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whipstitches
Deinonychus
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31 Mar 2009, 6:51 am

Anyone have synesthesia? I have read that there are a good number of people on the ASD that have this in some form.

Here is a link for those of you who may not be sure what it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia

I have some weird things that could be considered "synesthesia", I think.

I can taste smells as well as smell tastes... doesn't seem that big of a deal considering that your nose and your taste buds are related. However... I tend to experience this with "non-food" items. A good example would be commenting that something "tastes like Pledge furniture polish smells" or "smells like baby asprin tastes".

I can see touch. I see colors and shapes in response to touch. I have done this for as long as I can remember. Certain sensations bring on thoughts or images of different shapes, colors and colored shapes. Patters of color, as well...

When I was little I used to ask my mom to "do the tickle colors". She would tickle my back in different ways (patterns, weight changes, fingers vs. fingernails, feather duster, etc...). Each different touch sensation would make me see colors and shapes. It was so wild!! Still is wild.... I just can't seem to find anyone who will tickle my back for me..... :lol:

Anyone else have anything like this?



melissa17b
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31 Mar 2009, 7:16 am

I have mirror-touch sysaesthesia, where I can feel actions that may cause discomfort to others literally as though they are happening to me (not just imagined response); number-form sysaesthesia, where I see numbers as music (and consequently can remember very long strings of numbers). These two forms of synaesthesia are quite strong. I also have a weaker olfactory-colour sysaesthesia, where most things I can actually smell cause me to "see" the smell as a colour. The colours I experience are consistent, even if I don't know what the smell is (which is nearly all the time if I'm not looking at its source), and are often different from what one might associate with the item (lemons, for example have a distinct ocean-water blue-green smell). Otherwise, my olfactory sense is severely impaired - if an odour is not overpowering, it doesn't exist to me.



whipstitches
Deinonychus
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31 Mar 2009, 10:57 am

Cool! The number thing is really interesting to me. I think that it would be so cool to be able to see color for other things. I bet music would be so cool to "see in color". Unfortunatley, I only see color for certain types of touch sensations.... namely "tickle" sensations.



makelifehappen
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01 Apr 2009, 3:20 pm

I met the lead singer of a Canadian Band (The Midway State) recently who also has synesthesia. He sees his music in colours:)

Which made me wonder if he too had an ASD...things that make you go hmmm....


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whipstitches
Deinonychus
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01 Apr 2009, 3:40 pm

I think that just like one can have sensory integration dysfunction without having an ASD, one can also have synesthesia without having an ASD.

It is still WAY neat to think about what it would be like to see music as color!



Doro
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04 Apr 2009, 10:20 am

I have synesthesia nd i love it ALOT!

I see shapes when listening to music, smells taste and tates smell, and numers re colored.



metelz
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04 Apr 2009, 10:22 am

My non-aspie sister has it. She says the sky tastes like peppermint.



Bluestocking
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04 Apr 2009, 8:43 pm

I have it, I cross personalities with numbers and colours, so when I see someone I don't know, I chalk them up to a number, or when I see a number, I see it as a colour and personality, and instead of doing my maths assignments, I'd make up stories about the numbers and their lives.



GeneralDisarray
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04 Apr 2009, 8:53 pm

I see music as colors and/or patterns and can taste smells. I also have physical reactions to other's actions. A good example is when neil's brother paces, I feel physically ill/nauseous. I don't know if that counts, but it is an issue for me. The music as color/patterns and the tasting smells I've had as long as I can remember. I never thought of it as anything odd, in fact I thought all people could do it. I recently asked my boyfriend if he could see music as colors, and he said no, apparently not everyone does this!! ! lol. I think its awesome.


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Learning2Survive
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04 Apr 2009, 10:08 pm

whipstitches wrote:
Anyone have synesthesia? I have read that there are a good number of people on the ASD that have this in some form.

Here is a link for those of you who may not be sure what it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia

I have some weird things that could be considered "synesthesia", I think.

