Synesthesia

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I was just wondering, do any of you experience synesthesia? I just learned about it, I've always been able to see colors when I listen to music (some of them don't even look like "real" colors, if that makes sense). I can also "taste" some words. I didn't know this was a condition, I always thought it was something everybody had. I think it's probably mostly in my head, but then again that's where all of our senses are, so...

Anyone else experience this? And is there any link to this and autism, since autism also has some sensory issues?

check Daniel Tammet, aspie, savant and synesthesia to support his pi-savantism

synesthesia is considered separate as far as i know, it's also quite exceptional in autism, as far as i can judge... but yeah, those sensory issues eh... ;]]

[I'm not autistic, I have some traits, but not particularly in the sensory area.]
I associate letters and numbers with colors. It was stronger when I was a child, nowadays only if I specifically think about it.

I never tell people this anymore since it escalates my position on the weirdness scale, but I found out about synaesthesia a few years ago. I read that it is more common with autistic people because of the different connections in our brains, but it is still quite rare.

I have always associated colours with numbers and letters and also with music, but only when I make it myself. I am terrible with pitch and learning by ear so I guess it has more to do with the action than the sound. Strangely enough the same note is a different colour depending on what instrument I play, but it is consistent in colour on one instrument.

And I'm a diagnosed Aspie. (during my teens, as I'm female and a strict follower of rules it made me slip through the cracks for a while)

I have synesthesia! I can see colors to music. Also, I see colors to a lot of "kindergarten things", like letters, numbers, shapes, ect. However, I also see colors for days of the week and months of the year, so its not just concrete things like shapes.

Also, I think it's interesting that I have synesthesia to sound, because I am also hypersensitive to sound, as in I feel the need to cover my ears to sounds that don't seem too loud to other people. However, I also have hypersensitivity to touch, like I hate tight clothing. I do not, however, have synesthesia to touch.

Yes.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt261787.html

Yes, but the types that I have are probably the least well known kinds of synesthesia.

I have a clear number line in my head that I see when I am doing math or thinking of numbers. I can rotate where I am "standing" in regards to the line so I can look at it from different angles. For example, if I'm working with the number 49, my perspective is positioned so I can't see the part of the line that contains the number 5 because the line twists and curves at different points. I have another line for decimals.

I also have complex visual map of years, decades, centuries, millennia, etc., all the way back (You'd think this would make it easy to remember dates, but I have no such luck Although it does help in remembering the general time in which the event took place because can remember the general area that I saw the date in when I learned about it). I a separate map for the months of the year that is an oval. The direction I'm looking at it changes depending on the current month, so right now I am "standing" at the end of June on the oval. I have another curving linear sort of map for the 24hours of the day that sort of merges with the visual map for the days of the week. When I'm thinking or doing math using minutes I just see the face of a clock. The alphabet has it's own curving and twisting map too. All my maps are in varying shades of white gray and black.

Every number, letter, color, word, and inanimate object, has a distinct gender and personality in my head as well. It drives me crazy when I seen things like the letter "z" written in orange because "z" is male and the color orange is female, or the number 3 written in pink because the personalities of "3" and the color pink are very different and clash with each other although they are both female. But for some reason I'm not bothered by the fact that the words "pink" and "three" both start with male letters meaning that the words are also both male.

I think it makes the world rather interesting and full of life.


Forgot to add. I am diagnosed Aspergers and have Sensory Processing Disorder.

I have grapheme-colour synaesthesia, the kind others have mentioned wherein letters, numbers and words all have their own distinct colours. I also have the "visual map" synesthesia that ImeldaJace has, and can "see" dates, months, years, decades, etc. all in their own spots in my head. Running through a millenium is quite interesting, because the background is a different colour depending on the century. For instance, the 1900's have a black background; the 2000's have a sort of brownish one, and then I lay the dates on top of it, and they all have their own colours too. The 19 in 1900's is grey, but the proceeding numbers each have their own colours; they are not all grey just because the 19 is. For example, 1953 is grey, pink and yellow. I'm glad I wasn't born in 1988 or 1999; they have boring colours; grey and black, and entirely grey respectively. Although my birthday, 1992, is not too exciting either; all grey with a splash of crimson red right at the very end.

