I’m starting this thread at FormerMarineGuy’s request. I know there are other synesthetes on the board, so please feel free to help answer questions, too. Most of us only have one form, so it’s not as though I’m a well-rounded expert on the subject.
So, what do you guys want to know about those of us who have synesthesia?
How severe/overt/consistent does the experience have to be, to be officially synesthesia? It seems like something that most people would have to a very minor extent in a very limited way–I always think that the number 4 is orange, for example. Are you being constantly surprised by new associations? Is there anything systematic? (for example, 1 is red and 3 is yellow, so 4 is orange?)
How about a definition for those of us too lazy to google?
Which smells more out of balance to you, the word “obelisk” or the word “obsequies”?
Yes, there is a right answer.
Tabby
Do you find synaesthesia useful to you*, an annoyance, or do you just not really notice it? Or, in other words, how much impact does being a synesthete have on your life?
*I’m thinking of individuals like the Russia, whose name I cannot remember, who memorised pi to a ridiculous number of places because he associated each digit with a different sensation/colour/whatever. I realise that synaesthesia is unlikely to have a highly positive effect on your day-to-day life, I’m just curious.
You know those perennial attempts to render music as something visual? Most mainstream MP3 players have such a window, for instance.
To those of you with audio-as-visual synesthesia: could something like that be devised that would show us what you see when you hear sound, or would something critical be “lost in translation”? Do any of the existing ones mimic to any significant degree what you see via synesthesia, or not so much? If you listened to a given piece of music, would it “look” essentially the same in the same way that it sounds essentially the same when you play it again? Could you work with a software geek and create a module that would do a visual that replicated what you “see” in the sound, or would the rules be too hard to explain and apply, in your opinion?
Does a dislike for certain letters or letter combinations (due to their color, personality, smell, or texture,) cause you to choose words that do not contain those letters?
Have you ever had a chain occur? For instance, the color green triggers a certain smell which, in turn, triggers a sound associated with that scent.
Would you be willing to go through the trouble to post your personal alphabet?
I offer a template:
**
Aa Bb Cc Dd
Ee Ff Gg Hh
Ii Jj Kk Ll
Mm Nn Oo Pp
Qq Rr Ss Tt
Uu Vv Ww Xx
Yy Zz
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 0
**
Which should render:
**
Aa Bb Cc Dd
Ee Ff Gg Hh
Ii Jj Kk Ll
Mm Nn Oo Pp
Qq Rr Ss Tt
Uu Vv Ww Xx
Yy Zz
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 0
**
Those are just random colors…
please please please let the code work…
Ah, crap. That was a waste of time.
Have you seen the real tests for synethesia? Some of them are like colorblindness tests where people can or can’t see embedded patterns? I thought it was cool that they existed.
Here is a simple one:
obsequies is murky and brownish, obelisk is a nice crisp yellow/goldenrod
Here is the Wikipedia article.
I don’t have the color form of synethesia; I have the lexical-gustatory. I perceive words as specific foods, both by taste and by texture. These associations don’t change over time; the same words are associated with the same foods and always have been. I can tell you which words are associated with which foods, but I can’t tell you why. (For example, “journal” reminds me of caramel.)
Robin
When you see an ad with Mister Peanut, what food do you taste or think of?
In what respect? I don’t quite understand the question.
Robin
It’s a neurological brain “difference,” which is not supposed to be considered damage or abnomality since it causes no harm and isn’t the symptom of any disease, that makes people experience stimuli with a sense that the stimuli shouldn’t evoke, as well as the one it should. Some people taste colors, some feel sound, others see colors around numbers, and those like me see sounds. It seems to be rare for someone to experience more than one of these. IICR, associating numbers and colors, and tasting colors, are the most common.
It’s more common to left-handed people than right, which isn’t surprising given our brains are already wired differently to begin with. It’s more common in women than men, as well.
If you read the articles, they’re usually filled with people who say things like it enhances their lives, and they couldn’t imagine not having it, and they wouldn’t give it up for anything.
