When Monday = Purple = 72

[justnotcricket]

Thought I might start up a thread here about Synaesthesia, which is the state in which a person associates one thing with another - for example, a colour and a number: "Three is red" or a day of the week and a taste "Mondays taste like cheese" or something.

I dug around in the forums and found a few individual posts relating to this condition, but no actual thread, and I thought it might be nice to see what my fellow Escapists' thoughts were on Synaesthesia.

So - Do you have it? Do you know someone who does? What kind? Any freaky experiences or funny stories? Do you wish you had it? Are you glad you don't? Has it affected your gaming at all?

To kick things off - I have Synaesthesia, in particular associating colours with letters, numbers, words, days of the week, months of the year etc, as well as a strong association between music and colour/shape.

My brother has it too - when we were little (and had no idea about it) we'd freak our parents out a bit by having these long, pitched arguments about which colour Monday was! They were kinda worried about us there for a bit =)

 

[kommando367]

headaches and algebra

 

[aussiesniper]

While I don't have synaesthesia, it sounds like a very strange condition to have.

Also, when you say "Associating" something with something else, what exactly does that entail?

 

[xitel]

Well, I remember hearing about a woman whose taste center and sound center of the brain were mixed around, so she tasted sound. Apparently Beethoven tastes creamy. Other than that, I don't know about my having it as a serious condition, but I do know that when I listen to certain songs I develop an association to them with whatever's going on, so I'll hear the song again and remember the taste of whatever I was eating. But I believe that's Sensory Memory, not Synaesthesia.

 

[Adam Jenson]

headaches and algebra

I lol'd

No I don't have this condition but I find it fascinating. Music equating to colors and what not. This actually reminds me of an episode of Criminal Intent where a woman with this condition was able to predict the future.

 

[Aries_Split]

It fascinates me.

It's like the Angelic offspring of Schizophrenia and Dementia...

You rock!

 

[Captain Blackout]

Freaky fact about synaesthesia that screws up almost all philosophy of color theory (i.e. you can never explain red to a person blind since birth)

A few color blind people experience synaesthesia of the "letters appear as specific colors" type.

 

[justnotcricket]

While I don't have synaesthesia, it sounds like a very strange condition to have.

Also, when you say "Associating" something with something else, what exactly does that entail?

It means that (in my case) when I hear/read/say/think of 'Monday' I get the most overpowering impression of 'red' - and not just any red, it's that really bright tomato red. It's a link between two things that's absolutely fundamental and completely natural to a synaesthete. There's one poor guy in the UK who has it between names and tastes, so someone will introduce themselves as 'Jim' and he'll get a completely realistic flavour in his mouth, like cheese and onion crisps or something.

 

[justnotcricket]

It fascinates me.

It's like the Angelic offspring of Schizophrenia and Dementia...

You rock!

Er, thanks =)

It can be amazing, especially when it comes to the shape of music. I don't know about creamy, but certain of Beethoven's works have a definite purple curved zig-zag feeling about them - I seriously couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. It's been a part of my thinking since I can remember, but it can certainly get confusing. You can get some *really* wierd deja vu moments from it!

 

[sirsolo]

My mind is far too imaginative to reply to this with [personal experience. I can associate three to red, but don't on a usual basis.

 

[Tattaglia]

Magnets and ham. Ham is cold, magnets are (usually) cold, there is no difference.

And yes, I have tried a magnet sandwich. The 'N' tastes better than the 'S'.

 

[SimuLord]

I'm reminded of Ozzy Osbourne: "Swallowing colours of the sound I hear/Am I just a crazy guy? You bet!"

Can't say I've ever gotten my senses mixed up.

 

[T-Blade]

In all honesty, This seems interesting, as I'm studying to become a psychologist I have to understand Schizophrenia, Paranoia, Insomnia, Dementia ect..
But this fascinates me nearly as much as Criminal psychology.
I think I shall look up more about this.

