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Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 2:05:46 PM

AthenaSurrenders

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I want to know who else experiences this. My husband can't even begin to understand what I'm talking about, and yet some of these things are so vivid to me I can't imagine the world any other way. He thinks I'm weird, I think most people have this at least to some extent.

From the UK synaesthesia association:
Synaesthesia is a truly fascinating condition. In its simplest form it is best described as a “union of the senses” whereby two or more of the five senses that are normally experienced separately are involuntarily and automatically joined together. Some synaesthetes experience colour when they hear sounds or read words. Others experience tastes, smells, shapes or touches in almost any combination. These sensations are automatic and cannot be turned on or off. Synaesthesia isn’t a disease or illness and is not at all harmful. In fact, the vast majority of synaesthetes couldn’t imagine life without it.

For me, Wednesdays are green, and Saturdays are red. The 19th of October is distinctly orange. All numbers in the 80s are purple, whilst numbers in the 40s are a greyish brown. Some words also have textures. Music is very colourful, and pieces of music I find particularly powerful sometimes have a flavour. I can't explain how or why the colours/textures are assigned, any more than I can tell you why water feels wet.

Please share yours! I have my suspicions that everyone feels this way about at least some things. What colour is the number 23?

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 2:22:17 PM

ur1pet

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Wow! I have never heard of all of the different types of sensory responses. Certain songs bring back very vivid memories and I THINK I experience the smells and "feelings" I was having at that exact moment. Some smells bring back vivid memories.
I have never experienced what is described...for instance numbers being in a certain colour.
And my experiences have always just been MEMORIES of things that have happened in the past in r/t situations. What you describe is entirely different than memories correct?

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 2:22:50 PM

jlf1961

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the only thing I experience is tasting smells. Everyone looks at me like I am nuts.

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 2:34:25 PM

AthenaSurrenders

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I don't think they are memories - although of course who knows, they might relate to some experiences I had as an infant that I can no longer consciously remember.

I do know what you mean about music or scents bringing back an intense and vivid memory, but this is nothing so complex as that. It's one of those things that I don't think about until it comes up in conversation. Like you may look at a flower and see that it is purple. I look at the number 86, and know it to be purple. I know that I have typed it in black, the same colour as the rest of the text, but I FEEL it as purple.

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 3:26:22 PM

LookieNoNookie

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quote:

ORIGINAL: AthenaSurrenders

I want to know who else experiences this. My husband can't even begin to understand what I'm talking about, and yet some of these things are so vivid to me I can't imagine the world any other way. He thinks I'm weird, I think most people have this at least to some extent.

From the UK synaesthesia association:
Synaesthesia is a truly fascinating condition. In its simplest form it is best described as a “union of the senses” whereby two or more of the five senses that are normally experienced separately are involuntarily and automatically joined together. Some synaesthetes experience colour when they hear sounds or read words. Others experience tastes, smells, shapes or touches in almost any combination. These sensations are automatic and cannot be turned on or off. Synaesthesia isn’t a disease or illness and is not at all harmful. In fact, the vast majority of synaesthetes couldn’t imagine life without it.

For me, Wednesdays are green, and Saturdays are red. The 19th of October is distinctly orange. All numbers in the 80s are purple, whilst numbers in the 40s are a greyish brown. Some words also have textures. Music is very colourful, and pieces of music I find particularly powerful sometimes have a flavour. I can't explain how or why the colours/textures are assigned, any more than I can tell you why water feels wet.

Please share yours! I have my suspicions that everyone feels this way about at least some things. What colour is the number 23?

I had a car once that felt like September.

(in reply to AthenaSurrenders)

Post #: 5

RE: Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 4:05:17 PM

TigressLily

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Athena, there are a couple famous people who shared this condition but their names slip my mind. I've heard it has to do with neural wires getting crossed in how the brain interprets sensory data, but who really knows what's going on. Part of me thinks this would be cool, part of me thinks it would be sensory overload. Smells can invoke memories. I don't believe synesthesia itself is triggered by memories.

I've known people who claimed they could read auras by what color halo any given person was expressing as to what type of person this was or what mood s/he was in. I've never been able to read this in color patterns, only by sensing what kind of energy someone is giving off, which is fairly common.

I have my own overlapping system of symbolism, but it isn't sensory-induced. It's a compilation of symbolic elements. I Astrospeak with a couple of my friends, which is a type of shorthand. In other words, we can communicate entire chunks of concepts with just a few words and understand one another thoroughly. In fact, on multiple levels at once. Anyone hearing us would think we were extremely weird.

My colors for the days of the week (M/Tu/W/Th/F/St/Sn) are silver-white/red/blue/purple/green/brown-black/gold-orange, but I don't see these colors unless I consciously visualize them. I don't associate numbers with colors, though. I associate letters with numbers, but that's because of numerology, and I have my lucky numbers that hold special subjective meaning for me.

I wonder whether you have intuitive knowledge when you see/hear/smell/feel certain things or are there associations you can make when you get an influx of sensory responses?

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 4:14:26 PM

mefisto692

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Franz Liszt, the worlds greatest piano virtuoso and composer had it. It was discovered after his death through researchers studying his correspondence. For him, sounds were colors. It's no wonder he could get such sounds out of a piano!

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 5:22:23 PM

MalcolmNathaniel

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Athena, please tell me you've seen a doctor about this.

Synesthesia is extremely rare. Your husband is right that it is weird. Weird doesn't mean bad or wrong; it's just out of his realm of experience. Hell, it's outside my range of experience.

