Just curious if anyone else's child has synesthesia:

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-synesthesia-brain-20120220,0,6760571.story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

DD first told me that she has this a couple of years ago. She sees colors with numbers, letters, and days of the week. Just like an adult friend of mine who has it, she was surprised to learn that other people do NOT experience this. It is supposedly linked to creativity (my DD is very artistic and creative). There seems to be some vague speculation that it may also be linked to autism or some other brain differences.

Coincidentally, I'm conducting some research on synaesthesia in my lab. A number of studies have found a link to artistic tendencies. The idea about a link to autism came from a single case-study. (Eyeball roll.) In my lab we are conducting a large-scale study on this, and finding no link between synaesthesia and autism spectrum.

I'd be happy to answer any other questions about synaesthesia you might have.

When I was little and younger elementary I linked those things with color. I'm not autistic, that I know of, fully functioning, but very creative and try to keep a cap on it. Though this forum, I don't know, you guys are bringing it back out in me.

I remember telling people about it and getting negative or "eye rolling" reactions. My mother barely tolerated my "weirdness". When I did talk every once in a whil, I came up with things like this!!! LOL

But I still remember that Sunday is black, Saturday is brown, Monday is blue, and Tuesday is definitely, definitely orange. The numbers and letters I remember thinking they were colors, and having favorites, but the memories aren't as distinct as the days of the weeks.

I also can hear a tone change when water runs from cold to hot. I did know someone else who could hear this, and he was a piano tuner : - )

I used to associate colors with numbers, and thought it was synaesthesia. And then I remembered those Fisher Price colored plastic numbers with the magnets my little sister used to play with on the fridge....

MegMeg, how funny! I guess I don't have any questions exactly, but I do find it really fascinating. DD is extremely matter of fact about the whole thing. She also associates an emotion with the numbers, which basically seems to match up with the emotions we generally associate with thsoe colors (red = mad, yellow = happy...well, and olive green = frustrated, apparently).

Oh, one question, I guess--not all her associations are the same as they were when she first told me about it at age 6. I wrote them down at the time and about half seem to have changed, though the rest are exactly the same. I thought this was not supposed to happen? But I do definitely believe her. She had no idea this was even a thing and just randomly mentioned it one day. ("Well, because one is always white, it's..." Me: "Wait. What?")

Oh, and has it been conclusively connected to intelligence and memory? DD is intelligent, obviously, and also has a prodigious memory. She used to effortlessly memorize very long books as a pre-reading toddler (her brother does the exact same thing). I mean REALLY long books, after maybe 3 or 4 readings. When she was in a play last summer, she knew all the lines in the whole thing.

This is kind of weird.

My son and I were doing this last night in the car on the way home from 4H.
Then we switched to name a flavor when the other says a color. You had to explain why. We figured we were just programed some where along the line.
We also concluded it probably changed over time.

That's extremely interesting! We've been speculating that there may be a much longer window of plasticity for this than everyone assumes. For one thing, it's often the written appearance of a letter or number that triggers the synaesthesia, so that's something that wouldn't happen (usually) until school age. I would love to do a study on whether we can induce new synaesthetic connections in adult synaesthetes.

As far as I know there is no evidence to support this.

I didn't think I thought of mumbers as colors, but they did have distinct personalities. And they had preferences for which number they wanted to be added with. I don't remember any of the specifics, but I am pretty sure their personalities were complex. I am not particularly creative--maybe this was a way to make math more interesting in the boring elementary grades rather than banging my head on the desk?

So cool! Definitely a form of synaesthesia. Some people report that numbers have genders as well.

I have synaesthesia for numbers and letters (which is one reason why I study it) and numbers have personalities for me too. 7 and 8, for example, are both female, but 8 is like a pushy extraverted older sister, while 7 is the interesting one you would actually want to have a conversation with.

The issue of losing synaesthesia as you get older is an interesting one. I have one memory of very vivid taste-color synaesthesia as a child, but I don't have anything like that as an adult.

Yes, the numbers have feelings/personalities for DD as well. Here is a sort of crazy story: this came up recently among the adults on a trip we took with some other families where my DD really hit it off with another kid. The mom told me later that she asked her kids and the same kid DD hit it off with also is a synesthete--and shares many of the same associations with DD. (I guess this is fairly common--that is, A is often red, and so on? So interesting!)

