Me too! For those things and exactly those things! And it has also seem to have worn away as I aged. For this reason I suspect I don’t really have synesthesia, but days of the week still seem quite colorful to me. Monday is red. Other days change their colors sometimes, but Monday is always red. Right now, Tuesday is yellow, and Wednesday is blue.
I never thought there was anything strange about assigning genders to numbers and letters–I think I just had another aha! moment (similar to the one I had a few years ago when I realized that everybody didn’t see specific colors associated with letters and numbers.)
I also see words when they are spoken, particularly unusual words or names. Once I learn how to spell somebody’s name, I never forget because it’s a visual thing. When I listen to an audiobook and can’t figure out how a particular odd name is spelled, I have to go look at a printed copy to find out, because it upsets my sense of the world not to be able to picture it as I hear it.
For me, the numbers and letters are:
Female - a, b, d, e, g, m, o, p, q, u, even numbers
Male - c, f, h, i, j, k, l, n, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z, odd numbers
Strangely, I think the color associations help–the female letters
are generally brighter colors leaning toward yellows, oranges,
pinks, and reds, while the male letters are darker colors like
blues, blacks, dark purples, etc.
My number colors (which never change) are:
1 - white
2 - green
3 - yellow
4 - purple/magenta/black
5 - blue
6 - tan
7 - purple
8 - magenta
9 - black
0 - white/no color
I won’t go into my letter colors, but they never change either
(except that the letters around them can affect the intensity of
the color and sometimes change some of the weaker colors temporarily).
My spousal unit sees sounds, which makes it very interesting for him
to listen to songs. I told him if he could paint the visions he
gets while listening to particular songs he could probably make a
lot of money. 
I love synesthesia threads. (It’s cool to see that there are so
many of us out there!)
It’s odd that you start this thread today because I’d never heard of this until it was mentioned in a movie, The Lonely Hearts Club, that I watched last night.
Hmm, Fridays are definately red. Sunday’s are light blue. Wendesday’sare orange. ETC.
I don’t have perfect pitch but on the rare occassion that I absolutely know the note or the key of a piece by the music I have a color associated to it. D major is a goldeny brown color. C major is red though A minor is Blue. F major is orange and D minor is yellowish/orange.
Certain smells have strongly associated colors with them as well. But I think that is because of the food association mostly. For example citrus things are either yellow or orange. Sweet syrupy things with hint of a tang (like a grape) are purple. Gentle sweet things are red (like strawberries). ETC
My sister sees numbers as colors. Zero through nine are all the bright primary crayola types of colors.
Oh and deeper notes are darker colors of the main note whereas higher notes are brighter.
Also, specific musical instruments produce extra colors not associated with the notes that they produce. In other words the tone of the instrument changes the color. A flute is very clear and glassy when making music even though it can also have color within the key or given notes it is playing. Other woodwind instruments (minus the flute) are green.
A guitar is very golden brown (just like the key of D) as is the harp and other plucked strings. However, the harp is more gold in sound, the guitar is more brown, the mandolin is almost yellow, the bass guitar is almost all brown with little shocks of yellow.
Bowed strings are purple and can migrate from a reddish purple to a bluish purple depending on how low or high they are playing.
Drums typically are black if they are unpitched or red if they are pitched but that changes a lot since percussion is so diverse.
The piano is blue. The harpsichord is red. The clavichord is violet. The hurdy gurdy is purplish red.
Brass instruments are yellow/orange.
I’m like this to an extent, too, though it’s faded as I’ve gotten older. When I was very young, fire trucks were intolerably painful. I still hate fireworks because all of my memories of them from childhood are of hiding from the sounds and sobbing in the back of the car while my parents couldn’t figure out why I didn’t enjoy them like the other children.
I also have synaesthesia. Words and phrases have… shapes. Shapes isn’t exactly the word I want. It’s more like form/shape/texture/flow/image. Some are specific, some are sound based, some don’t have anything. “sons & daughters” is a wave/pullback/clear ribbon, but “daughters & sons” is flat. Plain sounds without words have texture and/or concrete images assosciated with them. My voice when I sing is a glass of water with bubbles in it.
Tastes just have texture. I like my cheese very pointy/bumpy. Like a crumpled plastic shopping bag.
I read a Washington Post article about an area convention on synaesthesia about a year and a half ago. In the article, a quick test for synaesthesia was mentioned: What shape is a year? If you can answer the question immediately, you probably have synaesthesia. This was a revelation for me. I already knew I had it. I could conceive of other people having different shapes for a year. But I thought everyone’s year was a shape. Mine has always been a square. I still don’t understand how “normal” people think about time. How do you think about a year if you can’t see it?
And mnemosyne, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. During migraines, I can sometimes feel sounds all over my head. It’s incredibly painful.
I have it too. Numbers, colors, letters all have gender for me.
There was a thread several months ago on this very subject but, I’ll be darned if I can find it.
My experience is much like dorkusmalorkusmafia’s, in that I associate various notes and instruments with colors. I must take issue with some of his associations, however, as the key of A minor is clearly a deep red 
This seeing of colors does occasionally limit my listening to music that I would otherwise enjoy. The best example of this I can think of is when a guitar is combined with bagpipes. The guitar (which is always some shade of blue) with the bagpipes (which are always orange; yellow-orange for uillean and deep red-orange for Highland) just produces a hideous combination.
