What forms of synaesthesia do you have?
I have two types! Neither is very strong; both are associatives.The first is grapheme-color synesthesia which basically means that numbers, letters, and words have colors for me. One is cherry red, eight is eggplant purple, and 216 is a watercolor blend of blue, pink, and purple. C is light orange, S is light green, and M is dark red. The word ‘Tuesday’, for example, is dark turquoise, while the word ‘savvy’ is light green shadowed with dark purple. It helps me remember numbers in passcodes, but I often get 3 and 7 confused, since they’re both shades of orange. I don’t literally see the colors (some people do, but not me) but I can feel them instinctively.I also have spatial sequence synesthesia, which means that time and numbers have positions in space. I see the number line as starting out in front of me with the numbers 1–10. It curves past me through the teens and twenties but sidles closer with the thirties and forties. Sixty through one hundred stretch off into space. [example of someone else’s number map here]I also see the calendar year as a wheel. September through November are closest to me, December and January are at the three o’clock position. Late winter and early spring are at the top of the wheel, but it’s tilted away from me now. June and July are at the nine o’clock position. Whenever I think of a date or time passing, I’ll move my hands in order to see where it is on the wheel. Days are also circular for me, with the hours of the day at the right hand side of the circle and the hours of the night at the left hand side of the circle.It’s not anything dramatic; it’s just how I see the world.
Synesthesia?
I have synesthesia. There are many different kinds but mines tends to run to smells. I smell colours. For instance rain smells a very light shade of green but can smell completely different if heavy or light or the list goes on. Days of the week and different seasons have particular smells as do certain memories. I thought everyone had it when i was a kid. But its actually pretty cool and it makes life interesting especially when you tell someone their new hairstyle smells sea aqua blue!
How do I explain my synaesthesia to others?
There is a very easy way to explain this.Ever hear someone make the comment, “That girl looks like a horse”?I know, you’re probably pissing your pants laughing right now. But do notice that the girl in the above photo actually looks nothing like a horse; how could she? Humans and horses are just too dissimilar. And yet, somehow, saying that she has a horse face is just an apt comparison. There’s something there that is horse-like, and you can’t quite put your finger on it. Yeah, yeah, you’re laughing again. When you get done, keep reading.Now, you know how that girl’s face looks like a horse’s face? People make little comparisons like that all the time; a piece of music sounds “bright” or “heavy” to your ears, but music is sound and has no luminosity or weight; you might say that the colors in a room are too “loud” for you, but colors don’t make noise; a cup of coffee may be advertised on the can as having a “dark” aroma, although aromas aren’t literally dark; and so on. These are linguistic conventions, sure, but how do they arise?Anyway, take all of that, and explain that, just as that girl’s face looks weirdly like a horse, you feel that there is something about the number 2 that is weirdly red. The same way that that coffee has weirdly “dark” aroma, the second movement of Beethoven’s 9th is weirdly spiky and green. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to say that February is black or a girl’s perfume smells blue, but it makes no less sense than saying that her face looks like a horse’s face.I’m not a neuroscientist, but I strongly suspect that many of those little comparisons we make every day result from a kind of vestigial synaesthesia; a synaesthete is just someone whose associations hang together a little more loosely.
What is synesthesia?
Synesthesia (also spelled synæsthesia or synaesthesia) - from the Greek syn- meaning union and aesthesis meaning sensation, is a neurological condition in which two or more bodily senses are interconnected. For example, in a form of synaesthesia known as grapheme-color synaesthesia, letters or numbers may be perceived as inherently colored. In other forms of synesthesia, musical and other sounds may be perceived as colored or having particular shapes. While artistic metaphors are commonly described as "synesthetic", true neurological synaesthesia is involuntary and believed to be relatively uncommon, occurring in about four percent of the population across its range of variants (see Simner et al., in press).
What is the effect of synaesthesia in poetry?
To make the poem feel more dreamy and mysterious.
Is it possible to develop synaesthesia?
My idea: you are born with a neurologial condition that makes your brain form intersensory associations easily. (To be honest, I believe most people are born this way but some simply ‘grow out of it’ as they age. Some researchers do think of synaesthesia as an infantile trait.)Later on your brain is exposed to different concepts, like colors, numbers or letters and it makes connections between them, regardless of through which senses it originally picked them up. If the associations prove to be useful in some way - for example for memorizing letters or musical notes quicker, they stick. They can also stay in your head longer if you simply find them entertaining or pleasurable to think about, so you rehearse them involuntarily until they become natural. What makes synaesthesia different from learnt mnemotechnics is that it is an almost completely subconscious process and it is highly personal.Since we learn about abstract concepts later in life, I would say to some extent each form of synaesthesia is acquired. You just need a certain level of cross-wiring in your brain to approach sensory input in this more holistic way.How I perceive it you don’t really have synaesthesia, you are doing it instead.Associative brain —-> involuntary practicing —→ lasting intersensory connectionsNeuro-peeps, what do you think?
Can I have synaesthesia but only when the letters are digital? I see the colours, but when they're on paper, it's more subtle.
You are the only person who can tell if you have synaesthesia, and if so, what sort. No one can contradict you. :)