Logan -- Cauliflower
Kendall -- Almond Joys??? But also Ginger Ale??? weird combo
Shiv -- Banana Yogurt
Roman -- Mozzarella
Connor -- Churros
Edit: I’m sorry if I miss your question, this post is getting a lot more attention than I expected and I don’t have a lot of time to reply to everyone :)
Whenever I want to describe a scene in detail ("the sky is blue" or "the piano music sounds lovely") I don't know how normal people associate descriptions without using other senses to compare.
I'm trying to write normal characters (who probably aren't synesthetes), but when I describe the environment they're in, it just feels plain wrong to discuss the sky without explaining that the colour of the sky reminds me of the smell of wood varnish and a floral sort of peppermint. And odd/prime numbers are a bright, electric yellow or some other vibrant neon colour that contrasts against a darkened, dystopian scenery.
Yes, yes, it's cool that I'm "imaginative" or whatever, but I've noticed that almost no other authors write imagery the way I do because they obviously have a normal amount of sensory ability, whilst I get overloaded sometimes. When I hear a light piano melody I see the movement of a ballerina's tap-tapping toes on rich flooring and I think of pinks and greens. When I hear someone say "ballet" there's a bit of red and green coming to mind, then which I associate with white and flying.
I don't want to confuse my readers with my wonky descriptions of imagery (born from what I associate senses with). How do I write without relying on synesthesia-related imagery?
Edit- I need to sleep but will absolutely continue to answer when I wake up. Thank you so much for all the questions, I'm really enjoying exploring the synesthesia further!
Edit 2- I'm closing this to questions for now because I need time to catch up. Thanks!
Inspired by this post, I love games so I thought I'd do this!
I have multiple forms of synesthesia, and all are colour-related. So, give me an idol or your bias (give me as many as you want!) and I'll tell you what colour I see!
Edit: y'all are INSANE I'm fighting for my life in these comments but I love it. I still have some left to do, but feel free to comment more - I'll finish them all tomorrow!! And thank you for all the interest in learning more about synesthesia!
If you don't already know, synesthesia is when a stimulus intended for one sensory pathway actually ends up involuntarily triggering two senses at once - and the second sense usually has nothing to do with the first. In other words, two of your senses are set off equally at the same time by one thing - so for example, when I read letters, numbers, or music notes, or even meet new people for the first time, I also see very specific colours and/or textures. Imagine if you turned on a light in your room, but every time you did, your speaker would also automatically play the same song. Every. Time.
It's been like this since I learned how to read or speak, I can't explain why I see or associate what I do - but if you want explanations, I can try! And if you have any q's about synesthesia or the types I have, I'd be more than open to answering them :)
Let's do this!
In my minds eye, numbers and letters are all different colors (1 = black, 2 = hot pink, a = cream, etc) while instruments and songs are colored shapes (cymbals are yellow confetti-like dots, Stairway to Heaven is a smokey, wavy periwinkle, Rhinestone Eyes is a pixilated black and deep green, etc)
I was wondering if it's possible to have both, and if anyone would be able to help me with the names for these it would be much appreciated. I've been all over the Wikipedia articles but I can't make sense of them. Thank you!
Hello there! I am an ADHD Coach and I recently came to learn that one of my clients has synesthesia. He has come a long way, but struggles with sensory overload. He feels the way his synesthesia manifests and interacts with his ADHD especially difficult.
I am very curious to know if this is common. I wondered if anyone else here experiences both ADHD and synesthesia. If so, I would deeply appreciate hearing about your experience.
i am so excited that there is name for something i experience! ever since i can remember, every word i say and sometimes hear has a very distinct taste/texture in my mouth and in parts of my tongue. i avoid saying certain words because of the overwhelming taste or texture that they produce. i didn’t realize that lexical-gustatory synesthesia is so rare, and as a kid i thought everyone else could taste what they said too. i’m just really excited to know i’m not crazy!
for as long as i can remember, i didnt know that i had this special condition and the day i found out about it i felt alone. i couldn’t really tell anyone about it and even if i did i couldn’t talk about it without feeling like they were judging me or calling me crazy in their heads. i remember this one time i said “this person’s voice is orange!” and my friend replied with “what are you talking about?” i didnt think much of it at first, just thought maybe they disagreed with what i saw, but after finding out about synesthesia, i realized that that person must’ve thought i was on drugs or something. even til now i still feel a bit scared talking about my synesthesia because there might be people calling me a fake and such. but then i found this community on reddit and i feel less lonely, i feel at home when i go here :) still wish i had friends who could understand what its like having synesthesia tho lol
My friends keep telling me that I have synesthesia. My understanding of synesthesia before I found this sub was that the sensible properties of an object are common to every sense. That's how I explained myself the hearing colours and so on. I thought I didn't have it because it wasn't like that for me.