You must be listening to only the low notes on the guitar then. Those have a muddyish blue to them. It is still definately brown. Interesting that you have orange for the bagpipes. I always see them as green. I am sure Scottish people would hate me for it since supposedly Scottish people don’t like the Irish green (this taken from a Scottish/American boyfriend).
C major which has the same lack of accidentals as A minor is bright red. A minor is a very icy/dark blue. All the key stuff fluctuates a bit with the feel of the music though.
It’s interesting that several of you have mentioned perfect pitch. I wonder if that’s a related phenomena. I don’t have perfect pitch, but I have relative pitch.
Homebrew, isn’t that the way the Dope always works? Freaky yet predictable.
When I was very young I used to get the whole textural thing - I’m not sure what the trigger was, but I’d get certain textural feelings - bumpy, crunchy, soft, tin-foilish, etc.
I’m so glad to see that so many of you have experienced this. I can’t believe I’ve managed to make it through 34 years without ever hearing about it before. Wow.
dorkusmalorkusmafia, even though C major has no accidentals, I see it (as well as the note C itself) as having no color. I don’t mean that I don’t associate a color with it, I just see it as having no color, in the sense of being clear like a glass of water or a diamond.
And guitars are quite definitely blue, as are all plucked string instruments. The specific instrument, and the amount of signal processing on it can alter the shade, of course, but it’s always blue. A clean Strat sound, for example, is a translucent ice blue, while a bass guitar is indigo and a harp is a light turquoise.
I see flashes of light when I am surprised by sounds with my eyes closed, usually when I am just trying to fall asleep - not necessarily in a near-sleep state, as it takes me a long time to fall asleep. Often I’ve been lying with my eyes closed and I’ll hear the trash truck bang a dumpster lid and it’s like there was a flashbulb going off in my room.
I’ve also visualized patterns of light going with music, but that seems more like normal imagination than the phenomenon described above.
And whaddya know, it sank like a stone. No, I’m not bitter at all.
I was just going to start this thread…creepy.
Music has shapes in my head. I don’t see them, I feel them. The bass line is a dark purple and wavy line underneath everything else, drums are sharp but not pointed, piano/keyboards are little dots that come and go, and the lead guitar is usually something bold and bright. Sometimes, it’s red (electric guitar) or silvery tappings in my head (acoustic).
And roses smell like drops of mercury, only the drops are water-silver, not metallic-silver.
My mother and I agree that Wednesday is green, but she thinks Thursday is green, too, while it’s obviously a deep red with hints of burtn orange.
I did a big research paper on synesthesia for biology last year (3+ pages, IIRC. ANd 10 differen sources.) I’ll send it to you if you e-mail me.
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?
Basically, are you here because reading/writing posts is visually stimulating as well as mentally stimulating, or do you think there’s not really a connection? It could be an interesting study into this phenomenon…
Also, if you’re given a green sheet of paper with red text (red ink) on it, do you still see the individual colours, or do you see the intended red? Do you notice that it IS intended to be red, and is that a different “knowledge of the colour you’re seeing” ? Does the green background distract you, or make green letters “fade” ? On white paper, do white letters disappear?
=mnemosyne, who is squinting at things she types, trying to see if there’s colour…but no…its black on grey through and through:)
I do the day of the week/color thing too, as well as with songs. For instance, Dancing in the Moonlight by Van Morrison is white with blue splotches. And Sweet Home Alabama, which is on next, is red.
I see classical music as ribbons of light representing seperate instruments. Continuous instruments (wind instruments, violins, etc) are smooth ribbons of color. Pianos are bumpier ribbons, and percussion instruments are bursts of color. Deeper notes=darker colors.
With vocals, I see a singer singing against the classical backdrop.
I also see timelines. The future is to the right, and the past is marked out decade by decade, until you get to the 1800s–then it’s marked out in centuries.
I remember the months by picturing the signs above the chalk board in 1st grade.
I know vowels are female and consonants are male. I think this is because of the PBS show “alphabetland” or something like that, where the letters went on adventures.
You know, after I learnt my mom didn’t do this, I thought I was wierd. But I’m not! Or maybe we all are. How common is this?
I do this too, especially with essential oils. I can’t stand the scent of clary sage because although it is round and sort of velvety, it has a gaping black HOLE in the middle of it. <shudders>
I make a blend of rosemary and eucalyptus and lavender though…mmm! It’s a wide open valley on a cold, black, night, when the stars are brilliant. Sorta like a cough drop commercial. Heh.
I see people in colour and textures. I can’t remember faces, I remember feelings, scents, and colours. It’s wearing off a bit as I get older, but people are a mixed bag of sensory impressions. I’m velvet black, with faint rose shading into wine red- like light on velvet. My SO is green, purple, dark red, and black, with sandalwood and frankincence.
It doesn’t have anything to do with concious symbolism . I just know what colours people are.
3 is female/hermaphrodite. 2 is very definitely feminine. 1 is male, and so is 7.
I experience this, too, but my eyes don’t have to be closed and I don’t have to be half-asleep. And it seems that I see the flash of white light before my brain even registers the noise. Anyway, is this a form of synesthesia? I didn’t think it was.
Are there very mild forms of synesthesia? I thought it had to be an all-or-nothing thing.
I don’t physically see numbers as colours, or smell sounds or whatnot, but I know that I experience certain things differently than others (a song being like outerspace with everything spaced far apart, and the number five, although I don’t physically see it as green, mentally I always picture it that colour and “5” makes me think of my brother, etc.) I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I have an odd way of describing things, and plenty of times people don’t follow me. I figure I just have an overactive imagination.