# Do you have Synesthesia?? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 3, 2002, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229 "2002-12-03T15:49:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/41 "2002-12-04T05:46:39Z")
**Menemosyne** said: > [@](#): > > One thing I was wondering…is this really as prevalent as these boards make it seem, or is there some tie-in with the type of people who are here? These boards tend to be populated with very literate people, obviously people who enjoy reading, but I’m aware that a lot of you write your own stuff, or play music, etc. Is there a link, do you think, between seeing colours/shapes/gender with letters and numbers, and being a type of person who reads/writes/etc? That is a fascinating and orange post! 😉 I too would like to know how many of the synesthetics here are writers, artists, craftsmen, musicians, etc. I write, but not as much as I used to. And I do credit synesthesia with providing the images, tastes, etc. that I describe. I think the last poem I wrote ended with “I taste the sunlight on his skin.” I’m also musically inclined (writing and playing) and I design beaded jewelry and needlepoints. All of my life I have had a passion for color. On the wall in the office is a photograph of me made when I was two and a half. In it I am sitting on a sculpted wooden horse and have a sombrero on my head. The picture was in black and white but I can remember that the sombrero was purple. My coat was a deep plum. Do any of you synesthetics have memories that go back that far? (I can remember back to the age of 25 months. That is the earliest that I can put a date on. Morgainelf, I’m glad to see that you followed up on the suggestion! I hope that my questions are not a hijack. If they are, then …[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/42 "2002-12-04T07:24:50Z")
Like **benson** , songs have colors for me. Some books also have colors. And numbers, especially telephone numbers, have textures/personalities: some phone numbers can be bumpy, or faintly Wagnerian, or hyper-macho, or what-have-you. Certain words have tastes as well, but not all words. And you know how they talk about people having one dominant sense? Mine is apparently alphanumeric; I can’t remember a person’s name until I know how it’s spelled, even if I say it over and over. This can be extraordinarily frustrating, though it’s not quite as exclusive now as it was when I was younger. And to answer **Zoe** ’s question: I write a bit, and I’ve been playing guitar for 14 years (but I completely suck at it). ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/43 "2002-12-04T08:30:09Z")
This doesn’t appear to be synesthesia, but I remember as a kid I would divide my classmates up into an even number or an odd number depending on how they would appear to me. The numbers themselves weren’t male or female and so gender had no bearing on whether you were even or odd. You just were even or you were odd. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Harmonix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonix)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/44 "2002-12-04T12:44:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Often, my dreams lack much sound as well. Usually, the people in my dreams have “thought bubbles” – exactly what you’d see in comic strips – and so I read what they’re saying rather than hear it. Bizarre? for some reason that just sounds unbelievably cool to me. lucky! as for me? I often think/write 5 as f. But I always figured it was cause 5 was spelled five. hrm maybe i’m a synaethesiac? probably not. I too would like to know if this has any connection with artistic ability of something else such as intelligence(since I notice the IQ of this board seems quite a ways above the mean). ---
**Author:** ![Morgainelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Morgainelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgainelf)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/45 "2002-12-04T14:22:39Z")
I wonder if mild synesthesia is actually more prevalent than research has shown, but just not widely talked about? It could be that people on this board are more comfortable talking about their eccentricities! (Or that there are alot of eccentrics here… intelligent ones, of course. ;))g **mnemosyne** , There are a few different categories of synesthetes. Some project colors on to letters, numbers, etc., and actually see the colors. Others just have a sense that a color = a letter, number, etc. From what I’ve read (since yesterday!), most synesthetes are female (about 70%), and it tends to run in families. ---
**Author:** ![Tiburon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e36b37/32.png) [@Tiburon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tiburon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/46 "2002-12-04T15:03:01Z")
Anyone read The Man Who Tasted Shapes? I hope I didn’t botch that title, I’m going from memory. (And sorry if someone mentioned it earlier - I may have missed that.) I knew someone once who said that she read by smell because each letter had a certain smell. It’s a fascinating topic and I was surprised to see a thread about it. 🙂 I don’t experience this but wish I could try for just an hour or so. Tibs. ---
**Author:** ![ratty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ccd318/32.png) [@ratty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratty)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/47 "2002-12-04T15:40:43Z")
Oh. My. God. There are other people like this? I have done things like this all my life, I just thought I was insane. Oh, oh, now I need to share with you all! For me, almost everything gets some sort of ‘assigment’ in terms of color, texture, shape, gender, etc., though most things not all at once. For me, 1= white, neuter. It feels cold, and if I think too long about the number 1, I get a chill through my whole body. It reminds me of walking on melting ice wearing socks. 2= definitely yellow and female. 2 reminds me of a litle girl drinking orange juice ou of a plastic sippy-cup. I can feel the plastic on my teeth when I say the word ‘two’. 3= green, neuter. 4= purple, male. 4 is a little boy in brown shorts bouncing a ball on blacktop. It’s sort of warm. 5= red, male. 5 is always equal to the letter F for me, too. 6= female, either white or pale yellow. Tastes like lemon soda. 7= male, green. Also cold, very smooth. Tastes like lime juice. 