The adult synesthete on our trip also reported that his associations sometimes change.

This is so interesting, I'll have to ask my kiddos about this. The only similar thing I experience is that academic subjects have specific colors to me. I would color coordinate my folders/notebooks in school and they had to be the right color or I would never remember which folder went with which class. So science was green, math was blue, reading or English was red, history was yellow.

Physics is slate-grey, biology is dark green, and chemistry is sulfur-yellow!

I asked my 6 yr old if letters had colours, she told me of course and started rattling some off. She had colours for every letter I asked about too. Many were repeated though, quite a few were red for example. I checked starfall and "her" colours were a 100% match for the starfall list. I asked where the colours came from and she said from her toes up to her head (showing me physically). So then I asked if the colours came from inside her or from starfall. She said inside her. She learned the alphabet on starfall when she was 2-2.5, and clearly completely internalized the colours such that they are "hers", to her now at 5.5...

Makes me wonder how many with synasthesia learn the colour of the letters on their alphabet blocks gor similar)? The colours of the days of the week on the chart in their preschool?

I never asked my six year old, but I've always had it, and still do (age 39).

Mine subject/color coding is exactly the same! The only difference here is that physics is usually purple (my favorite color and my favorite science)!

DD9 says that numbers have personalities more than colors also. However, there are definite colors to go with emotions and situations. I can't remember what her's are right now, but we talked about this once and she said that the color coding tended to change depending on how her mood was when she was thinking about it.

DD (10) says "6 is DEFINITELY purple. 7 is green; 8 is blue; and 9 is red." She says the other colors get mixed up, and she doesn't see colors with letters. My other DDs don't seem to have it.

Ahhhh, so nice to hear that this state of being has a name. I just stumbled across this definition on the internet tonight and feeling kind of relieved there are others out there. My son (gifted) has always insisted that the numbers of the week had certain colours. I always thought it was interesting and could celebrate this part of him because for me, I can hear music when I see shapes, colours, images or movement without the sound....aaaah, now I understand why I feel overwhelmed and tired when I go grocery shopping - I just realised I was converting the rows in the aisles into music (major/minor keys, symphonies/solos etc).....is there a way to disengage from this temporarily because I am avoiding the supermarket and other busy places because I feel so drained afterwards....

Ohhh... me too... in drama in school, I'd just... remember everyone's lines. All of them. I could recite entire plays if asked. I could also see a word once and never forget how to spell it (interestingly I've lost this after having babies... that must be the part of my brain they stripped the DHA from, ha ha)

DD also is an extremely good speller. I read somewhere, possibly not somewhere reliable, that this is associated with synesthesia.

The funny thing about this for me is that I am totally fascinated with it and DD seems to feel it's sort of ho-hum. Like, okay, yes, of course Tuesday is blue. What's the big deal?

LOL

I just asked my kids:

DS8, awful speller, said that words are small black letters on a giant white space (um, ok).

DD10, very artistic (drawing at the moment) and a crackerjack speller, said that 7 is brown, 4 is green, and the colours of the numbers helped her figure out that 7+7=14 when she was younger. (Chatty DS interrupted her at that point, but I have a feeling she had more to say).

Interesting... So of course now I'm wondering... (lol) How do I get my DS to start seeing more colours and maybe improve his spelling? heh heh

I associated numbers with feelings LOL... 6 was always sad.

Marytheres, my DD associates feelings with her numbers, too.

I always though of evens as being happy and odds as being sad or dark. So 6 was always one of my happy numbers I never associated colours with letters or numbers though... just with sounds.

I am completely shocked! My DS says 1 is red, 8 is red and 9 is red! He says number 3, 13 are green, and number 23 is grean and brown. 2 is yellow, 20 is brown, 22 is brown. Oh and 12 is brown. He says he has plenty of others but he doesn't want to share them right now! Wow! I had no idea... He is very creative.

I casually asked him if he thinks numbers have colours and he said "of course they do" and rattled this all off... I am really surprised that he never mentioned it before.