Shapes too have colours, for instance, squares and rectangles are both red, triangles are yellow, and circles are orange. It has nothing to do with the words, because although the words "square" and "rectangle" are both red, because S and R are both red letters, "circle" is a pink word because it starts with C, and "triangle" is a white word because it starts with T. Interestingly, pentagons are pink, just like the number 5, hexagons are orange, like the number 6, septagons are are red, as is 7, octagons are black, like 8, and nonagons are grey, like the number 9. It's as if my brain is translating the numbers, and their inherent colours, directly into shapes.

I'm an Aspie, dxed 4yrs ago. About 2 yrs ago I began having symptoms of some strange autoimmune disorder as yet undxed. In the last week or so I noticed that when I stand at a counter with a person behind it, I am unable to stand steadily and my breathing is labored. When I look at a floor while walking, I am very stable. I had to sit on my walker to do business at a counter, and when I stood to leave, I turned between 2 pillars and collapsed on the floor. Another time I was walking down a hall with straight lines on the carpet and felt like I could have dropped my cane and sprinted down the hall.
There is much more to this story, but I want to know if anyone has heard of this phenomenon or has any experience with it.
I have, as a working hypothesis, a tentative DX of "stiff person syndrome", which describes what I am experiencing, but the corresponding videos don't look like me at all. But while I was researching, I came across the story of Desiree Jennings, whose condition looks a lot like mine but her DX doesn't sound like mine.
Can anyone relate?

To continue, re: Desirée Jennings, I can walk backwards normally and run forward relatively normally, but can't stand normally. She has difficulty speaking, which grows increasingly garbled with effort; I have difficulty breathing with continued speaking.

Does this have anything to do with a negative type of synesthesia?

I have some stuff that might be synesthesia.

I have trouble with numbers. Some have said that they see number lines and can move along them. I have always had trouble with number lines because of the space in between the numbers like it was too far to leap between one and two, like you are skipping space and how can there be empty space on a line? I know there isn't, but the way it is taught and presented expects the student to ignore the spaces between so-called "whole" numbers. I have a problem with the "whole number" concept. To me, knowing things are made up of countless molecules, when you are looking at an object, how can you possibly be looking at only one? Aren't you looking at millions of copies of that object all at the same time? I am more comfortable visualizing numbers as being on a grid pattern with the positives spread out all over the "top" and their negative counterparts attached to the "underside" of the grid, opposing each other and holding up the structure of the grid through their polarities and also through pushing out at other numbers on the grid. I think empty space is necessary but can only exist on a grid, not on a line. Like with frozen water, or ice, like the molecules expand away from each other, but no air is between those molecules; it is empty space, or zero, if zero even exists. There are now clear numbers on this grid in my head, just opposing forces.

When I try to picture number order in my head, I get a 3 (green) and a 7 (yellow) and a four bouncing between them. I have trouble with number order. Also with number lines, they tend to put the negatives on the left side of the 0 and positives on the right side of the 0; I tend to perceive the positives as being on the left side of the 0 and think that we are moving towards zero if it really exists, not away from it as a number line purports. I could go on with this but need to draw it; can't explain it in words. I think this misunderstanding or alternate understanding of the representation of numbers is related to my problems with telling left and right. I have trouble keeping directions straight in my head; they flop around. Just writing this out was difficult. I have trouble with simple math, but not with algebra, chemistry, statistics, or pre-calculus. I want to teach myself calculus just for fun, but have other "obsessions" and "drives" going on so the calculus hasn't gotten to me enough yet. I don't have a steady picture in my head when doing math. It's more like trapeezing from one fact to another and it makes no sense to someone else. My husband has a very good grasp of number relations and it makes my gaps in understanding very apparent to me.

