Test yourself for synesthesia
Synesthesia is the overlapping of the senses: if you can smell purple, or a number has a color, or the like—see The Man Who Tasted Shapes, by Richard Cytowic. Famous synesthetes include Duke Ellington (timbre perceived as color; Richard Feynman (equations perceived in color); Franz Liszt (tone perceived as color); Vladimir Nabokov (grapheme perceived as color).
And now you can test yourself for synesthesia. (I’m not a synesthete, but it seems as though it would be very handy, providing another category for storing and retrieving memory and making associations.)
UPDATE: Apparently synesthesia does not depend on low-level wiring in the brain but uses the higher-level brain functions.
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Hey synesthetes! I just found a great website with an online synesthesia survey – you can vote what color is letter ‘A’ and each letter or number in your mind and you can see what color lots of other people voted for. Really interesting: http://www.tukan.extra.hu
Anna
13 September 2008 at 10:07 am
Speaking of synesthesia, thought my site my be of interest to you. Just started it a week ago and am trying to get the word out.
http://www.vsolfactorium.blogspot.com
V
20 September 2008 at 1:32 pm
You know, I’m dead interested in this kind of stuff, and I’m only 14!
I just want to have this condition so badly, really, and I can’t do anything. Anyway, if any of you decided to read “A Mango Shaped Space”, it’s really good and it involves color-letter/number and color-sound synesthesia.
The Nerd
15 December 2008 at 2:09 pm
i saw a mango-shaped space, sitting on the side of a desk, and i didnt know what synesthesia was, but i knew i had it… and i thought, hey, she sees numbers and words as colors too, like how some colors are deppressing, like navy blue, and other things, its the most interesting thing ever, and i freake dout a bt when i saw that it was a disease…XD
Patricia (12)
10 March 2009 at 10:51 pm
It’s not a disease at all. It’s a neurological condition that seems to have some significant benefits. I just learned that the piano technician who worked with Glenn Gould was a synesthete.
LeisureGuy
11 March 2009 at 6:40 am
I think i have synesthesia, but I’m not sure. I’m about half way through “A Mango-Shaped Space” and the more she describes it the more I think I have synesthesia! It is a very interesting topic, and if I don’t have synesthesia, I want it, because I love colors, and art. When I here someone’s name Ipicture colors and shapes…
Serenity
14 April 2009 at 8:35 am
So I finally found a name for what I have done my whole life. Interesting in deed. I am sorry that some (seeming) clinicians have labeled it as “wrongly connected” wiring in the brain. Gratefully I have lived 54 years enjoying knowing that today is navy blue and tomorrow will be light lime green, and in 7 days it will be navy blue again -every week for my entire life! I love that different sounds have different colors, and vice versa. Colors (and other sensing triggers) are a great way to associate. I’ve never gotten up early on a marbly white day just to realize that it wasn’t a school day. Marbly white days follow a screaming red and yellow day which is the last day in a school week. Get the picture? Let the clinicians say something is “wrong” about it. It not only keeps my life very organized, but it’s pretty darn cool. (Cool is light blue, by the way.)
Robbie
25 April 2009 at 1:44 pm
P.S. You can’t NOT be sure about whether or not you associate things this way. What you CAN be sure about is that people who don’t do it will confuse the traits and try to label it according to their understanding…like the one who said that we put a color film over a particular letter. That letter is the same color all the way through it. No film at all. The person who doesn’t do it sees their own blank letter ands then puts our color on it according to their understanding. (blank to me is a block of clear lucite (I was born after plastics were invented)…just in case you wondered.) Don’t let others confuse you. Blank is different to you, and so are all of the things you associate. Unite, Synesthesiacs and be yourself!
