Synethesia

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Please feel free to share your experiences ... some well-known synesthetes ...
Synesthetes

Tactile and somatic synaesthesia in my case. I get the feeling of textures or pressure on my skin, or of parts of my body being moved or changing size and shape, including parts inside my body. The triggers for it are quite varied, but they all seem to relate to patterns in some way; for example, the structures of musical rhythms, the "shapes" of certain words, seeing tessellated or fractal-like geometrical patterns, watching ripples on water, or trees swaying in the wind. I always see visual hallucinations at least a little bit (visual snow and geometric or migraine aura type), and these also react to stimuli in my other senses - for example, the aura-like visuals will "dance" to music.

Occasionally, it can be a little bit disorientating. For example; walking across certain patterned tiling or carpets can make me walk more unsteadily than usual, as the somatic sensations make it harder for me to know exactly where my limbs are in relation to the floor. Those kinds of stimuli also give me the strong sensation of "ripples" moving through my body, especially my head. When it's through my head, it often triggers the ASMR tingles if I'm feeling relaxed.

I make music, and have dabbled in painting and photography, and I do think that it influences them to some extent. Sometimes a musical riff or sequence, or the composition of a painting, will just seem "off" because the tactile/somatic sensations feel a bit uncomfortable or as if they're trying to throw me off balance. The skin sensations are very hard to describe, they're not quite like the sensations of anything real touching my skin, but they are pretty predictable - sibilant or sharp sounds are distinctly less comfortable and "abrasive" feeling, while long, rounded vowels are much softer - reading words gives me the same sensations as hearing them spoken.

It's probably not a coincidence that quite a few of my stims are tactile - for example; I keep various little swatches of fabric etc. on me to rub and tease as stim toys, and quite often feel like I need to stroke or put pressure on parts of my body (no sniggering at the back, please!).

I am still learning about myself so I cant give many examples, but you (Juliette) pointed out to me that I shoed an example of having it when I typed a thing where something triggered a smell, where I could smell a bus smell (Busses have an unique smell) yet there was no bus here and busses can't come down our drive anyway. Maybe a minibus but they smell differently).
Anyway. I don't know why I smelt bus because where I was there is nothing at all physical that remotely smells like a bus.
I sometimes get smells where no way can I have smelt what I smelt in a physical way and the smell is in my nose, but it is not in the enviroment outside of my body.
Smells. A couple of months ago I realized that certain smelss were triggering shutdowns for me. I had not connected that it was the smell. I had assumed it was an allergy to the vapour as for years I had assumed that shutdowns were allwegy symptoms before I learnt about autistic shutdowns, and after about 30 years of tracing mystery allergies!

I see numbers, letters, months and days of the week in colours, like for example Monday is always green, A is always red, 2 is always blue, etc. I even see some names in colours too, and some of the towns and cities in England.

I've had it since I first learnt my ABCs, colours and numbers (which I guess was around age 2 or 3).

I know my taste and sight seem to be linked a little together. I haven't done it in awhile because it freaks me out but orange squash makes me see grid paper. It is hard to describe after all this time but having had hallucinations before I'd describe it as the same. It is sort of like a layering of sights so I see that and everything behind it at the same time if that makes sense. I think that is the only true mixing of the senses taste wise except maybe another with taste and feeling when it comes to cherry flavoured things. Certain notes also give me a strange, tingling feeling on my head and it feels like it is being lightly squeezed. That one is weird. There are also some sounds that cause other types of discomfort such as my teeth feeling like they hurt.

Those are the concrete ones but it's hard for me to tell what counts and what doesn't. In general, my brain connects certain tastes to images but except for the case mentioned above, the image isn't easy to grasp but I have a clear idea of what it is eg. a certain shade of green = rasmalai but I don't know if I could say I truly sensed anything to do with rasmalai (especially since I haven't seen that shade of green since I was about 7).

Yes, that's very much how my visual hallucinations are - the only time that they really impair my perception of what my eyes are seeing is when the light is very dim or when I have a full-blown ocular migraine.

for a few years now, i've enjoyed participating in my own breathing visual rituals. it's where i do controlled breathing, get in a state of being partially awake, partially asleep, while listening to music and then create my own imagery to the music in my mind. in some sessions, i've spent hours creating landscapes of imagery to the music, seeing my own ideas come to life. rarely it turns into a full on semi-awake dream. it happens because my body falls asleep but my mind stays awake, giving my mind more energy to create imagery. i'd love to turn the imagery i see into an animation format one day. it's also a guaranteed tool to fall asleep. in the past, doing this ritual to many times a night over a couple of weeks without sleeping much can be a recipe for entering the world in a dream like state for a long amount of time.

the visuals i see go along with the music i listen to, therefor yes, i can see music. weather it's a form of synethesia, i'm not sure. if synethesia is beyond ones own control, then no. i created the connection between the music and the imagery that went along with it.

i think the type of visuals i see are 'psychedelic'. they're somewhat out of body, nonsensical but at the same time, meaningful from my perspective and within my own control.

yes, the closed eye visuals are similar to hallucinations but rather there not external from my mind. the last time i hallucinated was before my teenage years... man dancing outside my bed (this re-occurred several times - scary at first, over time became stimulating), a giant mouse and my own imagination coming to life in front of me are a few examples of hallucinations i've had. these all stopped as i entered teenage years as i became more aware, i was able to filter them out of my sight. the power of the mind... i think the hallucinations before teenage years are linked to the boundlessness of my present visual mind.

i have seen layers and layers of colours while listening to music in my closed eye vision sometimes. the colours 'wave' and 'warp' in rhythm to the music. this usually happens when i'm manically tired. so tired that my mind keeps me up at night, long enough for it to begin happening. this has happened beyond my control.

music is a powerful force.

syd barrett may offer a view of what synethesia is. he often played his music with a background of colours, in fact he was the first person to do so. he is known for taking a lot of LSD though. the first thing that came up when searching "LSD and synesthesia" was