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Synesthesia - Show me your numbers & alphabet, you freaks!

Alea_iacta_est

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If you want to see if you are a synesthete and know for sure, this website provides a free battery that determines if you are or not. Fair Warning: You have to register first and the test takes anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour or later.

http://synesthete.org/

My Scores:
Grapheme- Color Picker Test: .51 (below 1.0 is synesthesia)
Weekday Color Picker Test: .38 (below 1.0 is synesthesia)
Month Color Picker Test: .39 (below 1.0 is synesthesia)
VVIQ-2: 3.46 (above 3.0 is heightened visualization)
Projector Associator: -2.16 (negative means internal association and synesthesia, positive means external association and synesthesia, e.g. actually seeing the colors next to the words you are looking at)
 
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So, last night, I was thinking about how I had different color associations to each number and letter, and I remembered something called synesthesia. I posted about it on the random thought thread and found out that I probably have it. I have one of the more common forms, which is grapheme-color synesthesia. This form of synesthesia means that when I think of numbers, letters, or words in my head (I don't see the colors imprinted on the external world though, that's for more prominent cases), I have a color associated with each of them. If you have involuntary associations of colors with numbers, such as when you think of the number 3, you automatically see the figure of 3 in green, then you might have synesthesia. I like to think of the colors as instinctual knowledge.

I thought this thread would be a cool place for some other synesthetes (if any of you are out there) and myself to share what our alphabet, numbers, and other things are associated with.

My alphabet: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

My Numbers: 0 1 (light grey represents white) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

My days of the week (some synesthetes have colors associated with days of the week, I do): Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday (Saturday is actually a much, much darker version than Thursday, this is the only color that comes close to it though) Sunday

Fun Fact: Somewhere between 2.2 to 4.4 percent of the population have some form of synesthesia.

I also have grapheme to colour as well as music to colour.
 

Alea_iacta_est

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I also have grapheme to colour as well as music to colour.

Music to color would be interesting, is it projection or association?

I have a very, very subtle Sound to Color projection that has only happened to me a minuscule amount of times. The most prominent one was when I was staring up at the ceiling trying to go to sleep, and I heard something fall in the other room and I saw three bright light blue twinkles off of the nearest wall (I assume that's the sound waves bouncing off of the wall). The only other times I've only seen really, really faint streaks of colors with certain notes, I have to really concentrate to see it though. Does the Music to Color give you perfect pitch?

I also have Emotion -> Color. If I'm angry, I can literally start seeing red and more hostile-esque colors way more vividly. If I'm feeling energetic/excited, everything has a yellow tinge/sparkle to it, and if I'm depressed, everything seems to have dark gray overtones.
 
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Music to color would be interesting, is it projection or association?

I have a very, very subtle Sound to Color projection that has only happened to me a minuscule amount of times. The most prominent one was when I was staring up at the ceiling trying to go to sleep, and I heard something fall in the other room and I saw three bright light blue twinkles off of the nearest wall (I assume that's the sound waves bouncing off of the wall). The only other times I've only seen really, really faint streaks of colors with certain notes, I have to really concentrate to see it though. Does the Music to Color give you perfect pitch?

I also have Emotion -> Color. If I'm angry, I can literally start seeing red and more hostile-esque colors way more vividly. If I'm feeling energetic/excited, everything has a yellow tinge/sparkle to it, and if I'm depressed, everything seems to have dark gray overtones.

It's Association for me. If I relax when listening to music I can draw out what I'm seeing on paper. It creates a whole landscape with shapes and flurries of colour.

Your Emotion to Colour sound very interesting. Projected synaesthesia is awesome!
 

Alea_iacta_est

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It's Association for me. If I relax when listening to music I can draw out what I'm seeing on paper. It creates a whole landscape with shapes and flurries of colour.

Your Emotion to Colour sound very interesting. Projected synaesthesia is awesome!

I'll trade you Emotion for Music XD. Emotion to color is cool, especially when I feel vengeful (everything becomes tinted very light blue and seems to get colder in color). Shame sucks, everything gets tinted puke green with very faint red streaks flying about my peripherals.

Strangest one: Fear - I don't experience it that often, but when I do, I have the association of the color black in my mind and things get tinted darker and more unsettling. All of my emotion to color is usually very faint, but it's still there.

