour – while I cannot detect about 90% of odours (this varies tremendously from day to day), the few I do detect are usually overwhelming, and I experience them as colour patterns. Sometimes the colours are solid, often translucent or transparent; other times they register as bars or lines or other patterns, often with alternating colours. The colour patterns are consistent and rarely related to the actual colour of the source item.

2. Mirror-touch – seeing certain things that look like they ought to be uncomfortable or painful actually produces genuine discomfort, not just the usual flinching reaction or imagination of pain.

3. Number form – looking at sequences of numbers registers as distinct musical patterns (hearing them produces a weaker version of the same effect). Memorising pi to over 1,000 places was fairly easy (the first 300 almost effortless) because the digits form a disinct and memorable musical pattern. Sometimes the number patterns acquire visible shapes as well. The patterns are more complex than simple mappings of the digits into notes, but they are clear and consistent.

These sensory experiences are more than mere associations; they are received as though the perceived stimuli are real.

I have not been professionally diagnosed, but I have instead self-diagnosed myself with moderate synesthesia.
Smell and taste are closely tied, so I am not completely certain that this one counts, but all smells, for me, have unrelated tastes, and vice versa. For instance, I have had gum before that tasted like the smell of my grandmother's old house. Another example is the fact that one day, while at music school, the hallway of the music school happened to smell like the taste of a salad with ranch dressing on it. Whenever I tell anyone things like this, they're always like, 'What do you mean?' or 'What are you talking about? Smells can't have tastes!' or 'Huh? Tastes can't have smells!'
Also, like a majority of people with synesthesia, the alphabet and numbers (but only 1-9) have corresponding colors. I know that when two people with synesthesia talk (including me) about having synesthesia, they usually get into arguments about what color a number or letter is...
I also have found I have the music-to-color symptom, but I always find it really difficult to explain.

I think I really should consider getting evaluated for an official diagnosis...

While my diagnosis was not done in person, I HAVE taken a scientifically-validated test online that placed the probability above 99%. (I probably also have SID/CAPD, but have NOT been officially diagnosed with those.)

Grapheme--> Color synesthesia. Interestingly, this turns out to include foreign alphabets, too, though they tend to seem washed-out and pastel unless I learn VERY well what sound or concept they represent. I have found that even characters I've never seen before, once I start to learn them, start to acquire a color. (I have NOT been able to make that happen with Chinese, unfortunately.) The Greek, Cyrillic, and Hebrew alphabets so far have some color. I'm wondering if maybe, since it's an abjad, someday I could get Arabic to show the proper colors so I'd see something more than squiggles.

Sound --> Sight: I don't experience this the way most synesthetes do where they see colors. I see shapes for each component of a sound (so for music, I see all effects and all musical instruments separately), and they change according pitch, timbre, any effects (highpass, lowpass, reverb, etc.). The intensity of the light they emit in my mind's eye also changes according to pitch--there are no colors, but they go from monochrome darkness to light. That might sound boring, but it's beautiful, and I think I could be an awesome DJ or mixer/producer if I ever tried it.

Grapheme-> colour for me as well. One of my non-spectrum sisters has it too.

I'm not sure what this is called, but when i'm playing with some of my seed cones or certain stim objects, I experience the stim as a very satisfying "mouth-feel", which is nice. I sometimes get that from interesting light patterns, wind over my fingers and some electronic music as well. Certain things (patterns, leaves, landscapes, shiny stuff) looks "delicious", and some textures feel "revolting".

When I was a little kid I knew sounds from not what they sounded like, but what color they were. I didn't see the colors, but they came to me in my mind - I would hear a noise and I'd be like, "that sound is green"

But that went away when I hit puberty.

I realize this topic is ancient starting back in 2010. But, I did not want to start another topic on the subject.

So, can someone tell me how synesthesia applies to those with object fixation or more specifically objectohilia (mechaphilia). I just want to learn more about some of my own traits.

I can taste color, see sound,pain has color,graphemes have a color/texture/personality/genders, smells have color, I can feel sound, and motion has sound for me