Synesthesia

Flygon said:

One odd thing is that letters and numbers have personalities and gender to me, as well as an associated color

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Oh yeah, this reminds me...

0 is male and black
1 is male and yellow
2 is female and lime green
3 is male and green
4 is female and blue
5 is male and orange
6 is female and light red
7 is male and dark green
8 is male and yellow
9 is female and red

2 is very masculine, 9 is a bit of a tough girl, and 1 is sort of the novice and maybe alone... 7 and 8 are "those two guys", and 0 is pretty... empty, personality-wise. 5 is the real manly man, 4 is the smart and pretty girl, and I dunno about 3 and 6... pretty ordinary, perhaps.

I wasn't implying that people were lying. I was implying that people didn't actually know what they were saying.

Well, I think I have something like this, but I'm not entirely sure. Music makes me think of colors, (Don't Go Breaking My Heart is a nice dark red with yellow highlights) and certain scents make me think of colors. Like a particular perfume makes me think of purple.

Also the days of the week have personalities. Thursday is a bigger jerk than Monday.

_Ditto_ said:

Don't Go Breaking My Heart is a nice dark red with yellow highlights

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It's light blue for me. :P

alright. I'll post one last time (unless someone responds to me again):

I just don't think you guys have a grasp on what synaesthesia actually is. it is not a series of unconscious associations having to do with taste and sight and sound. it is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary sensory experiences in a sense other than the sense that is actually being stimulated. that said, this gender + personality with graphemes isn't even close to synaesthesia, it's just kind of quirky.

I mean, do you understand? "B makes me think red" isn't synaesthesia. when you look at a B and it is actually red -- that is synaesthesia. a type of synaesthesia, anyway.

Dezzuu said:

alright. I'll post one last time (unless someone responds to me again):

I just don't think you guys have a grasp on what synaesthesia actually is. it is not a series of unconscious associations having to do with taste and sight and sound. it is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary sensory experiences in a sense other than the sense that is actually being stimulated. that said, this gender + personality with graphemes isn't even close to synaesthesia, it's just kind of quirky.

I mean, do you understand? "B makes me think red" isn't synaesthesia. when you look at a B and it is actually red -- that is synaesthesia. a type of synaesthesia, anyway.

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This.

There was that one composer guy who thought they dimmed the light in the theatre so that it was easier to see the colours.

I don't know if this is even real or just all in my head, but i have noticed that whenever i hit my funny bone or some other nerve, i taste a sweet taste. This has been going on for several years.

Dezzuu said:

I just don't think you guys have a grasp on what synaesthesia actually is. it is not a series of unconscious associations having to do with taste and sight and sound. it is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary sensory experiences in a sense other than the sense that is actually being stimulated. that said, this gender + personality with graphemes isn't even close to synaesthesia, it's just kind of quirky.

I mean, do you understand? "B makes me think red" isn't synaesthesia. when you look at a B and it is actually red -- that is synaesthesia. a type of synaesthesia, anyway.

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Actually, no. Ordinal-linguistic personification (the association of gender and personality characteristics with graphemes) is very much synesthesia. Do you know what you're talking about? It's not exactly very broadly researched but why is this not synesthesia and the others are? Everywhere I've seen about synesthesia acknowledges this as a type so how did you decide this?

Rather, like color blindness or perfect pitch, synesthesia is a difference in perceptual experience and the term "neurological" simply reflects the brain basis of this perceptual difference

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I don't claim to know a great deal about the neurology behind synesthesia, but implying that we have no idea when I'm pretty sure most people in this thread have the diagnostic criteria -

Neurologist Richard Cytowic identifies the following diagnostic criteria of synesthesia:

Synesthesia is involuntary and automatic.
Synesthetic perceptions are spatially extended, meaning they often have a sense of "location." For example, synesthetes speak of "looking at" or "going to" a particular place to attend to the experience.
Synesthetic percepts are consistent and generic (i.e., simple rather than pictorial).
Synesthesia is highly memorable.
Synesthesia is laden with affect.

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Considering that about 1 in 23 people apparently have it, I doubt that all of them know exactly what synesthesia is (and I'm sure some don't even realise that not everyone else experiences the same things as them), but if they realise one day, "ooh look, I have exactly what neurologists tell me I have" and think it's kind of interesting, perhaps they're not being special snowflakes and, y'know, genuinely have it to some extent? :/

Cirrus said:

Actually, no. Ordinal-linguistic personification (the association of gender and personality characteristics with graphemes) is very much synesthesia. Do you know what you're talking about? It's not exactly very broadly researched but why is this not synesthesia and the others are? Everywhere I've seen about synesthesia acknowledges this as a type so how did you decide this?

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[does more research and then sinks in chair]

I acknowledge that you are all snowflakes (assuming it is involuntary and not arbitrarily assigned, when it comes to grapheme personification).

that said, I still highly doubt that so many people in this thread have other types of synesthesia but fine I guess it is possible (though improbable)

(I will say, however, that I personally don't think that it should classify as synesthesia as I wouldn't align "personification" with any of my senses? it's one of the reasons I was fighting this in the first place (not to mention I am slightly jealous))

(wait can I claim syllable->sound? I read out loud.)

Damn it. I haven't noticed anything before reading that article, but now that I read the thing about Personification, all these letters and numbers have personalities that make sense. T is an old, bitter, hunchbacked man, whilst C is a beautiful girl with black hair, who is intensely shallow....They really feel right for me, and I've always kind of done it. I remember making my own Letterland series when I was a kid, and I would always tell my brothers stories about them. I don't know if it's actually Synesthesia, or just my mind playing tricks on me.