Synesthesia

[Simplexity]

I read through your posts and it sounded like some weird foreign translation.

Colors are colors. I don't even know if I could name a bunch. Same for every other thing you mentioned. I separate objects and texture and sounds and tastes and everything. This craziness that you do is very confusing.

So much so that I fear reading it over again will make my head explode.

 

[kyuuei]

I read through your posts and it sounded like some weird foreign translation.

Colors are colors. I don't even know if I could name a bunch. Same for every other thing you mentioned. I separate objects and texture and sounds and tastes and everything. This craziness that you do is very confusing.

So much so that I fear reading it over again will make my head explode.

You're a maroon to me, btw. And your writing makes me think you'd taste more of a fried onion.. To some, sweet and enjoyable, and to others absolutely untouchable before they ever indulge in fear of the raw onion itself.

 

[Simplexity]

Hmmm. It's nice to know that you think about tasting me...

 

[kyuuei]

Hmmm. It's nice to know that you think about tasting me...

!! :rolli: Well, now you know. And knowing's half the battle!

 

[nightning]

Not me... although to be able to experience other senses as color sounds really cool. I've seen a show on TV describing synesthesia. The two ladies describing their music listening experience looked so blissful.

*is jealous*

 

[Simplexity]

Well your writing smells like lavender to me. Effusive yet calming.

I would come up with something better but I don't have Synesthesia. My brains too normal :sad:

Did we already establish that a lot of artists have this "condition"

I'm jealous I wish I had something that I could play off as extraordinary (superpowers).

I associate work with a slow draining and debilitating life threatening condition. Conflict with smoke, sleep with warmth, red with sirens. Metal with licorice.

 

[Cimarron]

I don't know what's going on in this thread. It made me remember other weird things I do, but they definitely aren't synesthesia...which just leaves me being weird.

I can kind of identify music with color though...maybe. More with pictures and scenes in my mind, but I can translate the music to a color sometimes.

 

[Simplexity]

I don't know what's going on in this thread. It made me remember other weird things I do, but they definitely aren't synesthesia...which just leaves me being weird.

I can kind of identify music with color though...maybe. More with pictures and scenes in my mind, but I can translate the music to a color sometimes.

Same. My brain just kind of died after reading a couple of posts.

 

[bluebell]

I have multiple forms of it, although the intensity can vary a bit. The following trigger colours/shapes/textures:

Numbers and letters
Physical sensations, like pain
Music
Sounds/noises
Emotions
Some smells

Plus I have perfect pitch (which has faded a bit with age) - a lot of people who have perfect pitch also have synesthesia.

Syn is useful for me and I'd probably be lost without it. One example is that I can scan long lists of names or numbers and the one I'm looking for will jump out at me because of its colour. I also recognise singers' voices by the colour/texture of their voice.

 

[Simplexity]

I saw that show on the savant as well. I hate those things, it's like watching X-men for me. I sit there imagining how crazy and bad ass I would be if I had that stuff and maybe even dream about it. Then I wake up and realize, nope, I'm still surprisingly average and normal. It gives me new daydream material though.

I should make a special on that. The incredible daydreaming boy, I could just make up whatevers on my mind and say I could do it. Then hide behind my mind and say you just don't have the same perceptive abilities as me and you will never know what its like.

 

[Tallulah]

I used to have the form where numbers had colors when I was a kid. I still have number form synesthesia, where I picture numbers in a certain formation that never changes.

 

[white]

You're a maroon to me, btw. And your writing makes me think you'd taste more of a fried onion.. To some, sweet and enjoyable, and to others absolutely untouchable before they ever indulge in fear of the raw onion itself.

There're a couple of threads on INTPc with this in greater detail. I'm not able to find the link to a "noisy" picture right now, maybe Anon can link it?.

I don't see colours per se when I see people, it is more the perception of colour, even from online posts from strangers I've never met. Some people shimmer too.

It is linked to a feel/intuition of a person as well. I can be physically repulsed (e.g. nausea) by someone even if I do not know them at all.

It creates a dissonance sometimes, when a person looks "ok" to the logical mind, but the colours/feel is just weird. Not sure how to describe it.

Edit: Question: Do different coloured M&Ms taste different to you, if you do not look at them before eating? I get confused sometimes when I'm not certain if the colours exist for real or only in my mind, especially when they are things with real colour.

 

[penelope]

I have a little of it and didn't even know it for years until I read about it. I thought that was how everyone experienced things.

Its really silly and kind of fun.

The oddest is smell/sight related.

My cousin is a concert pianist and once when I saw his lips moving when he was playing I asked him what was going on and he shamefacedly admitted to me that he was talking to various notes which stood out and had distinct personalities to him. He is also INFP.

I've noticed this often when musicians are performing and wonder how many of them are experiencing some sort of synaesthesia.

That's soooo interesting. I haven't yet met any musicians that have synesthesia (they've all been artists), but I experience music-color in a really interesting way.