Well, I’d sell it away, cheap. It’s in no way useful to see sound, at least not to the degree I do. Perhaps if it was something you could control it might have practical applications, but to me it’s just irritating. But I suppose if every sound had a color, I’d lose my damn mind, so perhaps I should be grateful for small blessings, eh?
It’s more annoying when my eyes are closed, because it’s actually more noticeable. Imagine being nice and warm in bed and you’re half asleep. Then, somewhere in the house a motor kicks on or a truck drives by outside, and inside your eyelids are **flooded ** with color, waking you up entirely again. Motors are bright white, sharp noises involving things like slammed doors are black and white like TV snow, traffic is purple or yellow, something soft I couldn’t identify was light blue, and something recently was black. Black was okay, it was so subtle that I barely noticed it. However, I see white the most often, and it’s the most startling. Given it takes me forever to fall asleep to begin with, I’m never thrilled when colors startle me and I have to begin all over again.
I didn’t notice until recently that I see colors when my eyes are open too. I have no idea what the noises are that cause them, but I see white, a faint red, gray, and yellow now and then. It’s a lot less distracting, though, since it looks different. It’s more of a little wavy haze an out of the corner of the eye thing. Another person I know with this form says she sees the same sort of flashes with her eyes open as I do closed, so it varies from person to person.
I looked at all the visualizations, but I didn’t see one that really matched. So I made an animated gif instead. With eyes closed, it looks like this, but imagine it sped up about 8-10 times, and without repeating. Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos
I’m not sure how the associations between colors and numbers work, sorry, but I do know some people are more severely affected than others. I’d say I’m on the mild end, personally.
Unfortunately, at least as far as I’m concerned, new associations happen. I’m always a bit dismayed when a new sound has color too. It does seem pretty systematic, actually. The new sounds are usually to some degree “sharp” and sudden like the old ones. lower noises like a truck’s jack-brakes are more colorful than snapping ones.
I’ll have to leave **SoulFrost’**s question for someone else.
Wow.
Inspired by this thread, I Wikied Synesthesia and stumbled upon ordinal linguistic personification, which is what I have.
Prior to learning it was a form of synesthesia (half an hour ago), I was actually going to post in MPSIMS my list of all the numbers and alphabets with their personalities and see if anyone wanted to compare notes. I always assumed it was the leftovers from an unconsciously produced mnemonic device I constructed in my developing proto-didactic mind and that everyone else did it too. The few times where I’d suggested passing the time with some friends by comparing the genders of our letter and numbers, I always got back blank stares. Some cautiously poked me with a stick. I figured I hung out with morons and I’d be better off trying my luck with fellow Dopers.
To me, each letter and number face a specific direction, has a specific gender and temperment and consequently has different relationships with every other letter and number. Numbers are distinct (that is, they are distinguishable as individuals) up to 21, after which point they are simply collections of individual numbers.
Words are like little family portraits containing a cast of the individual letters where the conflicts and interactions between and amongst the adjacent characters are imbedded within the surface meaning of the word. When a word is spelled wrong, it really feels wrong.
If anyone’s interested, I can compile a list of genders, temperaments and conflicts. I did a running list from 1-9 for a coworker one time trying to explain what I meant. Afterward, he poked me with a stick.
The Planter’s mascot. Please not the words on the hat. I would think of peanuts and the flavor of peanuts. What flavor or textures do you have when you look at the mascot and the hat that says Mr. Peanut.
The mascot itself doesn’t do anything. I associate the word “mister” with noodles and “peanut” with peanut butter, interestingly enough.
Robin
I’ve always associated letters and numbers with colors, and different fonts can bring out the color of some letters but not others.
Also, musical keys and scales have not only color, but also emotional states (e.g. F# minor is dark and angry; E-flat minor is yellow-orange and warmly sensual).
I don’t actually ***see ***the colors, like some people do. For me, it’s like looking at a black-and-white photo of a famiar scene. You just ***know ***what color everything is.
