Synesthesia as something negative?

Post Reply New Topic

Whenever I read/watch something about people's experiences with synesthesia, they pretty much always talk about it in a positive way (whether they are choosing to tell only the positive aspects, or if they are being positive because it really is an entirely positive experience). I have yet to come across people speaking negatively of their synesthetic experiences.

So what I want to know is...those of you who have synesthesia, do you find it entirely positive? Do you feel neutral about it? Do you have any negative experiences with it? If you have certain forms, do dislike one form and love another one? If so, why? Is one particular form sometimes positive and sometimes negative? If so, what makes it sometimes positive and sometimes negative? Do any of your synesthetic experiences contribute to sensory overload and/or attention problems and/or speaking problems?

I've heard it can be distracting; or occasionally painful or uncomfortable if the synesthetic crossed wires give you, say, the taste of copper or the smell of onions every time you see the color turqoise or the letter T... That's the worst I've heard of it; occasionally also reports of mirror-touch synesthesia with pain sensation. So as far as I can tell, it's anywhere from annoying to a really positive experience.

I tend to picture numbers as shapes, but I don't think this is synesthesia; it's more of a visual-thinking strategy to understand numbers. Prime numbers are annoyingly unwieldy, and I don't like them. They're long and straight and keep trying to fold up, and it doesn't work, which is annoying... (Yeah, yeah, we're supposed to love primes... not so much for me.) It does help me do arithmetic, so either way it's not a bad thing. It's not like I actually flip out if I think about prime numbers or anything; and no, I can't identify large primes any quicker than the average somewhat-math-savvy person can. (This is why I think it's probably a habit born of visual thinking rather than true synesthesia.)

I hate mine. I perceive sound as movement. A crying baby is me being punched in the face. A lawnmower makes me feel like I'm having a seizure. Its extremely rare that I get anything good out of it (like mjusic or a pleasant speaking voice will be orgasmic).

I have very intense stimulation of vision by smell and vice versa, and sometimes physical sensations of touch when I smell something.

The downside is that when I smell something that was related to very unpleasant traumatic events, then I both see and feel the event. This is not directly synaesthesia, but is probably enabled by it.

My experiences are generally very positive. The other day this certain shade of yellow helped me find the perfect pitch of this note on my violin.

Typically the flashes of texture I get are inexplicable and sort of neutral. If I'm touched a lot it increases dramatically.

The impression I get from numbers helps me remember them or get to know strings of them better.

I can't think of anything negative about it really.

Shouldn't this be in the other conditions section?

But yeah, when I was little I did some cool synesthetic stuff and it was awesome. I wish I could still do it.

I decided to put this thread in this section because I also wanted to know if people's synesthesia contributes to some people's sensory overload, attention, speaking abilities, which relate to Autism for sure (especially sensory overload).

And that sucks that you grew out of your synesthesia. For the most part, I'm glad that I didn't. Even though it sometimes produces negative experiences for me, life would be so weird without it...I can't even really imagine it.

Usually my synaesthesia is positive. The only negative thing is the sound/touch synaesthesia I have- certain sounds give me the sensation of being hit.

I never grew out of mine, but I really don't pay attention to it.
When I think of numbers, they're all different colors, as are letters, the days of the week, months, musical notes, etc. Their respective colors have remained constant all my life.
The only negative side of it is trying to explain it to other people. They think I'm crazy or stupid.

I have seen music before, but that involved illicit drugs...