 

[Erana]

So, is this really that unusual?
I've got:
1= black/white
2= green
3= red
4= blue/green/purple (depending on the numbers around it)
5= earthen yellow
6= brown
7= bright yellow
8= Like four, only more towards indigoes and violets.
9= black, when coupled with other numbers appears to be high-contrast.

A=green B=red C=yellow D=black/brown/blue E=yellow/orange f= peach/kakhi G= brown H= Not really a color, but the high contrast of a sunny, Summer day on organic substances I= white J= terqouise K= blue/purple L= green M= brown N=black O= black/red P= purple/red Q= purple/black R= red S= blue, but can be anything based on what surrounds it. T= gold U=I can't tell, because its right beside "T" right now V= pink W=orange X= black Y= red Z= black.
There are a lot of variations and tints to these, too.

Oh, and math tastes coppery, for some reason...

While I don't have synaesthesia, it sounds like a very strange condition to have.

Also, when you say "Associating" something with something else, what exactly does that entail?

I'm not sure if someone already answered your question but when they "associate" a sense to something else, they actually see/hear/smell/taste/feel it. So if 3 is red to you, if you look at the number 3 on paper, it will literally appear red.

But that's why I'm not sure if I have it or not. I mean, when I look at things on paper, they just look like writing on paper.
But when I think in general, I don't think in words. When I want to express myself through language however, I have mental imagery of what I want to say/write in my head, and that's where I get all the colors.

Though when I look at my post count, I don't literally see the colors, but I think, "Green, green, blank (black or white) brown" just as much as I think, "two, two one six."
It is likely just some sort of association that has come from life in general, rather than an actual condition, just as much as math tasting coppery because I bite my lip in anxiety.

 

[bl82]

I remember watching this special on tv about savants and it referred to this

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savant_syndrome)

Basically, one of them was a women who could hear colours or see music etc. A CT scan proved abnormal brain activity while hearing certain sounds, if I remember correctly.

 

[Graustein]

While I don't have synaesthesia, it sounds like a very strange condition to have.

Also, when you say "Associating" something with something else, what exactly does that entail?

It means that (in my case) when I hear/read/say/think of 'Monday' I get the most overpowering impression of 'red' - and not just any red, it's that really bright tomato red. It's a link between two things that's absolutely fundamental and completely natural to a synaesthete. There's one poor guy in the UK who has it between names and tastes, so someone will introduce themselves as 'Jim' and he'll get a completely realistic flavour in his mouth, like cheese and onion crisps or something.

So, if I say Monday you think red in the same way that if you were to say Tomato I would think red?

 

[likalaruku]

0=white.
1=red.
2=yellow.
3=blue.
4=brown.
5=green.
6=orange.
7=purple.
8=black.

 

[karmapolizei]

I find Synesthaesia really really interesting. It freaks me out, because it's really hard to imagine if you don't have it. That's part of the reason it fascinates me, but I like thinking about why it's there in the first place even more.

There's a thesis about its roots that I find very appealing. It says that Synaesthesia is not really a genuine "freak function" of some brains, but merely a "maxed out" capacity for abstraction. Scientists in support of this thesis point out that synaesthesia is, in principle, the same thing as every human ability incoporating abstraction. So for example, they say that language developed because early humans made sounds that mimiced the appearance of the objects they wanted to describe.

It's a plausible thesis, and I like it a lot for fitting into a broader picture of how the brain could work - just like theories of mental illnesses that don't see actual ILNESSES and syndromes as isolated malfunctions, but rather as byproducts of how the brain works.

EDIT: Also, I like the thread title.

 

[Nivag the Owl]

I don't have synaesthesia but I like to think certain colours match certain open chords on guitar. I don't, like think about it I'm playing or anything, but:

A: Red
B: Purple
C: Yellow
D: Turqoise
E: Blue
F: Orange
G: Green

 

[L33tsauce_Marty]

I have this thing where numbers or objects, or even words apear in my head as a shape with a colo(u)r. I could list things all day.

This post reminds me of blueberry pie.