I thought that I was just very visual and aware of my perceptions. And in order to make things easier for me I access the content of the perception (a.k.a. the object) to change it into a visual reference. Also every perception I had was kind of meta so I was aware of myself perceiving the perception.
I was a mind over body kind of person. The colours and visuals that I was getting out of the perceptions were somewhat faded. After i try to be more engaged with my body the visuals/colours have been more vivid.
Yesterday I had the ultimate experience, I was taking a shower and the visuals/colours were really strong. But also the colours triggered some sounds that gave me like an ASMR sensation of the water going through my skin and hydratating my hair. Tbh it felt like I was on acid.
I'm really new to this topic but is it possible to develop it more? Also I have to say the perception is internal but it's activated by the object. Maybe this isn't even synesthesia, lol.
P.S. I found this topic really interesting and I would love to related to mental states and theory of perception. But I can't get to understand the very basics. I would be really grateful if someone has a good intro recommendation. Thanks in advance
Tomorrow I’ll be meeting a synesthesia researcher, and I wanted to take this opportunity to ask some of your questions! Just write them here, and maybe I’ll find answers soon :]
One of my favorite perfumers, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, describes herself as a synesthete and the inspiration for her scents often comes from specific color palettes/artwork. Supposedly this affects 2-4% of the population, but I have a feeling it may be more common than not on this sub. Does anyone else have that innate connection between scents and colors/sounds/textures/etc?
For example, Richard Feynmann had color synesthesia for numbers. Did seeing numbers as colors help him in any way to solve equations? How would that work?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but so much of synesthesia, especially for associates, is just about what you see/feel/perceive in your minds eye. How do you know it's synesthesia and not just a personality quirk?
Side thought - how many different types do most synesthetes have? (How many do you personally have?)
Also, I keep reading that associations never change - have you found this to be true? For ex, is C the same color/sound/etc it was when you were 5 even though you're now 20/30/40/etc? If you had a traumatic or life changing thing happen to you, did these change? Or even change over the course of just growing up?
Finally, is it possible to repress synesthesia? Whether through your own thoughts or through medication? Story time - my thought from this stemmed from a personal experience - when I was little, I told my parents that numbers and addition/subtraction were super easy because the numbers had personalities and I kind of 'saw' them going through the various problems and didn't even have to think about it. My parents very much disapproved. I was told this was a horrible crutch and I needed to get rid of it, so I spent forever just trying to rote memorize math and have hated it ever since (yay for going into the arts, ha). Everything in my early life was just about how to please my parents, so I didn't question anything and just did it (Let's not delve into the problems there..). To this day I still get feelings for numbers, but it's coated in a layer of shame so I just ignore as best I can. So was this just the overactive imagination of a kid and sense memory or something else? Thanks y'all!
I have concept-shape synesthesia and a friend asked me today if that manifests as dyslexia “because I see my words in 3D space”. The conversation got me thinking and so now I wanted to pose the question to all of you!
I was in 4th grade when I read the book “A Mango Shaped Space” by Wendy Mass. The way she depicted synesthesia (projective) was pretty over-dramatized/pretty incorrect, but correct enough to realize that she was describing how my own mind worked. Excitedly, I made some of my friends read it and they all did not relate, at all. One of my sillier friends tried to convince me that she had it in 5th grade, but it was very apparent that she was lying and just trying to trick me. She eventually admitted as much, and I mostly kept quiet about it afterwards except around very close family/friends, i’d off-handedly reference it once in a while. By middle-school, I had thoroughly researched it & realized that I had 3 different types, (grapheme, chromesthesia, & number form), all associative. I took the online test for fun as a teen & scored higher than 99% for the uniformity of my associations. What is your story?!?
I’ve had synesthesia my whole life. I didn’t realize until recently that not everyone sees the number 7 as yellow. However, I noticed that my colors have been fading and blurring lately. I felt sad not being able to clearly see my once vibrant colors for seemingly no reason. I still feel sad, but I think I figured out why. I have tinnitus and it’s gotten much louder recently. I have to use special tinnitus-blocking sounds just to not go crazy from the ringing. The sound of the constant ringing has muddied my synesthesia. It’s like trying to watch TV through static.
