# Hearing colors - seeing sounds **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 2, 2019, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901 "2019-11-02T04:39:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/21 "2019-11-03T19:58:07Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > Which begs the question, do numbers/colors/sounds translate the same for different people. There are certain tendencies, but nothing 100%. Heck, I don’t think there’s anything that pushes 50%. When synesthetes gather together, the dialogue tends to devolve into mock arguments along the lines of “What, red twos? You’re crazy, two is _obviously_ green.” We just can’t seem to help ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/22 "2019-11-03T22:50:33Z")
Well darn. I was hoping to pioneer a new field of math incorporating color into the equations. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/23 "2019-11-03T23:50:19Z")
Bevis: “Hey Butthead, do numbers have vowels?” Butthead: “Uh, Yeah. One is a vowel. So is Zero.” (paraphrased from memory) ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/24 "2019-11-03T23:55:18Z")
Since I was a really little kid (almost pre-literate), one was white, two was yellow, three was blue, four was red, five was green, six was orange, seven was grey, eight was black and nine was brown. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/25 "2019-11-03T23:57:06Z")
Yellow is a very unhappy color, and to be honest, I am tired of putting up with its shit. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2019, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/26 "2019-11-04T03:38:41Z")
One is white. Two is green. Three is yellow. Four is reddish-purple. Five is dark blue. Six is brown. Seven is purple. Eight is kind of a purple-pink. Nine is black. 0 is somewhere between white and clear. My letter and number colors have been completely consistent since I was a little kid. I’m convinced my synesthesia helps me spell really well, though it never did much for my math abilities. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2019, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/27 "2019-11-04T04:34:21Z")
Wednesday is light orange. So is the 18th century. Really! They just are. I’m not going to argue about it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2019, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/28 "2019-11-04T12:53:08Z")
I hate to break it to you, but wyverns are normally bronze. There can be mutations, of course. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/29 "2019-11-04T13:29:19Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Drop some acid and you might well see musical sounds transmuted into colors pouring out of your speakers.\* > > \*or so I am told. 🙂 I don’t need to drop acid for that. Musical notes and keys are different colors, and they’re different than the colors of letters, just as dates are different than the colors of individual numbers. What’s interesting is that there’s so much disagreement about the colors of numbers and letters. It would be really amazing if different people saw the SAME colors. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2019, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/30 "2019-11-04T14:00:40Z")
Don’t even get me started on how the damn things taste. Tuesday moring, for example, has this disgusting clove/anise thing going. By the afternoon it’s like chewing on bitter lemongrass. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2019, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/31 "2019-11-04T16:00:02Z")
And bitter lemongrass is 7 or V or E minor. ---
**Author:** ![Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/regallag_the_axe/32/445_2.png) [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2019, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/32 "2019-11-04T17:49:30Z")
For those who are interested, Other People’s Lives had an [episode](https://soundcloud.com/oplshow/i-have-synesthesia) where they talked to a synesthete. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2019, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/33 "2019-11-04T18:31:35Z")
I might have a slight case of number form synesthesia. Numbers, and especially dates, fall into certain images. The date thing is useful; it allows me to see how a particular year fits in with others. Certain words also have a feeling on my tongue. Not quite taste, but close. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2019, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/34 "2019-11-04T21:19:10Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Not the same thing as the numbers, but there are high intensity street lights of some kind with a yellowish tint and I can taste the light. Those would be low pressure sodium lights. Haven’t seen those in a while, as everything is switching to LEDs. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/35 "2019-11-05T07:07:51Z")
I have strong spatial sequence synesthesia. When I think of an historical year, I see columns of centuries arranged in my mental eye with the location of the year in question highlighted, and I can zoom in and out, as it were. This doesn’t give a real sense of what I ‘see’, nor would any physical diagram, because it’s far more complicated than that. Some centuries have specific colours, which may vary in shade in different regions and if associated with different ideas. Events and ranges of dates appear when they are relevant, as do all kinds of images, maps, and vaguer associations. Everything can change dynamically, rotate, expand and contract as necessary. BC dates and centuries run backwards and downwards to the left instead of upwards and to the right like AD dates and centuries. Days, weeks, months, and individual years are also spatial in my mind, but in a flexible way that it would be difficult to capture in diagrams. Even when I do arithmetic I ‘see’ the relationship of numbers visually. When I did mathematics and physics at university, I found that that I was sometimes slower to grasp a new mathematical concept than other students, because I first had to ‘see’ it in a mental image before I could understand it. But then I would understand it more thoroughly than they did. I’m not sure whether this counts as synesthesia, but when reading I also hear the voices of the characters, and see the whole scene in my mind’s eye. Sometimes when I am really engrossed in a book, I am completely unaware of the pages and printed words, and instead only see and hear the scene unfolding in my mind, as in video, but three-dimensionally. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/36 "2019-11-05T07:40:25Z")
Monday is orange, Tuesday is red, Wednesday is green, Thursday is dark blue and Friday is Yellow. No opinion about Saturday and Sunday. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/37 "2019-11-05T14:23:39Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > I have strong spatial sequence synesthesia. > > When I think of an historical year, I see columns of centuries arranged in my mental eye with the location of the year in question highlighted, and I can zoom in and out, as it were. This doesn’t give a real sense of what I ‘see’, nor would any physical diagram, because it’s far more complicated than that. > > Some centuries have specific colours, which may vary in shade in different regions and if associated with different ideas. Events and ranges of dates appear when they are relevant, as do all kinds of images, maps, and vaguer associations. Everything can change dynamically, rotate, expand and contract as necessary. BC dates and centuries run backwards and downwards to the left instead of upwards and to the right like AD dates and centuries. > > Days, weeks, months, and individual years are also spatial in my mind, but in a flexible way that it would be difficult to capture in diagrams. I do the same thing, but my years are arranged differently than yours. > [@](#): > > Even when I do arithmetic I ‘see’ the relationship of numbers visually. When I did mathematics and physics at university, I found that that I was sometimes slower to grasp a new mathematical concept than other students, because I first had to ‘see’ it in a mental image before I could understand it. But then I would understand it more thoroughly than they did. With me, this caused me to grasp new mathematical concepts _immediately._ I was always the best in the class in math. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/38 "2019-11-05T14:37:11Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > Those would be low pressure sodium lights. Haven’t seen those in a while, as everything is switching to LEDs. That’s them, I think. Couldn’t remember the exact designation. And yeah, they don’t seem to be around anymore. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/39 "2019-11-05T15:20:16Z")
Y’all crazy. 0 is black; 1 is brown; 2 is red; 3 is orange; 4 is yellow; 5 is green; 6 is blue; 7 is puprple; 8 is grey; and 9 is white. Oh, wait…that’s just the resistor color code, ain’t it? I don’t think I have any synesthetic tendencies. I mean, sure, I may have loose cross-sensual associations, but they’re not consistent, and, from what I understand, true synesthetes really do experience the sense that is being crossed (e.g. one physically sees the color blue when hearing, say, an E flat) not just has a loose mental association with the color. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901/40 "2019-11-05T20:11:10Z")
Synesthesia can cover mental associations as well; in fact, it’s much more common that way. If you _know_ that A is yellow, because duh of course A = yellow, what else would it be, you don’t have to physically see yellow on the page. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-colors-seeing-sounds/842901.md?page=3)