I can taste smells as well as smell tastes... doesn't seem that big of a deal considering that your nose and your taste buds are related. However... I tend to experience this with "non-food" items. A good example would be commenting that something "tastes like Pledge furniture polish smells" or "smells like baby asprin tastes".

I can see touch. I see colors and shapes in response to touch. I have done this for as long as I can remember. Certain sensations bring on thoughts or images of different shapes, colors and colored shapes. Patters of color, as well...

When I was little I used to ask my mom to "do the tickle colors". She would tickle my back in different ways (patterns, weight changes, fingers vs. fingernails, feather duster, etc...). Each different touch sensation would make me see colors and shapes. It was so wild!! Still is wild.... I just can't seem to find anyone who will tickle my back for me..... :lol:

Anyone else have anything like this?


Ummm, this may too personal, so feel free to give a general answer, but I wonder how do men with synesthesia experience sexual intercourse? I imagine it would be a big benefit to someone in that regard.


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nara44
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11 Apr 2009, 8:21 am

i see sounds and hear pictures,
it took me many years to find out that it is not as common as i thought and it caused me a lot of troubles as such things might completely change your outlook on life



Cicely
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23 Apr 2009, 6:30 pm

I have it! I love it. Letters and numbers have colors and personalities; music has colors and shapes; a few people have colors; some words have pictures (like "abyss" is a little pyramid); units of time have colors, personalities, and shape; objects have personalities; and some concepts (like Spanish verb conjugations) have colors and shapes. My (non-aspie) sister has most of the same types and we like to argue about what color O is. She thinks it's red when it's obviously gold.



pandd
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23 Apr 2009, 11:27 pm

Quote:
I can taste smells as well as smell tastes... doesn't seem that big of a deal considering that your nose and your taste buds are related. However... I tend to experience this with "non-food" items. A good example would be commenting that something "tastes like Pledge furniture polish smells" or "smells like baby asprin tastes".

Er, that's just ordinary every day sensory processing is it not?



starvingartist
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24 Apr 2009, 12:57 am

i see images very vividly when i listen to music....sometimes it is the artists performing it (if i don't know what they look like i try to imagine it, and then look up pictures of them to see how close i was :lol: )....i also see/feel motion and colour with music--for example, when i listen to vivaldi's concerto for 4 violins and cello in b minor (gorgeous piece, one of my faves), i see drops of multi-coloured light jumping gracefully in the air in time to the music, like those fountains with coloured lights in the water....some songs make me feel as if i'm on a train looking out the window, where i can feel the rocking of the cars and the chugging of the engine to the beat...sometimes the sensation of motion is so strong that i can't keep myself from moving with it, even if it's just a sort of air-guitar type stimming or bouncing in my chair :lol:

i also associate people i know with certain colours, or smells (my mom is yellow and thinking about her makes me smell cinnamon).... and some sounds feel more like touch than sound to me, like my mind is picking up on the vibration itself more than the actual noise the vibration is attached to (these are usually unpleasant sounds that affect me in this way, like the sound my shower curtain makes when i pull it back, that shrieky metallic sound--i actually feel that on my skin like little running mouse feet or something :eew:)....i had absolutely no idea that these things don't happen to everyone until i found out about aspergers. i assumed everyone's mind did things like this all the time. it makes me wonder how boring my mind would be if it didn't do those things, like my senses would all feel two-dimensional or something--does that make sense?



starygrrl
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24 Apr 2009, 9:43 am

I have sound (music to be specific) → color synesthesia. I consider it a gift and a curse. A gift regarding music, because how I percieve music is much deeper than other people, and also very different. A curse because to much audio stimuli and the wrong audio stimuli causes problems. Basically I relate to starving artist said. In fact because I equate music so much with color synesthesia my understanding of music and writing music is VERY different from most NT musicians I have met.



fiddlerpianist
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01 May 2009, 11:33 pm

starygrrl wrote:
I have sound (music to be specific) → color synesthesia.


My wife is convinced that I have something like this. I have perfect pitch, and certain keys sound like certain colors to me. The key of C Major, for instance, is definitely yellow, and F is definitely green. But it's not as if I actually see the colors as I hear the key.