Have you ever experienced Sound to Sight projection (not even color projection)? It's really fucking scary and I don't get it often. If I am in a state of deep concentration and mental fortitude, then I can see what appears to be static behind everything, and it can overwhelm my vision, but it never completely closes out the visual world. It's almost mesmerizing.

If you don't mind me asking, what does your alphabet look like?
 
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I'll trade you Emotion for Music XD. Emotion to color is cool, especially when I feel vengeful (everything becomes tinted very light blue and seems to get colder in color). Shame sucks, everything gets tinted puke green with very faint red streaks flying about my peripherals.

Strangest one: Fear - I don't experience it that often, but when I do, I have the association of the color black in my mind and things get tinted darker and more unsettling. All of my emotion to color is usually very faint, but it's still there.

Have you ever experienced Sound to Sight projection (not even color projection)? It's really fucking scary and I don't get it often. If I am in a state of deep concentration and mental fortitude, then I can see what appears to be static behind everything, and it can overwhelm my vision, but it never completely closes out the visual world. It's almost mesmerizing.

If you don't mind me asking, what does your alphabet look like?

Oooh... fear sounds cool!

I hear that some hallucinogens can push associated synaethesia into projected.

My alphabet doesn't have too many deviations from yours. A is a bright green, B a reddish maroon, C a greyish-yellow, D a purply-red, E a Bright Pink etc.

The vowels are the brightest... A - Green, E - Pink, I - Yellow, O - Blue and U - Purple

My numbers are interesting, 3 is Yellow and every multiple of 3 is a progressively more orangey-yellow.
 

Alea_iacta_est

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Oooh... fear sounds cool!

I hear that some hallucinogens can push associated synaethesia into projected.

My alphabet doesn't have too many deviations from yours. A is a bright green, B a reddish maroon, C a greyish-yellow, D a purply-red, E a Bright Pink etc.

The vowels are the brightest... A - Green, E - Pink, I - Yellow, O - Blue and U - Purple

My numbers are interesting, 3 is Yellow and every multiple of 3 is a progressively more orangey-yellow.

That sounds like an experiment, I may have to try that one day XD.

My numbers only get darker as they increase, especially numbers that are involved in history, e.g. centuries.

1 is white 10 is grey 100 is dark grey 1,000 is really dark grey and past that is just black
2 is red 20 is a more rich red 200 is blood red and 2,000 is aged red.

It works like that with all the base numbers.

However, my favorite of the numbers is 18, because it is a cross between obsidian purple and burgundy. And whenever I think about the 19th century, I think about the events in that vivid dark, aged purple light in the background.

Fear isn't cool when you are in an already dark place and shit starts to tone down even darker. (subtle, but still notable when there isn't that much light)
 
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That sounds like an experiment, I may have to try that one day XD.

My numbers only get darker as they increase, especially numbers that are involved in history, e.g. centuries.

1 is white 10 is grey 100 is dark grey 1,000 is really dark grey and past that is just black
2 is red 20 is a more rich red 200 is blood red and 2,000 is aged red.


It works like that with all the base numbers.

However, my favorite of the numbers is 18, because it is a cross between obsidian purple and burgundy. And whenever I think about the 19th century, I think about the events in that vivid dark, aged purple light in the background.

Fear isn't cool when you are in an already dark place and shit starts to tone down even darker. (subtle, but still notable when there isn't that much light)

Are the numbers getting darker because they're getting higher or because they're mixing with the 0?

True, could be quite scary actually. It's like if creepy music plays when you feel fear.
 

Alea_iacta_est

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Are the numbers getting darker because they're getting higher or because they're mixing with the 0?

True, could be quite scary actually. It's like if creepy music plays when you feel fear.

I have honestly no idea, but I do know that I don't break word or numbers into different colored parts (excepting typology systems), so I think it's just because they are getting higher.

Yeah, I don't experience fear often anymore. When I was younger, I was much more frightened and even phobic, but now I'm so unafraid that when me and my friends watch horror movies, I'm referred to as "The Stoic" due to my immunity to jump scares and psychological scares.
 

Stanton Moore

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My ex had this. She related colors to numbers.
She also had 'auditory processing disorder' which made classroom lectures difficult.
She is a lefty like me. We were freaks together.
 