7 is equal to the letter L. 8= female, dark yellow. 8 is an old woman with a lace cap. 9= male, dark purple. Kind of menacing. 10= neuter, black. Letters are seldom male or female, but they have colors. G and H are dark purple, but have no relationship to 9. A is yellow, B is blue, C is green, D is brown, E is ornage, F is red, I is white, J is purple, K is light blue, L is green, M is red, N is black, O is pink, P is a brownish rose color, Q is bright blue, R is red, S is green, T is brown, U is orange, V is yellow, W is blue, X is white, Y is black, and Z is purple. Names also have colors, but sometimes mental pictures, shapes, textures, sounds, etc. Here’s a few: Joan= single strum of an acousic guitar Amy= yellow, sounds like dripping water Mark= red, sounds like knuckles on a wooden object Lisa= green and yellow, eating a lemon slice Carrie= blue, smells like hair Monday is dark blue. Tuesday is yellow, Wednesday is lighter blue, Thursday is purple, Friday is orange. Saturday is light blue, and Sunday is purple. All the days of the week except Wednesday and Thursday are male. A year is shaped like a rectangle. When you join them up, they make chains. I do this with people and animals, too. When I meet someone, they immediately remind me of a type of animal. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/48 "2002-12-04T16:28:40Z")
Hmmm. I never really thought of myself as a synesthesiacic, but… OK, I didn’t follow the link, but I plan to as soon as I’m done with this post. I’ve done acid a few times, and I know what the color red tastes like. To me sound and feeling (in the tactile sense) are one and the same, even when I’m not, ah, chemically enhanced. A Ritchie Blackmore guitar solo is, and probably always will be, one of my major sexual turn-ons, just because of the sinuous feel to his guitar playing. I’ve never really assigned gender to numbers,or letters, but I do tend to assign _personalilty_ to inanimate objects. I don’t think synesthesia is a rare phenomenon. It’s just something that most people don’t think about. OK, I’m off to the link now. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/49 "2002-12-04T16:39:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mnemosyne \* > \*\*One thing I was wondering…is this really as prevalent as these boards make it seem, or is there some tie-in with the type of people who are here? > \*\* That is an excellent question, naturally I have no idea. I suspect that it’s more prevalent in society in general than the current literature makes it seem. I also think that the definitions are so broad, and so many things “count” as synesthesia that it’s hard to get an accurate read on how many people experience things like this. I was reading one article on line that talked about rather sophisticated theories about why this happens, what is happening in the brain on a chemical level to make, for example, someone think the month of May is yellow. However, I know for a fact why I think the month of May is yellow – it’s because the posters for the months of the year in my pre-school room where brightly colored, and May was yellow. I’ve never been able to figure out if this would be counted as synesthetic or not. It’s very yellow, it doesn’t just _remind_ me of yellow, it _is_ yellow, but to me, at least, its no great mystery as to why that is. It’s probably also telling that my math problems that have tastes are all nice, dessertish tastes. It’s reasonable to think that little 7 year old me was looking forward to dessert with great anticipation while I was supposed to be studying my times tables. I don’t remember this at all, but it seems likely to me. ---
**Author:** ![hedra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/779978/32.png) [@hedra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hedra)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/50 "2002-12-04T17:33:38Z")
> [@](#): > > it’s because the posters for the months of the year in my pre-school room where brightly colored, and May was yellow. I’ve never been able to figure out if this would be counted as synesthetic or not. It’s very yellow, it doesn’t just remind me of yellow, it is yellow, but to me, at least, its no great mystery as to why that is. I think this is tied into synesthesia, even if it is not technically the same process - did you notice people saying that it fades with age? I remember being much more prone to the linking process as a child. I think we cross-wire more easily between senses as children, so if you have an open enough process, you could link the two paths - every time you see May, you see yellow, so both paths fire at once, and a path is reinforced, and the concepts link or blend. Concept May then becomes inextricably linked with experience Yellow. May IS yellow. I’ve got similar links from childhood for flavors - a greenish flavor, etc. And I feel flavors in layers, as notes. My family seems to use the terminology the same way (that sauce is missing a bass note), so not sure if that was an influenced link or a spontaneous one - I can taste if an ingredient is missing by feeling/sensing/hearing what note is missing, though it feels (depth/layer) more than it sounds. I’ve read the book (the man who tasted shapes) and it is fascinating stuff. Notably the tendency to have higher events rates whenever the cerebral cortex is at low function (depression, extremely tired, altered states). I suspect that due to the overlap in depression/altered states in artistic types with the higher experience-rate of synesthesia when in those states, you’ll find more artist types who are aware of the experience. Not necessarily more who have it, but more who are in states where they experience it often enough to notice it. And that sound=flashes of lights is a classic for synesthesia - check the book. I get slight shape overlays on the center of my palms with voices (individual people’s voices), but only when I’m tired or depressed. I don’t have the process active every day all the time, it is too slight in my case - very minor. But I distinctly remember one guy’s voice as being pointy, in a papery, three-sided, steep pyramid shape, but soft behind it, as if the pyramid was glued to the top of a cotton ball. Oh, and um, sex kicks it off for me, too. Most interesting textures occur during my most, em, altered states… :o ---