Has anyone else experienced this?
I was just playing with it and the lights mimicking the sound reminded me of synesthesia, and Ye has synesthesia. Idk I think it's possible. Has he said anything about it
I’ve had this sensitivity to many things scratching on cardboard, feeling of fleece in clothing and blankets, paper rubbing on carpet, rubbing on styrofoam. It’s very uncomfortable feeling and sends shivers through out my body. does anyone know what this is?
Every letter and number has color to me. And words are colored by the most "dominant" letter. For example the word "banana" is (ironically) one of the most yellow words to me, because A is a yellow letter and it dominates the b's and n's. Anyway. What I'm trying to say that I have a whole system that I was just born with I guess. But I don't taste or see anything. And the only thing I smell is the color gray. I really don't know much about synesthesia, but I think this might be it? Give me your opinions. Thanks
Hey y'all, looking to clean up some of my excess dirt. All pedals are in Excellent condition, and all have boxes except the MXR.
If you want to purchase, I'll SMASH any of the current prices on reverb.
I'll be picky but happy to entertain offers!!
Edit: Sunset and feT sold!
I do, and I was quite questioning myself if I was even an ENTP, INTP OR ESTP. At the end of the journery I just accepted myself as an ENTP with a strong SE absourdly developed and a SI grip due to the fact that I am synestetic even if I process these information through my NE
Any further help that maybe can make me think again about it is accepted
I’ve only met one person who had it, but still… is the prevalence really that low? Idk if anyone relates to this but - I truly cannot imagine NOT having it! Like… do 96% of people really live like that? I imagine it like being color-blind; like just lacking some fundamental sense that others have. It’s hard to imagine at all. Do you know anyone with synesthesia personally?
YES IT'S FUCKING SYNESTHESIA; YOU'RE SPECIAL, HUZZAH
I know these questions are welcome according to the rules in the sidebar, but it's all this subreddit is. Is there any actual discussion to be had here? Can we just all acknowledge that YES, if you see sounds, or hear colors, you deserve to be here? It's not like there is some kind of council who will determine your synesthesia and pronounce judgement.
I hardly doubt you don't know who I mean, but I mean Fry from Futurama. In one Episode he called out something has smelled blue and I was just watching the episode where he saves the universe from the brains. After Nibbler erased his memory he asked if everything just tasted purple.
I think they just added it as a joke to point out his dumbness, but even if so, it is interesting as Synesthesia seems to be underepresentated in media. I only can think of Sheldon Cooper having some number thing, where he can taste prime numbers.
Does anyone else have a main colour for words or numbers that they see, or is it more of an even spread of colours? For example, a lot of words I see are a nice shade of green, and then everything else is a variety of colours. But, music for me is always a variety of colours, never has a primary colour (except for the combination with the lyrics haha).
Just interested in what other people experience 😃
I know it’s more common to have multiple types of synesthesia rather than one, but my information could be completely wrong. I haven’t been able to find much about it on the internet, and I wanted to confirm on whether or not it’s normal to have multiple types.
I am not certain about what type of synesthesia do I have (maybe fivefold). First, I constantly have normal synesthesia symptoms, like I can see music as vibrations of lines and colours in my head, and I see letters and numbers in colour, etc... But that's not everything. I also have the feeling that I am constantly maintaining mental walls between my sensations, to keep them from mixing up and ending losing control. But sometimes, I just let go, and when I do, it is really odd. It is like every single thing around me creates a kind of fluctuation inside of me, it is not just an emotion, nor just a sight nor just a taste nor just a physical feeling, nor anything you can feel normally. It is like everything just mixes up in a soup, and I start to feel like I'm in a roller coaster of sensations. I start to have waves of chills, and I can see the inside of my mind getting kind of blurry, and very unstable, changing shape with every single information coming through. But at the same time, it feels kind of nice, because I'm letting go all the stress from maintaining those mental barriers I told about earlier. What I feel, is a bit like the mental walls are like fingers pinching down the string of a guitar, to make separate sections. And when I let go, the string can finally vibrate and create a complete sound. It is very difficult to describe, so I might not have used the best words. Can someone relate to this, and if yes, do you know what type of synesthesia is this?
I wish I couldn't hear the things Red says at night.
I see colors and feel emotions
