does anyone associate words with colours?

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im assuming that there are others who have this, whenever i visualise a word or number, all i see are colours, or a coloured letter. its very hard to destinguish, because there isnt a colour code for each letter in the alphabet in my head, and often changes depending on what i associate with a word

EG my name's colours are:
s - yellow
t -beige
e - red
p - sap green
h - orangy brown
a - white/grey sometimes
n - red
i - white
e - red


for numbers in my head it usually goes like this :
0 - medium blue
1 -white
2 - green
3 - red
4 - purple
5 - yellow or blue
6 - orange
7 - mustard yellow
8 - dark red
9 - black/purple

id be really intrested to see how other peoples colour works out in their heads

steff x

Only a few numbers definitely have assigned colours for me:

1 and 7 are yellow
5 is red
3 is orange
4 is usually blue

Of course, that may just be the colours they were on my alphabet magnets as a kid?!?? lol

A friend of mine who always thinks mathematically- even playing music is just numbers for him- can only visualize numbers in black, and didn't even understand the question when I asked him to visualize the number 5 and tell me what colour it was. I felt sorry for him!

this is common with autism/aspergers i am told. i have it with days of the week, and music tones. the deeper the tone, the darker the color. each song has a color as well. days of the week are
Sunday - red
Monday - pink
Tuesday - Blue
Wednesday - green
Thursday - burnt orange
Friday - brown
Saturday - black

I also associat people and certain things and words with colors

Last edited by jade10025 on 09 Oct 2007, 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Saw this on TV with savants.
However i myself see no connection at all.

The technical term is synesthesia. I don't have it, though.

Numbers:

0 : White
1 : Black
2 : Red
3 : Blue
4 : Yellow
5 : Dark Red
6 : Yellow
7 : Green
8 : Black and white
9 : Black

These are not associations I have made up to memorize numbers. Its just the color I see when I think of those numbers since I was very young...

I also think of months as if they were circling around my head, like a clock. January is right in the front at 12', June is to my right at 3', Semptember behind at 6', November to the left at 9'. I cant really explain why I perceive months that way.

As for days of the week, I associate them with emotions...

Monday : Fun but feeling drowzy
Thuesday : Plain Boring
Wednesday : Boring and anxious
Thursday : Light excitement
Friday : Higher excitement
Saturday : Plain fun
Sunday : the worst feeling of all!

There are many words that I associate with many colours.

I associate certain letters/numbers with colours

a - red
c - grey
e - silver
f - mustard yellow
i - bright yellow
o - blue
p - black
1 - white
4 - red
7 - yellow
8 - blue
9 - black

It is called synesthesia, I have it but mine is more strongly assosiated with sound and colour connection and touch and colour but I do the number/letter colour thing as well.
There is a thread on the board somewhere on the forum with some good you tube links- I think it was titled "Synesthesia"

letters of the alphabet, numbers and days of the week all have colors. I said I think in colors and pictures in my Freshman English class and an NT got very snotty with me and said, "well, I think in ... words." as if I weren't being precise and was making it up.


a pink
b orange
c yellow
d light green
e blue
f green
g brown
h clear light blue
i black
j bright green
k blue
l gray
m black
n yellow
o clear white
p light pale green
q yellow
r dark brown
s red pink
t light green
u yellow
v khaki
w forest green
x black
y grey
z burnt color

1 black
2 pink
3 green
4 yellow
5 black
6 orange
7 seven
8 brown
9 greige

monday blue (ha)
tuesday pink
wednesday green but orange when standing next to tuesday
thursday yellow
friday black
saturday pink
sunday light blue

Also a few years ago, I went to sleep every night thinking of the color yellow and how it resonates and is not flat. Finally I painted my room yellow and that stopped that. I'll be repainting my room as the yellow is really not suitable for my room.

1: perhaps a turquoise
2: sort of a dullish blue... but all powers of two kind of have a very well-defined "texture" to them that can't be described well in words
3: bright yellow
4: Green, but sometimes bluish, it's a power of two so it also has that distinctive "feel"
5: Red
6: sorta bluish, but sometimes yellow instead, especially if associated with a three
7: deep red with slight orange tint
8: steel blue, again the very distinct feel of a power of 2, they kind of seem to have sharp square corners to them
9: an unseeable synthesis of vibrant reds, yellows and oranges

Music sets of some neat synesthesia for me, especially if it's brass instruments using just tuning. Just tuning ensures perfection of all intervals, but didn't work for pianos because it was different for every key. So they came up with today's equal temperament, which compromises to play eveything just slightly out of tune, but close enough that it's not really noticeable. But when two trombones simply play a perfect fifth in just tuning, and get it just right... it's amazing. I basically lose external visual as I am blinded by a beautiful golden light, I can feel the sensation running through my arms, my chest, my stomach, all up and down my spine... it's nice. But also difficult to describe.

Jeff Buckley music does that for me. I get swirls of colour that mix into patterns- its like coloured rain falling horizontally onto a clear window pane.
I get sensation with music as well it feels like being touched lightly all over and some rifts make me feel like I am swirling and my heart is swelling, its hard to describe but pleasant

I am blue, my oldest brother is green, and my other brother is red.

This one memory about sharing that I think in color is the one thing that I think gives me a very unguarded aspie reaction of intense dismay because the reaction by the classmate was instant bigotry. huh. I have pillars built over a lifetime inside of me that I think keep me pretty accurate about right and wrong in the NT world so I am not to be bullshitted and I don't feel as helpless as some of the posts I have read in the forum but that one thing and from a gay guy no less really really indicates how creative types aren't always as openminded and smart as they should be even though this gay guy was brazenly sharing his first intense romance in his essays expecting/demanding that we accept him for who he was. I think it was only last year that there was a very short article on the thinking in colors in a local tabloid and to me, I needed that article years earlier. From the past few days of being on this forum finally, I am getting a picture of how much we need to be plugged into the greater NT world in terms of awareness and also the need for diagnosis. Undiagnosed and living in ignorance that there are other people with similar issues sucks and then to be at the mercy of people NT and aspie who don't get it and don't have that innate tolerance and personal code of integrity makes for a dangerous situation. I don't know how bad more severe cases than mine and my father's can be although I found my father's degree very disturbing, but I exercise an extreme degree of self control and have since I was in the crib. My brain clicks things on and off for me to save me the trouble of some things but I am more aware because I track behavior that the abuse that aspies are getting is not about "attracting" abuse because you are an aspie, it is because you ARE dealing with problem people. If you have had enough nice people, then you wouldn't accept the unkindnesses as the norm or blame yourselves. That classmate reminds me of what it must be like for aspies who haven't had it as NT as I have had it. That makes me very angry.

I don't do the word, thing but I've certainly started associating countries with colours:

Canada, Russia, Germany, China - Red
Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Iraq - Green
USA, France, UK, Australia - Blue

There's more to it than that, but that's a basic rundown.

Canada yellow
Brazil sienna
off the top of my head - yes, I have this too but I don't really notice it - it just seems that is the way it is supposed to be

Do you assign colors to nationalities? not skin color like colors that are supposed to belong there - orange for japan but also purple

darkred for India