Synesthesia Is So Cool

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Synesthesia is so cool. It is so much better than the best metaphors that any poet can contrive.

I just walked out of the supermarket in an already good mood. When I looked up in the sky, I saw a dissolving jet contrail slicing across 3/4 of the sky and it immediately sent a whooshing sound and feeling through my entire body, if only for just a moment.

How much better can today get? It must be Springtime.

I concur, I enjoy my synesthetic experiences. What kind do you have? Mine is just grapheme-colour, but I like the coloured codes I can make out of it; no one else can break them because my colours are unique to me

I only occasionally have them but mine are usually vision translated to sound, such as the one today. I don't remember it ever being crossed to a touch like sensation in the past like the one today was though. At times I also get a translation of sounds into behavioral characteristics of people, for example one song that always brings to mind the memory of an Aspie I knew a few years ago because it matched his walking pace so well. In more rare cases, I can get a translation of motion into an almost cartoon like form of motion such as seeing cars hopping down the road in my mind like a rabbit.

When I was first awakening to my autism a few years ago and first learned of synesthesia, something immediately came to mind from the days when I was about 4 years old. The house where I lived fronted on US Hwy 441 as it entered my hometown. I remember standing outside at night looking at cars passing down the road and seeing several things: 1) first I saw the spiderweb-like patterns of the headlights in front of them, 2) I noticed this rabbit like jumping motion mentioned above and 3) aside from the tire noise on the pavement, I also noticed this same whooshing sound that I experienced today with motion getting translated into sound. Prior to learning about synesthesia, I always did believe that this was only a fluke of nature of some sort or some sort of sound that the cars actually made as they pushed the air apart in front of them.

I don't get any of the more common translations to colors that you describe (I wish I did), but reading your reply brought another thought to mind. Its a bit surprising that the military has not found a use for those color translations as a cipher of some sort in a manner similar to what was done by the Code Whisperers during WWII.

BTW, I have probably told you this before, but Seven of Nine is my absolute favorite Star Trek (any TV for that matter) character of all time. I am about due for another end to end viewing of the entire Voyager series again soon... I'm currently on a TNG run with only 7 or 8 episodes left before that one is complete... maybe I will do TOS next, then Voyager. I used to do the real Star Trek, working in the space program for 18 years.

After thinking about this for a while last night, I think I can give a more precise description. While the motion that I perceive is not smooth, it is not really like a rabbit hopping up and down because it occurs in only one dimension, the forward axis of movement, rather than in two dimensions like the hopping motion of a rabbit. It is more like the motion of a squid as it squooshes water out to propel itself forward. The squid does not move forward at a constant velocity, but instead moves in bursts of motion. What I perceive is almost like the cars are moving forward at a constant velocity (which in reality is the truth), but my perception of the cars lags behind their actual position and also catches up in bursts. This probably makes a lot of sense because Aspergers does indeed include cognitive delays (which I personally believe to be more at the root of autism than anything else). So it would be quite possible for an object to be in continual motion but for our cognition of that object to lag behind at times. As a child, this had an almost dreamlike quality to it that I occasionally still perceive.

I don't think I really have synesthesia, but earlier today I was listening to music and almost ducked at one part because it seemed like it was going to hit me. Pretty amusing. It seems like it would be fun to have synesthesia.

That sounds pretty cool. I'm not sure if I get the vision to sound. Usually it's the other way around.

I've got my own colour coded language too.

I think the most exciting ones are smelling aromas of food when I think about them. And it just happened. Cappuccino. Hmm...

Reminds me of one of my hypoglycemic crashes.

I don't know if it's synesthesia, I don't usually say it is but I will be in the regular CBD of Sydney and see it as a more futuristic version. Cars will hover and jet off. People are moving on conveyor belts. The buildings have spires and there's a curveyness to them. There's always a dome structure somewhere. Everything is sort of shimmering. Sometimes I imagine I'm in a more war-like situation too. I say imagiane but it's more automatic.

One day I was walking home from the shops and I saw a T-Rex plowing through the traffic. Probably just an overactive imagination.

She's my favourite too; if she were entirely human, she'd be the most aspie character I've ever seen on TV I'm in the middle of rewatching Voyager, but I started at season four because I just don't enjoy the episodes without Seven in them as much. TNG is my second-favourite series; I'm almost as fond of Data as I am of Seven, I just wish he were able to express emotion throughout the series instead of just after his emotion-chip implant in Generations. Working in the space program sounds very exciting; if starships existed, I'd be first in line to join Starfleet academy!

That would be fantastic, wish I could have seen it!

Prime and weird numbers evoke weird combinations of off colors, like lime-green and pink - that's 89. Basic numbers are red (3), green (6), blue (4), and blood red (9). Oddly enough, some numbers, like 2, 5 and 7, don't evoke colors, but they have personalities. When I hear music there is a mist or feel of colors in my mind - very hard to describe. But what I have is very mild, especially since I have little capacity to form pictures in my mind. Numbers still look the same as the color in which they are printed.

There is a relationship between the colour of numbers and letters shaped similar for me.

I get the mists too. It's not very strong but eat note is coloured and I usually see a wave of all the notes blended together.

I get a little bit of synthaneasia. I'm assuming it's synthaneasia.

The only reliable time I get it is when I'm playing the drums and I'm letting my sound awareness expand to listen to the bass player, the vocalist and the other instruments all simultaniously, while I'm playing the drums in to the tune. I get to "see" the music as a 3 dimentional bump map showing the entire layout of the song as a reliefe map.

To describe it in more detail; There is only one colour, dark brown. The music flows from right to left. The drum beats that I can see in the tune are large squarish bumps kinda 2/3rds below the horizon. The bass drum are large and the highest relief objects. Other drums are scatterings of smaller bumps. These are the notes and timing that I've got to play. I can see the beat I need to follow.
I see the bass guitar as a smudged and wiggly textire above the horizon. The other guitars are more spread out and above the bass, like a scattered smear of texture. The cymbols are splatter like impressions just above the drums. I don't recall ever seeing the vocals, but I do need to concentrate on them, as they set the playing style of the drums.

I get another variety less frequently.
If I'm lying on the couch completely relaxed listening to music. It'll get the impression of a fantasticly coloured carpet slowly scrolling past my vision. It is so visualy fantastic that it often wakes my mind, making it disapear.

You might have guessed, I'm a very visual person. My dreams are something to behold

My favourite in Voyager is Tom Paris. Says a lot about me. He's like a Ken doll. I don't normally go for the Ken doll types too. And Q was a lot of fun.

I think I enjoy Deep Space 9 better but I did cry after the last Voyager episode. You can say I got a bit involved in that show.