**Author:** ![Morgainelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Morgainelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgainelf)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/51 "2002-12-04T20:38:09Z")
This talk about shapes and textures has me really freaked out. When I was a kid (up until around age 12) I used to get very strong textural images - mixtures of pointy and fuzzy - that would for some reason scare the bejeezus out of me. I associated the feeling with bowling, and death. Don’t ask why - I haven’t the slightest idea. I can picture a long bowling alley with a candlepin ball going down the lane, and remember feeling a horrible sense of dread accompanied by the freaky pointy/fuzzy texture. Maybe it’s a dim infant memory… I also used to have panic attacks where the same texture would appear in my brain and I thought I was going insane. These lasted through college, but I haven’t had one in about 10 years. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/52 "2002-12-04T20:39:13Z")
This thread is proof that there were subliminal messages imbedded in every **Schoolhouse Rock** song. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/53 "2002-12-04T21:43:36Z")
WOW!! I am very happy someone decided to look start a thread on this, I’m just sad I didn’t see it earlier. There is a wonderful book called _The Man Who Tasted Shapes_. Check it out [here](http://www.wardle.demon.co.uk/books/cytowic.html) . It is a wonderful book that I have made my classes read ever since it came out in 1993. Pink Floyd has used Synesthetic techniques for a long time check [this](http://www.ainet.com/eye/philo/simai.html) out. For teachers of psychology the study of Synesthetics is usually left for those students who want to go on and make psychology a career. In the Abnormal psych class that I teach every other semester we usually start out with it because it has the unique ability on its own to get students interested in the class so I always put it out front instead of lost in an exam question. ---
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/54 "2002-12-04T21:45:42Z")
I did it some of this stuff without thinking about it when I was little, but as I got older, I found that when I tried to analyse the scene (usually) that accompanied them, it would disappear. (The kind of things I would associate would usually be like the flowers’ stories in _The Snow Queen_ and would be connected to words or phrases, if anybody wanted to know.) That being said, I don’t think I ever had true synthesia, more like the kind of thing **delphica** was talking about. I think of the letter ‘J’ as being pinkish-purple, but I think that was the color J was on the poster in 1st grade. Also, I already knew how to read then, and I don’t think I associated J with anything before that. ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2002, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/55 "2002-12-05T00:28:23Z")
I’m a seamstress and wireworker. I make jewelry and design clothes and cook fanatically and stuff. I’m very artsy. Has anyone else read L.M. Montgomery’s _The Golden Road_? The Story Girl, Sara Stanley, is a synaesthete. > [@](#): > > “The idea! As if thoughts were coloured!”, giggled Felicity. > > “Oh, they are!”, cried the Story Girl. “Why, I can always see the colour of any thought I think. Can’t you?”… > > “When you think of me what colour is it?”, asked Peter curiously. > > “Yellow.”, answered the Story Girl promptly. “And Cecily is a sweet pink, like those mayflowers, and Sara Ray is a very pale blue, and Dan is red and Felix is yellow, like Peter, and Bev is striped.”… ---
**Author:** ![Coil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Coil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coil)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2002, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/56 "2002-12-05T14:09:14Z")
I don´t have/experience synesthesia myself (that I have noticed) but a colleague at work does. She says she sees numbers and letters as colours. I´ll have to tell her that there is actually a term for this and that other people experience it too. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2002, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/57 "2002-12-05T21:05:06Z")
Non-synesthetic here and…umm… 3’s are male? 5’s are F’s? 7 x 6 tastes like vanilla? Left-handed movies? May is yellow? Amy sounds like dripping water? A year is square? 😕 I think I’ve wandered into the wrong thread by mistake… I’m just going to slowly move toward the door while keeping my back to the wall and a watchful eye on all of you people. I mean…you guys are all just… :eek: NUTS! (runs out of room, slams door and builds barricade) That was close! ---
**Author:** ![Morgainelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Morgainelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgainelf)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2002, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/58 "2002-12-05T21:34:41Z")
**Tangent** is sort of bluish purple, with lots of question marks hanging overhead… ---
**Author:** ![Tupug\_Anachi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@Tupug\_Anachi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tupug_Anachi)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2002, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/59 "2002-12-05T22:20:54Z")
ME!! ME! I feel like I have come home to Mama!!! 🙂 I thought I was whacked because my numbers and letters have color, gender, and personalities. Don’t even get me started on the scenarios. I’m a bit overwhelmed at the moment to realize the number of people who’s good company I’m in. ---
**Author:** ![owlofcreamcheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@owlofcreamcheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlofcreamcheese)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2002, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229/60 "2002-12-05T23:26:22Z")
I assine people … derr… somethings… only way to describe it is a variation of a color and puffing up my cheeks and spreading the fingers of my hands and faceing them together… diffrent people are more or less… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-synesthesia/140229.md?page=4)