So, tell me… How’d you pick your user name? 
Are you me? Just checking.
Apologising to chairs for sitting down too hard? Patting houseplants? Saying hello and goodbye to rooms? I don’t do it all the time, but I do at least sometimes. I’ve gotten extremely angry when someone has sat on one of my stuffed animals, even though I know they aren’t real and don’t have feelings, because some irrational part of my brain insists that they do, and they’re hurt.
I am a loony.
I didn’t know there was a word for it! My worst one is when cooking food – I always feel sorry for the last little bits of pasta if they don’t make it from the pan to the serving dish or wherever. I usually have to unstick them from the pan or save them from the sink, wash them off, and include them in the meal so they don’t feel useless and abandoned. I often talk to inanimate objects, pat them, or apologize for bumping into them too…
This is fascinating; I knew I was a synesthete, but didn’t realize how many ways I’m not one. For example, individual digits have no connotations at all to me, but sequences of digits do; a phone number, for example, can be Wagnerian, or bubbly, or uphill. (I can’t explain the “uphill” one at all. Just trust me.)
I also have a great memory, though sometimes it lets me down; I have one friend whose phone number I could never, ever remember because it was too “American Revolution-y.” And no, it didn’t have -1776 in it.
Songs, and some musical keys, often have strange attributes. G minor is a pale, washed-out green. A piano, if played fast way down at the lower end of its range, sounds spidery.
Certain things can smell “round,” or taste “warm” (having nothing to do with temperature or spiciness; salads often taste warm), or sound “tight,” or feel “mean.”
In short: Yeah, I got that.
Re-reading all the posts in this thread, I have come to a startling conclusion.
We are SOOOOOOOOOOOOO weird.
jackelope - Your post just reminded me how difficult it is to explain to someone why I can only eat chocolate in the winter, because chocolate is a warm food.
My sisters and I do this (I suspect at least one of them is also a synesthete - I’m going to ask them at lunch today). My younger sister and I are especially good at this - she’ll say something like “It’s that guy from that movie” and I’ll know which guy she means and which movie. I’m also able to anticipate people - I think synesthetes are “big picture” people, and are able to see from where a conversation is to where it is going.
And yes, my memory is also extremely visual. I can’t learn at all from hearing - I usually read the textbook and ignore the teacher because I just don’t get anything from them.
I think you may be me.
I actually got back out of my car and went back in the house to move one of my son’s stuffed animals because I felt so guilty at leaving him in such an uncomfortable position when leaving the house.
My parents used to use my tendency to anthropomorphize pretty much anything to guilt me into all sorts of stuff, like getting me to finish the last peas on my plate (They’re so lonely without their friends) or pick up stuff (It wants to be with its friends in the closet). I made the mistake of telling my partner about this one day… so now she uses it on me to finish the last serving of food, or whatever. I’m thirty-six years old, for heaven’s sake, and it still works! I have to stick my two contact lenses together when I throw them out so neither one will be lonely in the trash after I so rudely discard them. Argh.
Yes, we are the same person. I apologise when I leave my stuffed animals for long periods, and leave the biggest one in charge. I do that with my cats, too. Even if my husband’s going to be home.
I really am a loony.
I’ve never done the pasta-feelings-thing, but I can totally understand it.
Ok I wanted to re-visit this topic again because there are some things that need to be understood about synesthetics. A true synesthete has a cognitive biologic condition. Other’s who think they are synethetes do not have the biologic aspect to their cognitive processes.
Case in point: [sup]And this deals with what Lifeonwry asks above:[/sup]
Our human, simple, habit of association is often confused with being a true synesthetic. For instance, color’s often have feeling like blue often feels cool, because we associate blue with cool things, i.e. ice, water etc…etc… Red often feels hot because we associate it with hot things like a red hot stove or a hot tomale. Purple often feels soft, and inviting, as does pink or light green.
Numbers and letters can eb associated with feelings and perceptions as well. The number 1 may feel like a pointy number, because it resembles pointed things. the number 0 or letter O may feel like a soft, or calming number or letter because of it’s appearance.
Shapes, sometimes a true synesthete will describe a home cooked meal by assigning the different smells with shapes, such as columns or sphere’s or cubes or a trapazoid…Some of the finest chef’s in the world are true synesthetes! We know why, right?