Here are my notes on DD's numbers. The first set she was barely 6, the next somewhere in the 7s, the last set late 8. This is with months in between without talking about it. As you can see, there is a lot of congruency but not completely so.

1 is a white ice number
white, okay
white
2 is a green grape number
purple, sad
brown
3 is brightish green
green, really happy
light blue, happy
4 is a brown tool number
orange, a little angry
terra cotta, something weird just appeared
5 is a green toad number
red, angry
red, mad
6 is a (no answer)
blue like 7, darker, really really sad
dark blue, upset
7 is a cool water number
blue, sad, a little
regular blue, daydreamy
8 is a purple grape number
olive green, frsutrated
olive green, jealous
9 is a sunny yellow number
bright yellow, really really happy
yellow, really happy
10 is a gray cloudy number
black, super angry
black, super angry (yes, she said exactly the same thing both times)

Hi, I have been wondering about the 'subtitling" of spoken words that I and my daughter have. Sometimes, we can see the words as other people say them. Someone told me that's a type of synaesthesia... is that right?

Ninjanoodle - I would say from that link above it is yes.

In the other thread I mentioned that when I asked my 2nd DD about letters having colours she said "Of course they do" and rattled off colours, until I realised that she was listing a perfect match for the starfall colours, which is how/where she learned the alphabet. I wondered in the other thread whether synaesthesia was influenced by the chart/blocks/book that they learned letters/numbers/days/weeks from as those learning tools and toys are so often colour coded (though clearly not everyone retains the colour association)....

I just asked her again and she clearly has internalised that her synaesthesia wasn't "real" but just from starfall because she denied that she sees colours. But then did produced a list when prompted, which still overlaps with starfall.

I just asked my 34mth old. She says A is green, B is blue and C is short...

DH has a really full on cyclic 3D visualisation of days/weeks/months. Which is listed in the linked website as synesthesia. And also has sound/colour associations.

One day recently out of the blue (so to speak), my 16 year old son told me: "I just figured out why I always confuse Saturday and Sunday! They're both red!"

DD started the battery I linked above but didn't finish it. I learned that she also sees colors when hearing notes--but not sung notes, only instrumental ones. There were some more forms she had as well that I didn't know about (tastes also have colors, and a few smells have colors). Hers seems to be completely color-oriented, though--like there were some about tasting or smelling things when other sense were stimulated and she didn't have any of those. The funny part was that for those, she was like, "What?? NO," in a "What on earth?" kind of way. Of course, for most of us, "Tuesday is blue" is a "What??" association.

True, because Tuesday is clearly yellowish brown.

Gah, I thought my above post was made in the "is this normal" thread... So my references to the other thread were references to this thread... totally confusing. Sorry.

Does seeing auras come under this? I don't see auras but some people really do seem to. I do get odd looks when I describe words as ugly or round or whatever but I think that may be from being taught by the look-say method.

Puffin--you know, this may explain the "aura" phenomenon. Some people with syn say they see a color when they think of someone (although it wouldn't usually change with time, I guess).

I've always associated this with being a V/S-type thinker, myself. It's an act of translating aural information into a visual format, for processing in that preferred mode.

This process has obvious utility and purpose, which seems to me to indicate it's a brain circuit that has been created by (not necessarily entirely conscious) design... as opposed to these other traits of synesthesia, which appear to have no immediately obvious utility, and seem to be a sort of signal noise bleeding over into the other sensory processors.

Not that signal noise is necessarily a bad thing. Long live rock and roll.

That's just my non-expert take. I do this "seeing" of language, but I can't relate to any of this other stuff.

I think this thread is so interesting. I know my son thinks in pictures so I asked him if he thought of particular colors when he thought of numbers or letters.

He looked at me like I was crazy. Then he goes on to say he has several screens or boxes going when he thinks "like looking through a blanket at the TV".

Then I was looking at him like he was the crazy one. I definitely don't have some sort of mulitple screen TV going in my head.

Anyway, I think this stuff is fascinating.

I do all kinds of things like this.

I mix up certain words-- generally because I have to stop and parse meaning, not "appearance."

