Synesthesia

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Do you experience synesthesia? I'm curious as I read that people with AS/Autism are prone to it.

If you do, do you find that the intensity fluctuates?

If it does, what tends to enhance or reduce it for you?

I'm asking because I have synesthesia and use it to make music. However I've noticed it's not as strong as it used be and my creativity is suffering as a result. And not being able to make music for me equals losing my mind! I've been quite anxious, confused and unable to get back into a healthy routine for a while... I'm a lot less focused as a result and waste most of my time to escapism... and I have a feeling this might be the reason why my synesthesia has weakened.

You should read the books from Daniel Tammet, he has Synesthesia himself and speak about it in his books.

If I say banana, and you think 'yellow', is that synesthesia?

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have a look into it.



No, because bananas are yellow so it's therefore a logical/natural association.

I have synesthesia, although it seems milder than when I was younger. I haven't had any colors make me feel nauseous from taste since the 7th or 8th grade, nor the sounds of any particular words. I still see colors when I hear music, although the louder/more intense the music the better the color.

I've had synesthesia my whole life...though it seems rather infrequent now. An interesting sidenote to me is that the last time I experienced synesthesia very strongly, I'd been eating almost only fish as my meat source. Linked? Who knows...synesthesia doesn't seem to get a whole lot of attention as a research topic.

I've also made a thread about it. http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt178204.html

sMeow.

If I smell and taste a candy banana is it?

Yes. For me, numbers and letters are coloured, and sounds have shapes.

My synesthesia fluctuates too. Some times it really strong and I can smell memories or taste something from the mere mention of a word. Days and months are coloured without me giving it much thought. As is the alphabet and numbers.
I have colours that are safe/comfortable and colours that are dark/scary/distressing.

I can see colour through touch and taste.

Music notes have their own colour, tones, shapes and feelings. I just love focusing on them when watching live music.

It's stronger around an intense sensory environment which is usually a cafe or supermarket. At concerts it goes insane. I actually sometimes have to leave.

I think it's stronger because of a seizure disorder too. Tammet got powerful synesthesia because of the many seizures he had when he was four.

Also, i tend to have hypersensitive sensory days when it is most intensebut I have opposite days where sensory issues hardly annoy me and I don't experience as much synesthesia.

I actually wrote my own code language called Synthe. Very original that title is... I'd go into it but I actually wrote it for my book and I don't want no ideas stolen.

I experience Grapheme-Colour Synaesthesia.

I don't recall any cross-sensory perception other than in this particular form. I have colours for letters, numbers, days, months and decades amongst certain other things. I don't know if I am about to make any sense but here goes. With numbers it follows an undeviateing pattern when it gets to double-digits beyond 20. By this I mean that the set colour of the single digit is the overriding determiner.

Here is my colour description for numbers 1-20

1 - Red
2 - Light Blue
3 - Red (like 1)
4 - Yellow
5 - Red (like 1 and 3)
6 - Dark Blue
7 - Greenish Colour (similar to September)
8 - Yellow
9 - Yellow
10 - Light Blue (similar to May)
11 - Red (because 1 is red)
12 - Light blue (because 2 is light blue)
13 - Red (because 3 is red)
14 - Yellow (because 4 is yellow)
15 - Red (because 5 is red)
16 - Dark Blue (because 6 is dark blue)
17 - Greenish Colour (because 7 is this colour)
18 - Yellow (because 8 is this yellow)
19 - Yellow (because 9 is yellow)
20 - Light Blue (because 10 is this light blue)


It is now down to the 1-10 colours to determine the colour of the (0-9, 0-99, 0-999, 0-9999, 0-99999 etc) numbers above 20

Examples

30-39 are all red because 3 is this colour
40-49 are all yellow because 4 is this colour
600-699 are all dark blue because 6 is this colour
2000-2999 are all light blue because 2 is this colour
70000-79999 are all a greenish shade because 7 is this colour

Ironically I am colourblind.

No. If I say banana, and you think C#, the smell of pine cones, or 12, that's more like it.

The one I have is auditory / sensory. I feel sensations when I hear sound. I recall having it since adolescence but it has gotten much stronger in last few years (over 50 now). I also get physical sensation from certian sights. The auditory one has always been most strong when I am relaxing and still. It has gotten somewhat unpleasant, as a small sound - like someone clinking a glass in the next room -will register as a not so pleasant sensation shooting through my body at some weird angle or trajectory.

I don't believe I do. The only thing that kind of fits in the Synesthesia description I've read on Wikipedia is the way I see days of the week and years, but I never considered this abnormal, I never though of this:

"In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, and/or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may have a (three-dimensional) view of a year as a map (clockwise or counterclockwise)."

So yeah, I see days of the week as two rows arranged in individual grids per week starting with Monday, ending with Sunday, like this:

When counting days I would create a mental picture of the above or gesture with my index finger in the air as if each day was a button and I was pressing them. Is that Synesthesia???

I also see years as kind of "road" that disappears in perspective or very long string and I move along that road when I'm trying to imagine distant years.

My perception of time during the day is basically a visualization of a clock. Whenever I think about time I see a clock in my mind and its hands moving.

I also frequently use mnemonic devices that involve location of items in space to remember where things are and I generally see the world around as a huge 3D projection, almost like being in a computer game.

So yeah, I'm not sure if that's it. Interesting though.

No, and it sounds as thought it would be fun.

If you haven't already, you might want to look at the Autism Research Centre's research into this.

My mother used to taste words. My younger sister sees numbers and days of the week as having colors. But I had trouble with this idea for myself for the same reason I didn't originally realize I stimmed. The short list of stimms didn't include anything I did (hand flapping, rocking). I didn't know I did it until I saw a longer, more varied list and was able to see then that I did things not listed. So, I don't know if I've got synesthesia or if I just experience some things very intensely. But I can describe an experience, and then maybe someone can give me some insight.

When I listen to certain kinds of music, such as some of the songs off Annie Lennox's Diva album, the music itself gives me a particular experience, regardless of what the song's about or if the words are meant to be happy or sad. In my mind, it's as though I can see waves and waves of textured vibration and light pouring out of my chest. I get a feeling I can only call joy, and I can picture myself putting my open hands on my upper ribs and then throwing my arms outward from my body over and over again. I kind of feel an urge to do this, though the real physical movement actually seems to spoil it. Maybe that's because I get self-conscious about it, even when alone.

Some songs give me a sense of jerking my fists, wrapping my arms around something, falling, pushing, leaning, flying, or running. Some make me want to make certain kinds of vocalizations, though, again, actually making them might sometimes spoil it. I sometimes forget, though, what the feeling might have been for a particular song, so I couldn't always tell you if it's the same every time. From the ones I do remember, though, I think maybe it is.

Is this synesthesia, or am i just experiencing my feelings really strongly?

Also, there was one time in my life, for at least a few weeks or months, when it seemed really clearly and strongly that my thoughts and memories about a few specific things appeared to be outside my head, in particular parts of the room. For example, one in particular was always up in the same corner of my apartment all the time. Then this either went away or became faint enough that I'm not sure if it's still happening or not. I didn't think I saw anything with my physical eyes. It was that the mental picture seemed to be up there. Maybe I was just so full of thinking that there wasn't enough room in my head for all of it. But if it has anything to do with synesthesia, I'd like to know.