Some numbers have colors for me, like the 3 tending to be green and the seven, yellow. The five is reminiscent of red. Other than that numbers are inanimate to me. Sometimes I get mixed up, especially when two similar but mirror-like numbers are together, like with 59. I might read that as 95. The number one is hard to deal with. It is symmetrical, not like other numbers, like it doesn't belong and it stands out in a "crowd" of numbers. 0 is also symmetrical, but it doesn't bother me as much, maybe because it is circular. I have trouble keeping numbers in my head when doing some mental math.

Letters are a different story. Some have personalities, genders, colors, or shape-feels and some are just inanimate. B is blue and blob-like. F sounds feels forced which really it kind of is; you are forcing your lip out and away from your teeth when you say it. The letter J is a dandy sort of fellow with a flat hat and a cane and is like the guy from Mary Poppins. I often wonder if some of this is from watching Sesame Street sometimes as a child. Words have personalities, but more according to their definitions and letter shapes-sounds. But I only notice this in writing, reading, or listening to audiobooks, not in listening to or speaking in conversation. Then I am too busy watching the other person's face and paying attention to their tone of voice and trying to reconcile their face with their tone and picturing what they say so I can keep up with what they are saying and also nodding at the appropriate times so they know I am getting what they are saying. I can't look at their face for very long because I can't picture what they are saying and end up watching their face move without registering much else.

Music has shapes for me. Usually circles or spheres and spiraling images. Some music can disorient me if I am listening to it with ear phones and don't have ambient sounds to "ground" me. There is this one song I know of in particular where the intro makes me feel like I am standing like the inside of my head is moving pendulously while looking at water sloshing back and forth with light flashing off it's surface or like watching the light reflect off water with the reflection of a swaying tree cast over it. It's really horrible. Women singing in a church with good acoustics can feel like a thousand strings lifting me up at my upper back between my shoulders; it sounds painful but it isn't. Just very overwhelming and causes hesitation or a feeling of not being able to go into the room. It is stronger in a large place or a large group of people I am not accustomed to. Men singing is like being held to the ground. This depends on my emotional state. If I can "flatline" myself I can harden myself to these impressions. I tend to either strongly dislike or really like a certain piece of music and I frequently listen to one song on repeat for up to five hours. I get very emotionally caught up in music though. I have to be careful with it because I have no "buffer" against it and it can influence my whole being.

I have had this thing once or twice where listening to my husband's music at dinnertime made my food taste like gasoline or where I couldn't taste my food at all. Maybe it was just the asparagus that had a flavor my body interpreted as gasoline under the influence of irritating music? He doesn't listen to music on repeat; that drives him crazy and his music playlists are annoying to me because it's too much random noise. I tend to characterize tart things as having a "bright pitch" in my mind.

I tend to personify objects, though not nearly as much as ImeldaJace. The introductory chemistry test I had in college was written by personifying the atoms and molecules and it was right up my alley.

I don't know if what I just wrote is true synesthesia as it isn't present always and sometimes changes. My sensory status cycles so maybe that is part of it.

I personally don't think that this is at all related to synesthesia. Synesthesia has to do with how you think, and in a way, how your brain processes or experiences inside information. (I don't know if I'm making much sense.) I don't think that it is possible for synesthesia to have any impact on things such as breathing and walking.

My thanks to the person who pointed out this question on Synesthesia to me!

I believe I have some form of it, even though I associate neither numbers nor letters with colors or personalities. I do, however, associate at least numbers with shapes. I also associate feelings with shapes. (love is quite warm, very soft, and very firm. Kinda shaped like a mattress crossed with a nearly- calm ocean surface, too. Hatred is hot and very sharp- it can easily kill you!)
Anyone else ever experience what I have, here?