I associate emotions with textures. Bliss (that is, the serene sort-- think spiritual experiences) is a vellux blanket, and the first time I noticed that I was probably about four years old and staying at my grandmother's house. I realized that this was apparently not normative when I mentioned that singing in church elicited this feeling/texture. Anger is dark reddish-black and rough like crumpled foil or gravel underfoot. Fear is slippery and blindingly white-- like satin. Peace is medium green and feels like grass or woven linen.

I also see musical harmonics mentally as colors/brightness. Sort of the way that an electronic tuner turns "green" or lights up when you hit the sweet spot in a note that is on-key? I first noticed that when playing in ensembles... my perception was like "targeting" and the light got "brighter" when tuning got better. Like a dimmer switch or something.

Certain sounds (tonal temperature, not pitch) have emotional context and colors, too. I think that one is fairly normative in some ways, but not in others. It's not situational for me in the way that I think it must be for people who aren't synesthetic. A clarinet is ALWAYS plaintive/anguished/mournful and a dark woodsy brown to me. Doesn't matter what key, tempo, or melody. It makes for some interesting layers in listening to classical or klezmer, but I tend to think of it as "more."

The sound of different instruments is also tied to their "personalities." This has always made the classic narration "Peter and the Wolf" downright painful for me personally, because the clarinet is NOT like any cat I have ever known. It just isn't. And the bassoon is SUPPOSED to be the wolf, and what the heck with the horns?? Why are they in this story at all?? It makes no sense to me and it makes my head hurt to have to think about it all so hard. I also have some trouble with many tone poems. Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, now THAT makes sense to me because it matches my basic synesthetic quirks. My mom often found this aspect of me both weird and aggravating, because even as a little kid, I didn't "appreciate" music the way I was evidently supposed to. LOL.

Oh-- this is a weird one. It probably won't make sense to a lot of people. In protein biochemistry, I have particular COLORS for particular superstructures, and I really had trouble the first grad course I took because the text (and instructor) used different colors that didn't match my internal scheme. Binding sites are always red. I have a lot of trouble since mostly, alpha-helices are depicted with my "binding site" color, and many binding sites are labeled in green.

I also associate different molecular geometry and functional moeities with colors. Octohedral geometry is a deep blue-green in my head. Tetrahedral geometry is yellow. Flat aromatic structures are red or orange, depending on other functional groups. Halogens are yellow-green functional groups. Alcohols are indigo blue, and other oxygen-containing functional groups also seem to turn things different shades of blue for me. I think that I really noticed this when I realized how much I was using this kind of shorthand when interpreting C-13 NMR spectra. Certain ranges were just different colors, and I could literally SEE parts of the structure in my head immediately, like puzzle pieces. Tropanes are black, and each heavy metal has it's own "color" as well. Cadmium is brilliant yellow-orange, lead is brown-black, and nickel is green. (Meaningful only because I studied those at some length, so I developed a 'designation' in my head.)

I suspect, based on my synesthetic experiences professionally, that this may be how some visual-spatial people organize large amounts of information that they need to have on automatic, instantaneous recall. That's how it worked for me. It was a way of working more efficiently and keeping more information in a cross-referential framework in my head.

I also have savant "color" sense. The only way that I can describe this is to say that I have something like completely perfect pitch. I'm kind of a human Pantone reader, and I can do it from memory, not just with live color discrimination. I don't know if it is related or not, but I've often wondered. Color-matching is another thing that REALLY bugs me when it's off. It's like listening to a sustained chord with one note out of tune. EXACTLY like that, in fact, since different chords seem to be different colors for me to start with, but I've never worked that out since I didn't play piano or study chord progressions like that; it's just a thing that I notice when it happens.

I enjoy my synesthesia, and so does DD. But we both know that you don't talk about synesthesia to others. It's something to enjoy privately.

DD and I are the natural spellers in the family. We spell by "sight" but use phonetic basic guidelines and instinct to make guesses at unfamiliar words. It's just that our guesses tend to be better than most. As long as we can SEE the word as we spell it, that is. I am awful at oral spelling.

Oh dear. Of course not.

Biology is always blue, and chemistry is the one that is green. Physics is yellow. That grey color is for math courses.



What has proven to be fascinating is that DD's colors for subjects don't match mine-- and so if SHE organizes things, I can't find anything, and if I do, then she can't.