Robbie
25 April 2009 at 1:52 pm
Very cool. I agree: synesthetes are not “wrong” in any way. BTW, I do recommend the book mentioned above. You can find inexpensive copies at Abebooks.com
LeisureGuy
25 April 2009 at 2:58 pm
Yeah, it definitely seems like an enhancement to me (it’s not a bug, it’s a feature!) – I feel a bit cheated by NOT having it.
the wife
25 April 2009 at 3:19 pm
Having synesthesia is awesome
don’t worry if you don’t though, I didn’t realise that what I was experiencing was different to other people until I found out about
Emily
11 May 2009 at 2:51 am
Robbie, your synesthesia sounds so cool! Mine is just an association between colors and numbers/letters. I grew up thinking that I had just seen a lot of Sesame Street as a kid and that the colors of their numbers and letters had rubbed off on me, until one day I asked my mom and she told me I never really watched Sesame Street that often. Then I was just confused and thought I was a weird kid. One day I happened upon that book, A Mango Shaped Space, in a bookstore, and when I read the back cover, my heart started racing and I knew at once that there was something more to what I had than just being a weird kid. I knew that I had synesthesia and I was so happy to finally have something to call it. My parents had always thought there was something wrong with me!
Hannah
28 May 2009 at 12:13 am
I am a synaesthete too, and I am 13. I definatly think it is an enhancement, not a set-back. Ii hope I have my synesthesia forever! i read A Mango-Shape Space too, and it really helped understand that I’m not so alone!
Nini
3 July 2009 at 2:53 pm
hi there!
before a few days i also discovered that i have two types of synaesthesia.
1) like robby, i see specific colours for each day of the week. for years, since i was child, i had been thinking that the day-colour is a combination made up by my imagination.
2) about this type, i have the combination: number – personality.
what i mean is that for each number i always see a specific type of personality.
for example: when i see or here the number “8″ i feel it being “scared”.
the “3″ is always ironic
the “5″ is always serious and calm
and so on….
i ve read that the 2nd type i wrote here, is rare and next week am meeting a cognitive psychologist researcher in order to give me more tests, so to learn more about this type of my synaesthesia.
ps: sorry for my bad english…is just that i am greek and i dont speak it so fluently
desppina
4 July 2009 at 1:11 am
@desppina: Very cool. BTW, you might find this post to be of interest.
LeisureGuy
4 July 2009 at 8:56 am
I read “A Mango-Shaped Space” and loved it. That’s how i got interested in it. Other books by the same author, Weny Mass, are also good
E
9 August 2009 at 3:06 pm
omg
my whole life i thought im weird and now i found out that im not the only one!
It all began when i was a kid and every time i would meet a new friend i would always associate his name with color and even when i wouldn’t memorize the name precisely i would certainly remember the color. Such that if someone would ask me: that little girl you played with, whats her name? – i would respond: i dont remember exeactly, but something red…
to desppina:
I see exactly the same things with the numbers!!!
the 8 is like shaking little kid who did smth bad n now is scared to be punished, right?
3 is always like: so what? whatever you say he’s skeptical n always argues over every single statement
I personally hate number 2 because he’s like a nerdy little A+ student who always knows what is right and wrong and teaches you how to live
dont you agree???
to Hannah:
I thought so, too!!! But it wasnt about the Sesame Street, but some analogical tv show back in the country im from. And plus i thought some kids books are a part of it, too.
anya
14 August 2009 at 9:24 pm
Omg I can’t belive it!!! I’m not the only one that tastes cupcakes when she hears her best friend talking!!!!
Lilly
27 August 2009 at 5:27 pm
Wow…….. this really triggers something. One time I was on a cruise ship and every time I walked out onto my deck I always tasted cherry pie! OMG I’m not the only one!!! This is SO cool!
Eliza
3 September 2009 at 6:18 pm
I have synesthesia. anyone else think this is extremely cool?! Its making me hot and spicy! lol, jk. Btw the word hot is the color red, and spicy is like a maroon/red/purpleish color. Kind of like a pepperoni color.
Kayleigh
3 September 2009 at 8:29 pm
Now I know what I have! I didn’t realize I had a ‘condition” or whatever. I thought people put days and colors together so forth. With friends or family when i think of them I picture a color. Like Green was what I had when I thought of my friend, Seth. He told me later on that was actually his favorite color.