Memory - true synesthetes usually have wonderful memories and in psychology we classify this type of memory not as photographic anymore but as Iconic memory. Synesthete’s use so many empirical senses to remember things, and the pathways the memories take into our storage factories within our mind are somehow different than those of people who are not true synesthetes. We all have memories that have been dormant for years right? We all remember a touch, or a smell that we have not felt or smelled in years past…Why just the other day I was passing by an ice cream truck when I caught a wiff of a rocket popsicle…you know the red white and blue popsicles…
Well I have not had one of those in 20 years…but as soon as I smelled it, I remembered playing little league when I was 10 and getting one of those every time practice was over. 
Memory is a wonderful thing to study, and in the case of true synesthetes…it is double rewarding to understand the ins and outs of how those wonderful people work!
No, I mean you can hand me a ball of polymer clay, for example, and without looking, SOMETIMES I can tell you what color it is, because I can feel a difference in the temperature of the actual clay. Visual temperature I understand, because I am a visual artist and color is a big part of what I do. And I spend a good chunk of my time teaching students to tell the difference between warm and cool colors. On those occasions when I can tell the color by feel, it’s dead-on accurate, rather than “I’m guessing you’ve handed me a red?” In the case of the clay I work with, there’s a red that would be classified as a visually warm red (orange undertones) and yet in my hands it’s colder than another shade of red. THAT’S what I mean.
Do you have a cite? I would like to read about that because when I took part in that experiment (almost ten years ago now) it was my understanding that a true neurological explanation for synthesthesia was missing, but that there were noticeable metabolic shifts in part of the brain during synesthetic experiences. I’m wondering if there is more information now.
I always think vitamins work better at night when they don’t have to multi-task. Does anyone know if this is true? I picture them getting all worn out from assisting me with walking, thinking, eating, etc. I figure they work harder because they can organize better when I’m asleep.
Eats_Crayon’s - Here is the cite I can find now…I do not have time to type out the biologic explination…but that study is quite comprehensive, and a good read, I perused it quickly, and it covers nearly everything…There are much more recent studies you can find at university libraries…
LifeOnWry - I know what you mean, and I bet your art is very spectacular. Synesthesia is a gift in my book, and I tell students who have it that they can join the ranks of famous artists, chefs, physicists world wide, including Richard Feynman
I’m curious about something in the vein of cross-associations.
I do this all the time, but a good example is a conversation I had with my ex husband. I was sick, and asked him to go to the store and buy me some Nyquil. “Green or red?” he asked, to which I replied, “Definitely red, the green tastes like nailpolish remover”
Which prompted the question of how I knew what nail polish remover tastes like. Obviously, I’ve never actually tasted the stuff. So I told him that obviously I can tell what it tastes like because of its smell. He was baffled by this notion, and I was baffled by the idea that someone couldn’t understand this. Smell is definitely tied into your sense of taste - thus the inability to taste things decently when you have a cold. But is it actually odd to be able to “know” what something tastes like through its smell?
No it’s actually normal for most every human being. So…Is he your ex because he didn’t understand…that I would believe.
Seriously, I do not know very many people who can not understand - at least a little - of how something tastes by it’s smell. It is very common. Instinctually, we know something is bad for us if it smells rancid, moldy etc…etc…Now a vegitarian may frown upon the smell of a polish kielbasa cooking on a grill, but I
damn hampster’s…
Ahem, a vegitarian may frown upon the smell of a polish kielbasa grilling on the grill, but I don’t. I know exactly how it tastes, and I love it. The vegitarian hates the smell, more than likely because they can taste it. That is pure spectulation mind you…but I’d say most people of the world know how something tastes even if they have never tasted it, by it’s smell.
From **Phlosphr’s ** link:
(bolding mine, of course, because that definitely stood out, considering the posts we’ve had here so far)
I wonder how I’d go about getting “diagnosed” (I hate making it sound like it’s an illness or affliction of some sort)? Everything I’ve read there really seems to point directly to me.
I know what nail polish remover tastes like because I’ve tasted it. It tastes exactly like it smells. Funky.
Really there is no need to “get diagnosed”. If you have synesthesia then you have synesthesia…it is not an affliction, as I said before…in my book it is a gift.