It's the strongest when I'm at a live concert, and if it's classical music (varying in pitch, tone, etc)... Not only do I "see" the colors, and they move and form shapes with what I'm hearing, but it affects my entire body as well. If my eyes are closed long enough, my fingers and feet will react, and crescendos are unbearable they affect me so strongly. I've been known to twitch from this and it freaked my parents out when I went to enjoy "Scheharazade" a few months ago. But it's the most amazing experience. "Scheharazade" was also the music beautiful music I'd ever seen and experienced.

I have multiple forms of it, although the intensity can vary a bit. The following trigger colours/shapes/textures:

Numbers and letters
Physical sensations, like pain
Music
Sounds/noises
Emotions
Some smells

Plus I have perfect pitch (which has faded a bit with age) - a lot of people who have perfect pitch also have synesthesia.

Syn is useful for me and I'd probably be lost without it. One example is that I can scan long lists of names or numbers and the one I'm looking for will jump out at me because of its colour. I also recognise singers' voices by the colour/texture of their voice.

I've got perfect pitch as well! I don't know if it has anything to do with my music/color connection though.

 

[Amargith]

I'd have to say I see colours in just about anything, and get emotions off of just about anything as well (not sure if that's part of synesthesia). I only recently found out that this is not true for everyone.

 

[Willfrey]

I saw a documentary on this. Fascinating were the very rare cases, where a man linked spoken words to different tastes. As he thought about things he'd get specific tastes in his mouth. It only worked with words/tastes he'd experienced when young.

Also there was a blind man who would see color in words, or the people who could envision rows of numbers in everything they did, which basically was like a calculator GUI in their heads that never left them.

The most interesting one was the fellow who linked numbers to certain shapes, and was nothing short of a mathematical genius. He is the record holder for 'memorizing' (more like calculating on the fly) the most digits of Pi.

 

[Kora]

Possibly related to Ni?
Anyway... I don't have any kind of synesthesia. I'd like to, though. Must be cool.

 

[bluebell]

I've got perfect pitch as well! I don't know if it has anything to do with my music/color connection though.

Years ago, I lurked on an email list for syns. Perfect pitch is fairly rare in the general population but there was quite a high number of people with perfect pitch on the mailing list. I think (but I'm not entirely sure) I read in a research paper somewhere that that correlation exists. ie that if you have perfect pitch, you're also quite likely to be a syn.

Possibly related to Ni?

*shrug* I wouldn't have thought that it's correlated to any one particular function but I could be wrong.

 

[kyuuei]

There're a couple of threads on INTPc with this in greater detail. I'm not able to find the link to a "noisy" picture right now, maybe Anon can link it?.

I don't see colours per se when I see people, it is more the perception of colour, even from online posts from strangers I've never met. Some people shimmer too.

It is linked to a feel/intuition of a person as well. I can be physically repulsed (e.g. nausea) by someone even if I do not know them at all.

It creates a dissonance sometimes, when a person looks "ok" to the logical mind, but the colours/feel is just weird. Not sure how to describe it.

Edit: Question: Do different coloured M&Ms taste different to you, if you do not look at them before eating? I get confused sometimes when I'm not certain if the colours exist for real or only in my mind, especially when they are things with real colour.

Right. Like, for example, I told Aimahn he's maroon to me.. It's not like when I read his text I see maroon in my eyes. It's my third eye that sees the colors. Shimmering is often with me, I see it in children a lot, and I shimmer to myself.

Also, that aura of instinct seems common as well. I am a bit naive when it comes to people, but every so often something strikes me as "this person's definitely.. off. or wrong somehow." and I never quite put my finger on it until their actions speak for me. Telling people that usually gets me crazy looks, since it's something difficult to explain.

And unfortunately, the only M&Ms that taste different are the peanut butter ones in the reese's pieces. Seeing the color itself would put a different taste in my mouth, but the M&M's flavor does not change.

Possibly related to Ni?
Anyway... I don't have any kind of synesthesia. I'd like to, though. Must be cool.

Lol. I don't think it's so much cool as unusually pointless. I can't think of any good/useful things coming from being able to smell nutmeg from seeing sheer curtains.. or tasting something when I smell it or see it. Colors for people are rarely useful aside idle conversation. If I didn't have it, I don't think I'd mind one bit. It'd allieviate a lot of "corrections" in my speech. I would never have to hear "..Something cant be LOUD, it's not making noise." or my eyes hurting from neon colors (I literally can't stand to see highlighter yellow because it's too loud for me.) or even worse "It's blue.. flavored? " the whole thing can get quite annoying/embarrassing. At least now I know it's a condition, and not me just being crazy. There's some comfort in that.

 

[sade]

Sight - Touch (example: looking at a TV... I can feel the TV in its shape, weight, static, etc. But this happens very rarely)

I didn't know that was synethesia too. I get it also.

But besides that I have a emotion - color and numbers and letters - to color correlation. Numbers being the strongest and some letters also. E is green for me, and e is grass green. Kinda like 3.
The funny thing is that I thought for a really long time that everyone had it, and didn't realise they didn't. The moment I realised came when I tried discussing with my mom why e and 3 are such a similar color, but E is darker. She had a funny reaction.

 

[Airius]

I think an interesting form of synesthesia is when people visually see letters as colors, not just in their heads.