Synaesthetes!
StarTrekker
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Joined: 22 Apr 2012
Age: 32
Gender: Female
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Location: Starship Voyager, somewhere in the Delta quadrant
I have grapheme-colour synaesthesia: my alphabet, numbers, words, shapes, and some symbols (question marks, periods, commas, etc.) all have their own distinct colours. Some of them, like "Monday", "primrose", and "garden" have pretty colours (pastel blue, rosy pinkish white, and apple-green respectively), but others, like "gate", "liberty" and "rocks" have less attractive ones (brown, dirty yellow, and grey).
Most of my words take on the colours of their first letters, so all L words are yellow, all S words are red, etc. Sometimes though, words can have patches of different colours in them, like the word "look" which is yellow right up to the K, which is pink. It helps me when remembering facts and dates, as all I have to do is bring up the associated colours, and there the memories are.
Sometimes, randomly, words will take on colours that have nothing to do with their first letters: "Monday" is pastel blue in spite of the fact that M is generally black. The name "Craig" is a dark rusty orange, but C is usually light pink. Sometimes my brain changes its mind about the colours of words. For instance, in a novel I read, the name "Jamie" was eggshell white, just like the J, but when I wrote a story about a Jamie who was a green alien, suddenly her name became green. Same with all the other names in my book: they all took on the colours of their owners: A.K became blue, though A is green and K is pink, Oprah became yellow, though O is orange, Wendall became white, though W is yellow, Linus became pale blue, though L is also yellow, Rocky became yellow, though R is red, and I'd read a book with that name in it, and when I read it then, it was the "correct" colour. I have no explanation for these occurrences. Do you have synaesthesia Ectryon?
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"Survival is insufficient" - Seven of Nine
Diagnosed with ASD level 1 on the 10th of April, 2014
Rediagnosed with ASD level 2 on the 4th of May, 2019
Thanks to Olympiadis for my fantastic avatar!
Most of my words take on the colours of their first letters, so all L words are yellow, all S words are red, etc. Sometimes though, words can have patches of different colours in them, like the word "look" which is yellow right up to the K, which is pink. It helps me when remembering facts and dates, as all I have to do is bring up the associated colours, and there the memories are.
Sometimes, randomly, words will take on colours that have nothing to do with their first letters: "Monday" is pastel blue in spite of the fact that M is generally black. The name "Craig" is a dark rusty orange, but C is usually light pink. Sometimes my brain changes its mind about the colours of words. For instance, in a novel I read, the name "Jamie" was eggshell white, just like the J, but when I wrote a story about a Jamie who was a green alien, suddenly her name became green. Same with all the other names in my book: they all took on the colours of their owners: A.K became blue, though A is green and K is pink, Oprah became yellow, though O is orange, Wendall became white, though W is yellow, Linus became pale blue, though L is also yellow, Rocky became yellow, though R is red, and I'd read a book with that name in it, and when I read it then, it was the "correct" colour. I have no explanation for these occurrences. Do you have synaesthesia Ectryon?
Wow when did you realise that that was unique to you?
I have moments where I have synaesthetic experiences. For instance I have experienced really uncomfortable intense mirror touch synaesthesia as well as tactile-sound on occasion. I have a really physical response to aural texture and sound which makes listening to music amazing sometimes. I dont have an ordered consistent system however, its very unpredictable really
I think I have a mild form of synaesthesia. Mostly with sound.
I'm a very visual person, much like Temple Grandin describes herself. I'm also a Civil Draftsman, so get to exercise my imaging skills doing design work.
I've recently (in the last 6 years) taken up music as a hobby. Specifically as a drummer.
I've discovered that while playing a song over and over and over for hours and days, that the music takes on a colour and texture. I can see the music, and I can see where the beets go. The representation for each song and each section can be quite different, but always the same for each replay. It seems to only happen with songs that my mind is really familiar with.
StarTrekker
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Joined: 22 Apr 2012
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,088
Location: Starship Voyager, somewhere in the Delta quadrant
Most of my words take on the colours of their first letters, so all L words are yellow, all S words are red, etc. Sometimes though, words can have patches of different colours in them, like the word "look" which is yellow right up to the K, which is pink. It helps me when remembering facts and dates, as all I have to do is bring up the associated colours, and there the memories are.
Sometimes, randomly, words will take on colours that have nothing to do with their first letters: "Monday" is pastel blue in spite of the fact that M is generally black. The name "Craig" is a dark rusty orange, but C is usually light pink. Sometimes my brain changes its mind about the colours of words. For instance, in a novel I read, the name "Jamie" was eggshell white, just like the J, but when I wrote a story about a Jamie who was a green alien, suddenly her name became green. Same with all the other names in my book: they all took on the colours of their owners: A.K became blue, though A is green and K is pink, Oprah became yellow, though O is orange, Wendall became white, though W is yellow, Linus became pale blue, though L is also yellow, Rocky became yellow, though R is red, and I'd read a book with that name in it, and when I read it then, it was the "correct" colour. I have no explanation for these occurrences. Do you have synaesthesia Ectryon?
Wow when did you realise that that was unique to you?
I have moments where I have synaesthetic experiences. For instance I have experienced really uncomfortable intense mirror touch synaesthesia as well as tactile-sound on occasion. I have a really physical response to aural texture and sound which makes listening to music amazing sometimes. I dont have an ordered consistent system however, its very unpredictable really
That sounds like a very interesting experience. I always wished I had some sort of sound synaesthesia; I'd love to be able to see or feel music physically.