well. i see numbers as shapes too.and they have colours... am extremely curious at how you make it work, because it made me utterly suck at maths my entire school years lol....i was good at geometry ofc, but arithmetic........for me it's a bad thing in that respect. i see words as shapes too, and THAT was helpful in reading, and everything related to the french language. helped me learn english later and some other foreign languages, because i just associated the image of one word in both languages and remembered how people combined them in any language i learnt. but seeing everything as shapes and trying to give them some order is a handicap in a mall. i see the boxes, the people walking in front of them, the lights are aligned but not the cans for instance, that's just too much and i can close up and become super rude if someone asks "so what should we buy?"because for instance i WAS trying to think about it and as soon as it's asked i have to focus on answering AND my list while trying to ignore the visual mess around me. sounds have colour and heat, some have definite shape, some are more like having your feet trapped in a pool of mud ( unclear conversations of strangers, for exemple) , but as Who-Am-I said, some sounds feel like they have hit you behind the head. planes taking off (i have to refrain from ducking, too, lol) motorbikes, loud blank noise of something falling to the ground with a slap.
if there were no surprises it could just be fun, you could listen to music all day and play with the coloured shapes appearing in your head, but unfortunately we live in a world full of upsetting noises.....

Last edited by ediself on 25 Oct 2010, 12:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's good and bad. I have two types. The common type - chromographic, I think it's called, where numbers and letters have colours - has never had any negative connotations. I don't like yellow/white letters (like C or I) as much as other letters, but for the most part, I think it helps me remember strings of disparate information like phone numbers or amino acid sequences of proteins. The other thing, though - where if I see something, I can physically feel it - has been pretty terrible. I can't watch any kind of realistic violence on television (not brutality, not self-inflicted, not even realistic cartoons) because I will physically feel the sensations. That one pretty much just sucks.

I have sound -> color synthesia. Mostly it is positive, but in very loud places it can cause migranes, especially if I am not in the right place to balance it. Basically if I am overstimulated to begin with it gets worse. I love mine in the fact that my understanding of music is so different. But it also makes going to larger events and social gatherings hard. Also some peoples voices do not have great colors and bother me.

I have a friend though who is on a bad end with synthesia. She is sound -> feeling synthesia. Certian sounds can cause pain for her. She has multiple types of synthesia, most of them are the non-harmful type (letters/colors).

So it definately can be a detriment.

Same here.I was trying to explain to a colleague how I've always associated different colours to numbers and she said "Have you seen a doctor ?"

I have yet to really start trying to find associations of my synthesia with the physical world yet. I have always had a thing with the color red and numbers and letters but I have yet to find out each symbols color. This was something that I use to see as a drawback but have learned to make it work myself. I use to believe that it was crazy that people did not see the things the way I did turns out I was wrong and I'm the different one. It has always felt like being part of some esoteric group which has always brought me a certain amount of glee. One synestheic experience that I go about every now and then is a pain that appears sometimes when I'm all by myself. LOL. When I was younger I use to try and blame someone for this feeling because it was almost unbearable. It felt like someone was pressing on my nose and wouldn't let up till it was almost broke. This sometimes use to be in combination with Pareildola which made me think that someone was hypnotizing me or putting a weird ju-ju curse on me. Later I found it normal to see faces in objects but not with the pain. I think when people say certain things or point at certain objects that later on I will feel the pain like a time bomb. Another form that happens to me a lot involves sounds whether its objects falling from the sky hitting something, to voices coming from the corners of my room, or even the sound a leaf in a foreground would make scratching across something in the background. These do not bother me because I taught myself that it is okay to leaf to sound like a leaf. Currently I have decided to write a manual for myself so I can associate everything correctly I have done this once before but when I was done writing it and reading it I decided that this may be frowned upon by society, cause not only did I have a means of being different but I had a way of organizing it.

As a kid in 1st or 2nd grade I saw the days of the week as shapes. Other than that I have not had too many other experiences with synthesia. Certain overpowering odors may make me nauseated and too many things going on at once can overwhelm me. My mother has stated that she feels nauseated when hearing certain types of music or a particular singer.

Are you familiar with Daniel Tammet ? I believe what you have is a form of synesthesia: "Number >Shape Synesthesia: Where numbers are perceived as having a particular shape. The shape can be felt as hard or soft, cold or hot, vibrating or still. It can also be seen as having colors and other textures." In fact, the way you describe your association with prime numbers is eerily like his descriptions only i believe he prefers prime numbers and their corresponding shapes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vs6R5YZQ3c

TheSunAlsoRises