Thread: Synesthesia

How interesting that after being away from DV for quite a while, I choose today to come back, and I see this post. My husband lives with synesthesia. It's a constant struggle for him to see clearly, hear, focus - THINK clearly,because the senses are blended together. He has lived with it all his life,and until his stroke, it was manageable. Now he can't even travel in a moving car without blindfold/earplugs/Dramamine. Colors carry sound, which means all sight is cluttered with music. All sound carries color, which means a simple melody,or the sound of a dog barking clutter his vision with a spray of colors. The sound and vibration of a plane flying over head can send him into the "skin crawling" usually in his chest. Words in black print show up as color in front of his eyesight. Numbers evoke feelings. Some sounds he can tolerate.Others he can't.

Oh my gosh, that sounds horrible. I don't have those types, thank goodness. I've always wondered if it's a pain to live with if they're that severe. I've viewed synesthesia as something cool, but I guess I left out the fact that people like your husband could beg to differ sometimes! xx

There's a really good book on this. It is NOT some sciencey document book. Its a heart-touching story about a 8th grade girl with it. Its called "A Mango Shaped Space". It has been written down as one of my favorite books.

I don't have it personally but I've heard that some are terrible and some are just plain beautiful.

I've heard of it, and actually plan on reading it. I think I already know that it'll be in my favorites list!

I've gotten it from drugs before, mostly LSD. It's definitely different, although having it temporarily wasn't all that disruptive (at least not compared to the rest of what I was experiencing). I felt the colour purple, and when my friends spoke, the sound coming from them was colours. My friend, R, would speak, and the area around his head would "fill" with a dark blue, and it would emanate outward a distance somewhat unevenly, but not too far from his face. For my friend, N, it was green. To feel a colour is really indescribable, however. There's not much more I can say other than I "felt" it (as an emotion or state of being, not physical tactile sensation). What I felt was... purple. Other than the colours with noise and feeling purple, I can't say I've experienced anything else.

Originally Posted by blackbirdrising

How interesting that after being away from DV for quite a while, I choose today to come back, and I see this post. My husband lives with synesthesia. It's a constant struggle for him to see clearly, hear, focus - THINK clearly,because the senses are blended together. He has lived with it all his life,and until his stroke, it was manageable. Now he can't even travel in a moving car without blindfold/earplugs/Dramamine. Colors carry sound, which means all sight is cluttered with music. All sound carries color, which means a simple melody,or the sound of a dog barking clutter his vision with a spray of colors. The sound and vibration of a plane flying over head can send him into the "skin crawling" usually in his chest. Words in black print show up as color in front of his eyesight. Numbers evoke feelings. Some sounds he can tolerate.Others he can't.

synesthesia

***

Synesthesia: A film by Jonathan Fowler - YouTube

***(8:19)

I hope the stuff towards the end of this short Youtube is a bit helpfull or at least encouraging for Adam, blackbirdrising.

I experience synaesthesia when I hear music. Different musical notes and musical keys have a unique color. From A major to G major are different colors and conditions of the sky (like sunny, cloudy, or rainy). The notes from A to G are the colors of the rainbow, from red to pink and then yellow green to blue green.

I also see different colors with numbers and letters. The colors are quite random too.

It was discovered recently that a bunch of people with letter/colour synaesthesia all experienced very similar colours for the different letters, and these colours matched a common fridge magnet collection. I saw some people with the condition getting pretty riled about the study and saying that this wasn't "true synaesthesia" unlike theirs or some nonsense. It was funny how personally they took it, like a huge part of their sense of importance came from having the condition and they felt very threatened by the idea that it might be something explainable and prosaic.

Maybe someone with synesthesia created that line of fridge magnets.


I have a set here at home...they're fun.

I may have a very mild form of it. I don't see colors when I look at words, but I do associate colors with words and feel that certain letters and numbers and tones should be a particular color. I think I may have partially gotten it from this from this little alphabet-learning board I played with when I was very little, in which every letter was a different color. Some letters are more definitely a certain color than others. Like 9 - For the most part it's yellow/orange, but it isn't as far-fetched to see it as green than to see it as blue or something... 9 is definitely not blue. Some are definitely a certain color, like 3 is definitely green, it cannot be anything else. But 'H' isn't as certain. It can be green or purple or something.

The only time I've actually seen letters to be certain colors is in the case of the word Google, when it's presented in the same font as the Google logo. Without consciously memorizing the colors of each letter, I can tell what color each letter is because out of the corner of my eye I see the colors as those letters.

Also, I also see letters and numbers in a certain way when I imagine them, with certain positions relative to one another.

I feel like I've done this before on this site but this is how I see the alphabet whenever I imagine a letter:


A B C D E F G
H I J K L M N
O P Q R S T U
V W X Y Z


And numbers: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Now I have the ABCs song in my head.

I just got done reading a book about memory, and apparently some people with synesthesia have near perfect memories. One of the people who historically had an amazing memory was a synesthete (I think that's what they called him) who in the psychological literature went by the name of S (they're always assigned initials to preserve their identities). He was a reporter in the 20's or 30's, and every morning when their pit boss or whatever would call them all into the briefing room and bark out their assignments the rest all took furious notes - names, phone numbers, addresses, etc, but S never did. One day his boss called him into the office and asked why he doesn't take his job seriously like everybody else. He was honestly surprised and when the boss explained what he meant he said he has no trouble remembering everything and he doesn't understand why everybody else needs to take notes.

Apparently because numbers and letters are associated with colors, smells, and whatever else, that helps them to get lodged firmly in his memory - remembering something and being able to recall it later requires it being cross-referenced in several parts of the brain at once - the more cross-referencing the better - every little bit helps to pull up those memories later. And synesthesia cross-references numbers and letters in several parts of the brain- associated with colors smells, sounds, etc.

Is that true for anybody here who has it?

Adams memory prior to the first stroke was almost perfect. Hes remembers most everything now, but he cant get it out, it gets looped in his mind. But hes absolutely coherent, aware of his situation and surroundings.

Ah man, that sounds like it would be awful! The same was true for the reporter too - it was like a gift and a curse. He remembered too much, and couldn't sort through it and discard anything.

I'm sorry for what he's going through (and you too as his wife).