Alea_iacta_est

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My ex had this. She related colors to numbers.
She also had 'auditory processing disorder' which made classroom lectures difficult.
She is a lefty like me. We were freaks together.

That's pretty cool. It sucks that Synesthesia can be comorbid (even though it isn't a disorder) with mental deficits

Which reminds me, has every person with Synesthesia been left handed at one point or another?
When I was younger (before like 3rd grade), I was predominantly lefty, but then I just changed for some reason.
 
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I have honestly no idea, but I do know that I don't break word or numbers into different colored parts (excepting typology systems), so I think it's just because they are getting higher.

In my case, larger numbers and words are simply a blurring together of their elements.
 

Stanton Moore

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That's pretty cool. It sucks that Synesthesia can be comorbid (even though it isn't a disorder) with mental deficits

Which reminds me, has every person with Synesthesia been left handed at one point or another?
When I was younger (before like 3rd grade), I was predominantly lefty, but then I just changed for some reason.

Yeah, I think it seems to be associated with other anomalies. I'm not a synesthete myself, but I have auto-immune issues instead. The brain is so strange.
 

Mole

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We have a number of senses not just the visual sense.

We have the proprioceptive sense - our sense of balance and movement, our muscular sense.

We have the haptic sense - our sense of touch.

We have the olfactory sense - our sense of smell.

We have the auditory sense - our sense of hearing.

So synesthesia can involve all these senses interacting.

We first started to discover this with psychedelia.
 
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Alea_iacta_est

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We have a number of senses not just the visual sense.

We have the proprioceptive sense - our sense of balance and movement, our muscular sense.

We have the tactile sense - our sense of touch.

We have the olfactory sense - our sense of smell.

We have the auditory sense - our sense of hearing.

So synesthesia can involve all these senses interacting.

We first started to discover this with psychedelia.

Everybody's synesthesia is related to sight and vision only on this thread as mentioned thus far though. I'm sure there are some people with Smell -> Taste and Taste -> Touch (I might even have the latter of that, more research required). I've never used any psychedelics, it's been with me for as long as I can remember.

Some of the more synesthete people actually do experience 3 or more senses mixing at the same time, but it is extremely rare.
 

Chad of the OttomanEmpire

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I have synesthesia. I do the alphabet and words thing, as well as music. Music has definite color and I can "see" the structure of the notes.

It's caused me embarrassment, actually. When in the 4th grade, my teacher asked the first thing that popped into our minds when he said "lunch", I had to tolerate gales of laughter when I said "Yellow"--cause the word lunch is yellow in my mind. What was I supposed to say?

Now that I've learned to censor my own weird, I consider it a gift. I find it kind of weirder, actually, that others don't have these associations to enrich their lives.
 

Alea_iacta_est

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I have synesthesia. I do the alphabet and words thing, as well as music. Music has definite color and I can "see" the structure of the notes.

It's caused me embarrassment, actually. When in the 4th grade, my teacher asked the first thing that popped into our minds when he said "lunch", I had to tolerate gales of laughter when I said "Yellow"--cause the word lunch is yellow in my mind. What was I supposed to say?

Now that I've learned to censor my own weird, I consider it a gift. I find it kind of weirder, actually, that others don't have these associations to enrich their lives.

Yep, that's happened to me before, but it was before I knew anything about synesthesia. I got a lot of shit one time when me and my childhood friends were talking about the first color that comes to mind when thinking about emotions. They talked about how they saw happiness as yellow and bright and they were utterly shocked when I said that happiness was red to me. I was actually disgusted with how they could think of yellow as happiness because I had associated yellow with sadness (due to the s). I then proceeded to tell them how anger was green and that fear was black, which they still argued with.
 

Chad of the OttomanEmpire

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Yep, that's happened to me before, but it was before I knew anything about synesthesia. I got a lot of shit one time when me and my childhood friends were talking about the first color that comes to mind when thinking about emotions. They talked about how they saw happiness as yellow and bright and they were utterly shocked when I said that happiness was red to me. I was actually disgusted with how they could think of yellow as happiness because I had associated yellow with sadness (due to the s). I then proceeded to tell them how anger was green and that fear was black, which they still argued with.
It's completely different from the cultural conception!

I don't seem to have synesthesia with emotions--the word has it, so the word sadness is kind of a sulfur color, but I'd still associate the concept with being "blue" I suppose. What a hoot!
 
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