Synesthesia

[Equinoxe]

I though that synesthesia might be an interesting subject since I would love to know whether there are other synesthetes on this forum.
(if you don't know what synesthesia is, Wikipedia can probably help you)

I identify myself as a grapheme → colour synesthete, as certain letters, words and numbers 'feel' like they are a certain colour, for example, 'e', '4' and '7' are green, whereas 'b', 'o' and '3' are bright red. It's not insanely strong, and I only 'see' the colours in my mind, but it's still strong enough to make me notice it in everyday life.
Plus looking at that 'synesthesia 0123456789' picture in the article makes me cringe because the letters and numbers are all coloured wrong :/


Do any of you think you are synesthetes (if you didn't know of this 'condition' before, did reading that Wikipedia article make you think "Oh but this is exactly like me"?) and if you do, what type are you?
I'd really be interested in hearing if you have experiences with different types than my own :U

 

[Tailsy]

I'm not, but I'm quite boring so that's unsurprising!

I associate sounds with words ('incest' is crackly, by the way), I guess, but that's as close as I'll ever be :P

 

[Cap'n Sofa]

I don't know whether I built up these associations or if I am actually a synesthete, but I would seem to have grapheme --> color synesthesia. "1" and "A" are both yellow, "Z" is dark blue, "P" is bright salmon (that's the weirdest of the lot), "Q" would be purple...not actually visibly, but if I'm just looking at one...the color comes to mind. Some have multiple colors, like sometimes "Q" is the same dark blue as "Z", though "Z" always stays the same.

But my friend has concept --> color synesthesia (he says "death" is tan and so on), and my assistant forensics coach has smell --> pitch synesthesia (bleach smells high-pitched, smoke smells low-pitched, so on).

 

[nastypass]

Do all the letters have different colors (I know you mentioned b, o, and 3 being red, but are they the same shade of it?) or do some repeat? Are characters you aren't familiar with (like Cyrillic, or Greek letters) affected as well? What about things that aren't pronounced, like (, ^, or !? Are d and D the same color?

Sorry if I seem like I'm asking way too many questions at once, I'm just really curious about this. :V

 

[Shiny Grimer]

I have music -> color. To me, all songs have a color attached to them that is intrinsic. I can see it in the back of my mind when I listen to the song. I guess this would be a good time to say that I visualize music and sounds. Different sounds "look" different. It's weird to explain, but it is, once again, like a picture in the back of my mind (and it's that color, too!). Really lush songs with a lot of instruments make a really nice "image" in my head.

Other than that, nothing. :p

 

[Equinoxe]

I have to say, Sofa, you should get the people you mentioned here to tell more about their types, they seem pretty fascinating :O

And ..., I think that's pretty intriguing too. My mind apparently doesn't do it, but song names that have strongly 'coloured' letters may make me associate the song with the colour.
(though now that I think of it, sometimes I get these fractal-flame-kind of images in my mind from classical music :X Dunno if it's anything like yours)

Do all the letters have different colors (I know you mentioned b, o, and 3 being red, but are they the same shade of it?) or do some repeat?

Some of them repeat, for example 3 and b are pretty much the same red, whereas o kind of feels a teeny tiny bit more orange. Some letters don't really feel like they have a colour at all, the strongest are the ones I mentioned as examples (especially e, 4, and 7).

Are characters you aren't familiar with (like Cyrillic, or Greek letters) affected as well?

Not really, though some of the Greek symbols that are more close to me for a certain reason, have colours (beta is red, alpha is yellowish-green) but their colours might not be purely synesthetic. :V

What about things that aren't pronounced, like (, ^, or !? Are d and D the same color?

They don't really have their own colours, I'm pretty sure of it. At least in my case, but I have a feeling someone else's brain might give them colours too :U
And I really don't mind the questions, it's such an intersting subject :D

 

[Jester]

I have music -> color. To me, all songs have a color attached to them that is intrinsic. I can see it in the back of my mind when I listen to the song. I guess this would be a good time to say that I visualize music and sounds. Different sounds "look" different. It's weird to explain, but it is, once again, like a picture in the back of my mind (and it's that color, too!). Really lush songs with a lot of instruments make a really nice "image" in my head.

Other than that, nothing. :p

This would be really useful to help me with my fail attempts at music.

Do you work with music, By chance?

 

[Dinru]

Taste - > color. Barbecue Sauce and Mountain Dew both taste the same shade of green, and McDonald's chocolate milkshakes are a dull salmon color. Otherwise, nothing particularly notable about it.

 

[Music Dragon]

I have person → colour synesthesia. Bigoted people are white, enslaved people are black, ubiquitous people are yellow etc.

 

[Spoon]

I don't have synesthesia, but I do have a friend who might have it. She's mentioned that the word 'discipline' tastes like syrup.