I never gave any conscious consideration to my colours until my senior year of high school during my psychology class when we watched a video on synaesthesia. Even then, it took me a while to realise it was describing me because it just seemed like such an odd phenomenon. When the light dawned, it was a significant surprise. I still have an alphabet book I created when I was younger in which I coloured all my letters the way I see them, and I still never gave any thought to the fact that they were coloured and not just black and white.
_________________
"Survival is insufficient" - Seven of Nine
Diagnosed with ASD level 1 on the 10th of April, 2014
Rediagnosed with ASD level 2 on the 4th of May, 2019
Thanks to Olympiadis for my fantastic avatar!
Most of my words take on the colours of their first letters, so all L words are yellow, all S words are red, etc. Sometimes though, words can have patches of different colours in them, like the word "look" which is yellow right up to the K, which is pink. It helps me when remembering facts and dates, as all I have to do is bring up the associated colours, and there the memories are.
Sometimes, randomly, words will take on colours that have nothing to do with their first letters: "Monday" is pastel blue in spite of the fact that M is generally black. The name "Craig" is a dark rusty orange, but C is usually light pink. Sometimes my brain changes its mind about the colours of words. For instance, in a novel I read, the name "Jamie" was eggshell white, just like the J, but when I wrote a story about a Jamie who was a green alien, suddenly her name became green. Same with all the other names in my book: they all took on the colours of their owners: A.K became blue, though A is green and K is pink, Oprah became yellow, though O is orange, Wendall became white, though W is yellow, Linus became pale blue, though L is also yellow, Rocky became yellow, though R is red, and I'd read a book with that name in it, and when I read it then, it was the "correct" colour. I have no explanation for these occurrences. Do you have synaesthesia Ectryon?
That is bizarre. L is yellow and S is red!? L is green and S is blue for me. P is red (I guess because it kind of looks like an R?), Q is purple, Z is yellow. What color is steel for you guys? I think it's my favorite color. #99FFCC <-- it's very light blue. I used to think everyone could relate to this but then when I told people about it they acted like I was crazy. I don't think I have very strong synaesthesia though.
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Do I have HFA? Nope, I've never seen a psychiatrist in my life. I'm just here to talk to you crazies. ; - )
StarTrekker
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Joined: 22 Apr 2012
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,088
Location: Starship Voyager, somewhere in the Delta quadrant
That's interesting, for me P is dark purple, almost a black, except when it shows up in words like "psychology" in which case it's sort of a rock-coloured grey. Q is brown and Z is black. "Steel" is, interestingly enough, the colour of steel. Nouns that describe objects with specific colours take on those colours, so "apple" is red, "pineapple" is yellow, "dirt" is brown, etc., and all the colour words are their colours: "blue" is blue, "green" is green, "pink" is pink, etc.
_________________
"Survival is insufficient" - Seven of Nine
Diagnosed with ASD level 1 on the 10th of April, 2014
Rediagnosed with ASD level 2 on the 4th of May, 2019
Thanks to Olympiadis for my fantastic avatar!
I seem to have some kind of touch-smell synaesthesia. I remember playing like this when I was a child - I could touch a scented candle with my eyes closed and the candle as far from my face as I could reach with end of my fingers and I was feeling the smell of it so I could guess what kind of candle it is. I could play a "magician" in front of my childhood friends because of this.
However I don't pay attention to it anymore since its not practical. I would have to focus to do it and the smell is very subtle. It's way easier if I just smell things using my nose.
I also have a synaesthesia of all senses to words but I don't know how much of it is real synaesthesia and how much is just experience and visual thinking. When I read/hear "rock" I see rock and if I focus on the image I can smell the dusty smell and feel the stony texture. When I read/hear lemon I instantly see a lemon and my mouth gets more saliva, as if it was reacting to the sour taste and if I focus I can also easily smell the lemon. Stuffs like that.
I seem have some kind of grapheme synaesthesia too but I don't use it in real life. When I see a black-white text its just black-white text and the synthesis goes for words, not letters. I can set attributes to specific letters and see each of them differently if I focus but it requires a lot of focusing so I don't do it.
About the word steel. Its gets a gray-blue color, similar to this: #C5CACF (well, actually I see this: http://stainlesssteel4you.com/stainless_steel_24b.jpg , not a color) . But when I focus on letters, not word something like this comes out:
So there must be something it in. S and T together give the #99FFCC, which is the steel color for r84shi37.
Oh, and I also seem to have the mirror-touch synesthesia - when I see someone "being uncomfortable" (for example by wearing not enough clothes for temperature) I feel as if it was occurring to me even if the person says he/she doesn't feel uncomfortable. That sucks. I can't look at some people because of this. For example when my cousin was in hospital I couldn't look at his arm connected to drip because I could literally feel the drip connected to my arm (touch, pain, itchy feeling).
I dont like mirror touch at all its extremely unpleasant actually
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I have ticker-tape, sound>vision, lexeme>touch (sometimes, only a few words do this), time>space, and then some grapheme>colour, but not much. I still can't believe so many people don't experience these things because they are so normal to me.
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I've experience this specific situation too! So I might have mirror touch...? I will have to find out more about it now.