Can I enhance my synesthesia?
I very much believe that I have "mild" synesthesia. Ever since I was little, my favorite number has always been 9. Not because it's lucky, but because it's pink and seemed very girly. Also, the number 8 was always one of my least favorites because it is a mustard yellow, a color I don't like. Similarly, the number 1 is blue and very masculine. So is the number 10, but that just might be because it has a 1 in it. The number 7 is a light lilac purple color, and is sort of shy, and so on with other numbers (mainly just 1-10). To be honest, I didn't know what synesthesia was until I read the book "A Mango Shaped Space" (my favorite book). Before that, it just never occurred to me that it was important, really, that some numbers have colors (and sometimes even personalities!). As I am writing this, I realize the signs of synesthesia are larger than I thought. I am also left-handed, as I have read most synesthetes are. My colors never jumped out in front of me, but were more like background information that has just always been accepted in my brain. At first after reading "A Mango-Shaped Space," I assumed that I didn't have it because letters never really had colors for me, but now I think differently. I really wish that synesthesia was a more prominent part of my life. The main question that I am getting at here is, is there anyway that I can SAFELY (without drugs or surgery) make my synesthesia stronger? In the book the main character gets acupuncture done which allows her to see "auras" (I think) but I don't know if acupuncture would do anything for me because colors don't jump out at me. Any information or advice that you have is extremely helpful, especially if you have synesthesia. Please let me know if you think that what I have actually is synesthesia and if so, how I could make is bigger. Thank you!
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.
Why do people with Synesthesia see the colour of letters similarly?
Simner et al. (2005) suggested that it was related to how common the letters/colours were, and how early we learn them. Letters which are featured more commonly in the English language (e.g. e, t, a, compared to q, x) tend to be paired with the colour terms that we learn earliest (e.g. black, white, red, compared to pink, purple). It may be the case that innate factors within synaesthetes' brains (e.g. more connections between these areas) acquire these associations on somewhat of a "first come first serve" basis, or that particular colours and letters are reinforced more because of how commonly we experience them. There is one paper that suggests that the associations in one synaesthete can be traced to fridge magnets he had as a child, with his pairings matching the colour of the letters (Wittfhoft & Winawer, 2006), though to my knowledge know general trend in colours of letters has been identified that would explain all synaesthetes' associations.