Synesthesia or just trying to be special?

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I sometimes perceive music as different colors or tastes. It doesn't happen with all music. My favorite color for music is purple or blue. Maybe I just perceive it as purple and blue because of the album cover, but I can still perceive music that way without album covers. I once had a dream where there was music playing. There was a bad note and I suddenly had a bitter taste in my mouth. I tried taking online tests for synesthesia, but I failed them.

You have synesthesia; screw the online tests.

You're a lucky Devil!

Because minds are a funny thing.

Was going to say that I do the same thing you do, but that that it is NOT synesthesia.

But then I Wikied the term just now, and have just now changed my mind!

Its not the stronger "projective" kind of synesethesia, but what you I both do could be the weaker "associative" type of synesthesia.

A person with projective synesthesia might hear a trumpet. and actually see an orange triangle appear in their minds eye. Where as someone with associative synesthesia might hear a trumpet and think the it "sounds orange".

You could be the latter kind.

In first grade (when you're taught to read and write and count and add) I had a strong sense that each of the first ten numbers has a color, and a gender, and a personality (like they were a family). Still retain that, and helps doing math in my head.

Music often does have a certain color for me (sometimes influenced by the color of therecord jacket, sometimes not).

I have a fairly weak associative type of synesthesia then, too, I sometimes percieve certain types of pain as having a certain colour and letter. For instance, a particular sharp pain, like growth pain, is a yellow U. Certain types of club or dance music is icy blue and feels cold. But usually I don't see or feel colours when listening to music. I wish I did, though! It sounds amazing to go to a concert and see lots of colour all the time.

I've wondered the same about myself. I may have tactile emotional synesthesia, where I'll hallucinate certain tactile sensations when I feel certain emotions. Or it could be just alexithymia, which I definitely have.

But does the diagnostic label really matter? We experience what we experience.

I would never have considered myself to have synesthesia.

I thought this was normal for everyone and I only heard it wasn't when I came to wrong planet.

A while ago I was reading about pain-colour/vision, vision-pain/touch synesthesia and these links were useful:

http://www.daysyn.com/Types-of-Syn.html -Lists 63 different types of synesthesia

http://www.synesthesiatest.org/ -Provides a broad explanation of synesthesia

http://www.synesthete.org/ -A battery of tests measuring Vividness of Visual Imagery, it also identifies if you are a Projector or Associator.

https://vimeo.com/34335507 -Short interview with Michael Banissy explaining synesthesia

There is also ideasthesia which is something everyone will experience in different ways: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/ideasthesia-h ... ko-nikolic

E.g. Concept -> color is ideasthesia (idea input -> sense).

E.g. Sound -> color is synesthesia (sense input -> sense)

All humans must have at least some synesthesian tendencies or we all wouldnt be able to use one sensory experience as a metaphor for another.

The lead singer of the Miracles was known as "Smokey" Robinson, and Jazz singer Mel Torme is known as "the Velvet Fog". The first nickname is visual, the second is both visual AND tactile. But both are metaphors for how they sounded, so both nicknames are rather synesthesian.