Synaesthesia

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I myself am synaesthetic. I see music, see taste, feel emotion on a physical level, and hear images as sound.

How many of you are synaesthetic and or think you might be?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia

Well I don't know, because i never heard of it before up till now. I do taste the smell of grass, leaves (especially autumn or spring) and I do taste and see things before/during a temporal lobe seizure.

Yep. I don't care for H's and W's because I perceive them as yellow, which is one of my least favorite colors.

I also have a red/blue shift between my right and left eyes. When I see blue and/or red, especially on a black background, the red appears to hover above the page while the blue appears to sink into the page. It's like a hologram (or wearing 3D glasses), where it moves from side to side as I move my head from side to side.

There was a door at a pool that I used to work at that was red with huge, yellow writing in the middle. While the writing stayed at the actual level of the door, the red (the majority of the door) hovered a few inches in front of it.

I loved comic books when I was younger, because I could make the images jump out of the page. Spiderman always looked cool, with half of his costume hovering and half of it sinking in, while the black webs stayed neutral.

When I'm really tired, things will appear to move back and forth (on a z-axis). People who see my eyes when this is happening say that my pupils are different sizes and constantly changing sizes. This also happens when I'm in a stressful situation.

I've found that this red/blue shift makes shrooms and ecstasy really interesting, although I'm pretty much done with that type of stuff now.

Hi Xanovaria,
Yes, I am a synesthete. I see everything I hear, I see everything that I feel (both emotionally and physically), and I feel everything I see. I see letters, numbers, and words in colour. I also perceive people in colour, like sensing the colour of their aura without physically seeing it. I never knew I was a synesthete until I saw a documentary about it on TV as an adult. Prior to then, I had thought that everyone perceived things as I did. I love being a synesthete, although it can get stressful at times when there is too much noise, or a very loud noise. When this happens, the visuals take up so much space that I don't have enough left for my thinking. As I am getting older, the synesthesia appears to be 'dimming' somewhat which I feel very sad about.

There are quite a few synesthetes here on Wrong Planet, because I remember threads about this in the past. I might see if I can dig one up and bump it.

I wonder why I like odd numbers better? Or why odd numbers feel even to me? And why the number 5 feels like its square?

I'm not a synaesthete, but I know a lot of people who are. I've found synaesthesia fascinating ever since I learnt it existed.

It would be interesting to see a study on whether it is more or less common among autists.

Only when having a migraine, any noise produces pretty red and blue patterns even when my eyes are shut (which is quite nice). The only problem is that my head then tries to explode (which ain't so good).

VS

dougn,
I have read lots of info on the net that indicates that synaesthesia is definitely more common among autistics. I'll see if I can find something later...


Does anyone know how to do a search on WP thread topics?

OMG! I always see the color red popping out of a flat surface, especially if the background is black. I thought it was some kind of light bending thing from my contact lenses.

YAY! I'm not the only one!

---Although I don't have other synesthesia things... and I'm not even sure if this qualifies.

I have associations with numbers and colors (8 is black, maybe from the 8-ball), but that is not why I voted yes (is that considered synesthesia or just associations). I entered yes because about a year and a half ago I had several instances within a couple weeks of thinking of or hearing the name of food and having the taste appear in my mouth; clear as day.

Thanks, it would be quite interesting to read.

I ought to see if I can find something myself, but at the moment I am too lazy.

A lot of my senses can some way or another translate into sight. Sometimes into touch. Once in a while, they'll go into associations with sound, but not consistently. It depends on what sense and what's being perceived, often.

mild but persistant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

Sounds absolutely horrifying.

I don't think it's that horrifying, from what I've heard. I mean, it's developmental most of the time; so you grow up with it.

Numbers have shapes to me; but that's mostly because I'm a visual thinker and that's just how I think about numbers. A number's shape is dependent on how many factors it has. Twelve is beautiful; thirteen is ugly... I don't particularly like primes. Numbers above 200 or so don't really have shapes until I've mentally worked with them a bit; then they fall into shapes that look a lot like the shapes of their multiples, with different thicknesses... well, actually, smaller numbers can have thicknesses too, especially the ones with particularly large numbers of factors.

The earliest I can remember thinking about numbers was in school, in the 2nd grade; at that point, they were dots in certain arrangements. Sometime by high school they turned into areas; now I'm working with volumes. I wonder what happens when I need another dimension to think of really big numbers; but I imagine I will probably just use a calculator for those!

If that's synesthesia, then I'm not surprised it's supposed to be present in 1 in 23 people. I never considered my way of thinking about numbers to be particularly unusual. In any case, it doesn't give me any advantage in math; what I do with shapes, other people do just as easily with digits.

Last edited by Callista on 12 Oct 2008, 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The people I know who have it don't find it horrifying. To them it's just normal. Some of them weren't even aware that not everyone thought that way until it came up in conversation and I pointed out that most of us didn't.