Smell can trigger memories for me sometimes, but I have a really weak sense of smell (that's call anosmia) but the experience of smell causing memories to surface is very common.

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 10:49:04 PM

AthenaSurrenders

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There's nothing to see a doctor about, it's just the way I process the world. If it had come on suddenly overnight, or if it was so intense that it affected my ability to act in the world I might be concerned.

mefisto - I knew there was a composer famous for it, and I couldn't remember who, thanks! Imagine how wonderful it would be to experience Liszt's music the way he did.

TigressLily - You raise an interesting point about auras. I had never given it much thought since it was outside my spiritual arena, but it would make perfect sense if those who sees auras are actually experiencing synesthesia combined with an acute awareness of body language, therefore discerning someone's mood/personality and seeing it in colour. Some people do the opposite, and get a feeling of personality from numbers or colours, so why not the opposite.

I just thought of something else, but I'm not convinced this is synesthesia and not just an odd quirk - the numbers and some letters of the alphabet have genders to me. Does anyone know that feeling?

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 11:09:51 PM

NoBimbosAllowed

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well, I guess it's time for us to find some common ground, A.S.

The problem with being born with Synesthesia is that you will likely go at least a decade (likely 2) before anyone bothers to notice that something is going on with you, or that what is going on with you is not a 'one off' and does not make you a 'weirdo', a 'freak', or someone faking some malady to avoid working hard and as hard as the current GFC demands.

You get REAL sick of people who *think* they understand David Bowie (aka David Jones) asking you questions and getting answers THEY do not understand, but Bowie ALWAYS has understood. Like

"What was your first reaction to 5 Years, first song from the Ziggy album?"

And you say velvet russets, brown alizarin satin, deep mocha-mixed-with-cumin-powder scents in the background, and a healthy dose of palpable fog, but not a silvery mist, a fog composed of musky dust from a 1912 Bordello.

Know what I mean, Athena?

I'll bet you do, but in case not, we can move quickly to the colours and textures which the notes from "Time" on the Aladdin Sane album evokes.

and let's not even get STARTED on the "infected" album by Matt Johnson/"The The".

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 11:11:22 PM

NoBimbosAllowed

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and the gender thing for letters and numbers is considered, this year, to be either Synesthesia or an overlap between that and Tourette's.

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/18/2013 11:12:02 PM

Kirasen

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I read somewhere that said, listening to some Binaural beats can cause the ways your brain processes things to change and end up processing in that same way. I don't know if that permanent though...

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/19/2013 12:09:58 AM

NoBimbosAllowed

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So, Athena...

I suggest a TREAT for you, if you are truly a Synesthesic.

Have a glass and a half of the smokiest Shiraz, let it settle in you, then listen to "In the Court of the Crimson King", by King Crimson.

you'll get more out of it than others do.

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/19/2013 12:11:35 AM

AthenaSurrenders

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quote:

ORIGINAL: NoBimbosAllowed
The problem with being born with Synesthesia is that you will likely go at least a decade (likely 2) before anyone bothers to notice that something is going on with you, or that what is going on with you is not a 'one off' and does not make you a 'weirdo', a 'freak', or someone faking some malady to avoid working hard and as hard as the current GFC demands.

I do know what you mean about the music (although not those specific pieces) but this part I was baffled about. Other than people being mildly curious I've never had people think I was weird, and it's certainly never stopped me from working hard. What's the GFC? I'm guessing you don't mean 'Guernsey Football Club'.

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/19/2013 12:15:42 AM

NoBimbosAllowed

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Global Financial Crises.

And working hard in a day job like hairdressing (which is unaffected by the GFC) is not the same as working hard in say, magazine illustration. Which is affected by the GFC (even in Time Magazine).

Sometimes in 'non grunt jobs' you lose some verve when people 'don't get it'.

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It's all about the curvature of the female azzzzzzzzzzz, meaning Niki Minaj and Serena Williams and Kate Cerebrano, NEVER Kylie Minogue! Wooden Spoons and Ottoman scenes from Story of O, baby dolls!

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/19/2013 12:33:45 AM

AthenaSurrenders

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Thank you for the assumption that I've only ever done grunt work. It's very telling that you consider hairdressers' 'hard work' somehow inferior.

The field I'm qualified in is professional and my perception of colours, numbers and music didn't impact it in the slightest. In my creative hobbies, it's been very beneficial. If people think you are slacking off, maybe it's you.

In an effort not to derail my thread, this is a particularly colourful piece of music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqA3qQMKueA

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Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/19/2013 4:51:27 AM

mefisto692

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Athena, I think you'd enjoy "Musicophilia" by Dr. Oliver Sacks. A neuro scientist who's spent many years studying synesthesia as it relates to musicians and composers.
This field of study has opened up in the past 20 years and there are many other books on the subject now too.

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/19/2013 4:58:45 AM

AthenaSurrenders

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Oooh thank you, I like Oliver Sacks' work, I will look that up.

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Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/19/2013 8:13:38 AM

myotherself

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I see some numbers and words as colours, but some concepts have textures for me. Mad, I know...

For example, Monday is smooth (think fingers sliding across cool glass), Tuesdays are sticky (think honey), Wednesday have a texture something like a cross between tree bark and corrugated card, Thursdays are like spongy corduroy and Fridays are like cotton wool. Saturday is hot and 'lumpy' and Sunday is cool and like flowing water.

You think you're odd, huh?

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RE: Synesthesia - 10/19/2013 10:27:57 AM

DesFIP

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It's quite rare, actually. The most famous person I've known to have it is Kandinsky.

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