 

[#1 bro]

I have music -> color. To me, all songs have a color attached to them that is intrinsic. I can see it in the back of my mind when I listen to the song. I guess this would be a good time to say that I visualize music and sounds. Different sounds "look" different. It's weird to explain, but it is, once again, like a picture in the back of my mind (and it's that color, too!). Really lush songs with a lot of instruments make a really nice "image" in my head.

I have this too, except 9 times out of 10 it's just based on the cover of the album art. :P A few of my favorite albums, though, have a different color for each song (on In Rainbows, Bodysnatchers is red, Weird Fishes is blue, All I Need is purple, Reckoner is yellow, and pretty much everything else is a shade of pinkish-orange, and on Dark Side of the Moon, Breathe is blue, Time is yellow, Great Gig in the Sky is green, and Money is red). Also I used to really hate music I perceived as this color, the Strokes being a really prominent example of that style.

That's about it for me. My grandma was once telling me though about how she associated different numbers with certain personalities ("8 is a fat man, very friendly though") which I guess would be Ordinal Linguistic Personification.

 

[Zeph]

I generally have colours for most things. Like, uh, a few examples:

Red: Monday, Square, 2004
Blue-Grey: Thursday, Rectangle, 2008
Orange: Friday, Table, 2006
Purple: Specific sour tastes, 2007
Golden yellow: Sunday
Bright yellow: Indeterminate high-frequency sounds, 2002
Mid-green: Wednesday, 2003

So, yeah. Days, shapes, years (Only recent ones though), tastes, sounds, objects - There's also people, which I won't give examples off, and to an extent graphemes.

I used to think it was ordinary D:

EDIT: Reading back at other's posts, I also definitely have smell -> pitch, word -> onomatopoeic sound, and I do to an extent visualise music.

 

[Elliekat]

I associate colors with the sounds of some words and letters, sometimes based on what they mean ('sunny' is yellow) and sometimes not (so is 'Wednesday' and the letter A.)

Also that one where months and numbers have geographical locations. 2008 is farther away than 2007. (2007 is also yellow, orz)

 

[ultraviolet]

I associate colours with words and numbers, but not always letters. I associate colours with names, too and I find that they tend to change based on the relationship I have with a person of a particular name.

 

[@lex]

What you mean not everyone is synesthetic? o.o

I'm sure we've had a thread like this before, anyway.

Monday: red or black
Tuesday: light blue
Wednesday: yellow
Thursday: brown
Friday: red
Saturday: black or blue
Sunday: light yellow

I also have colors for songs, although way too often they just seem to be the color of the album :<

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

I associate people with colours. My friends Neil and Orla are sky blue and pale blue respectively, my friend David is green, my girlfriend is purple, etc.

Also I "see" music but not as colours, I see them as lines being drawn across a white background. For example, arpeggios are loops.

 

[Elliekat]

I'm wondering about all of you- have you generally always known you perceived stuff that way, or were you like me and read the article and were like, "wait, I think this too"?

I read a book or article about someone with synesthesia one time and was all 'wow it would be kinda cool to have this' and then when I read the article here I was all 'wait... the letter A does sound yellow!'

Also the letter E sounds flat and gray, but an 'e' sound on the end of words (like with a y as in leafy or happy) make it yellow sounding :/

 

[...]

I believe I'm sound -> color. I associate certain ambient sounds (Birds chirping, moving water, driving in the car, footsteps, etc.) with faint colored lines or shapes that grow and/or move around in my mind. For example, footsteps are a small starburst of red and green at the very center of my vision, and I can associate certain people's voices with various other lines or shapes. It's almost like an oscilloscope in my mind. And one of my favorites is rain and thunder. Raindrops hitting the roof are thin horizontal pinstripe lines that slowly move up or down. They get thicker and more jagged if the rain is really heavy.

Oh, and listening to music is amazing. People wonder why I like really dark and moody stuff such as heavy metal and drone doom songs (Such as Sunn O)))) but it's because the heavy guitar and bass look like waves and stuff that has that strange muddy-rainbow look of oil on water. It's really neat, and I love experimenting with guitar feedback and stuff just so I can see it. It's like a visual sound fetish. o_O

 

[ZimD]

i don't think i really have it. i mean i occasionally perceive certain letters and shit as being certain colors but i can't like see sounds or anything. so i don't really have it more than i'm assuming most people do, i don't think that it's overly uncommon to identify numbers or letters with colors on SOME level.

i always wished i could like. visualize music. i feel like it would be cool

 

[nothing to see here]

Hmm... don't think I have anything like this. But...

Taste - > color. Barbecue Sauce and Mountain Dew both taste the same shade of green, and McDonald's chocolate milkshakes are a dull salmon color. Otherwise, nothing particularly notable about it.

...this sounds exactly like my sister. Well, not the specific food/color examples (she says cheese tastes green, ultra-processed fast food tastes black, and something else I can't remember--some kind of vegetable maybe?--tastes yellow), but still.