Jen
11 September 2009 at 8:48 am
All my life I thought I was weird and now I know there are others! I haven’t told anybody about it because I think that they will put me in a learning disabled class or something. Should I talk about it? It’s not like I see differently, I just associate sight with smell. Is there something wrong with me and who should I tell? Help! I need advice from people like me!
Eliza
19 September 2009 at 11:11 am
Nothing wrong with you at all. And, if you present it in a good light, your special ability should make other people envious. I suggest you get a copy of The Man Who Tasted Shapes and read it. That will provide you with a lot of information. Copies are available for $1 at the link.
LeisureGuy
19 September 2009 at 11:20 am
i learned about synesthesia from a children book called “The Name Of This Book Is Secret.” by Pseudonymous Bosch. long first name right? XD. when my mom makes pasta i taste it and the walls turn orange. i may have synesthesia a little
Anonymous
14 October 2009 at 4:26 pm
I have a certain type of synesthesa, months, days of the week, and pain have color, I also arrange things such is my scheduele in shapes. What I really want to know is why if I don’t have these types of synesthesia D is always purple, when a door slams I see varous shades of brown, and why when someone says oranguan I taste rice ?
Rose
17 October 2009 at 7:31 am
Hi, I’ve just taken the test you linked – very useful! I discovered I had synaesthesia a couple of years ago (well, discovered a name for it.) Anyway, ironically, I did better on the numbers/ letters/ months –> colour than I did on music notes/chords –> colour (ironic because I always thought mine was music –> colour). I averaged 1.225 in my battery test – has anyone else taken it and what did you get?
MikaHaeli
16 December 2009 at 11:24 am
hi i’m naddy and i just got finished with a mango shaped space sad but good.i’m 13 and i wish i had this gift it seems so cool.i don’t think i have it but if i want to i can match letters with colors like the letter L is a light baby blue and G is a dark deep purple.
naddi
20 December 2009 at 5:15 pm
I’m barely a synesthesite, certain letters (L, T, U, and some others) I see as green. I also see colors sometimes…blues, greens, purples, and pinks, when I hear certain sounds or feel a certain way.
Nicole
20 January 2010 at 2:47 pm
And one more thing…I’m a forgetful person…I don’t know if this connects to synesthesia, but everything has personalities. Everything. It gets a little hard to eat sometimes because of it, but it’s ok. I sound a bit crazy don’t I. Well, if you thought that was crazy, I guess you’ve never listened to what a remote has to say. It’s interesting.
Nicole
20 January 2010 at 2:50 pm
If Rose ever comes back and sees this, I think I can answer your question. I learned out about snynesthesia this year. I always thought what I saw was normal. Anyways, my English teacher brought it up, because both her and her kids have it. So she talked about it one day, and she says that most people have more than one type of synesthesia. Maybe you’re like me, Rose, in a way. I can only see certain things as certain colors (see previous entries) an um…yeah. I think maybe some of your synesthia senses are stronger than others, that’s all.
Nicole
21 January 2010 at 9:21 pm
P.S. naddy I read A Mango Shaped Space too. I really like it.
Nicole
21 January 2010 at 9:22 pm
hi, im pretty sure i hve synesthesia. . . i see letters and numbers in color but they dont actually appear in front of me, i see it in my head. For example like the letter A is bright green, and the number 2 is baby blue. dont see colors when i hear sounds. but i think i taste colors because whenever i hve sore throat, i taste magenta and dark blue squiggly lines in my mouth. (i know i must sound crazy!) but i dont taste anything else. if anyone has anything similar to i do, id like to comment lol.
i also read a mango shaped space….i rly lliked it nicole 2.
apperently synesthesia is more commen in females, who are left-handed and who have problem with foreign launguages, and navigation and math. (all of the above is true for me..im femae, left handed, and im horrible and math and my spanish
p.s-i culd go into alot more deatail with my synesthesia but i alrerady feel like im boring you guys but….
bye!
-Logan
Logan
5 April 2010 at 2:22 pm
Oh wow, i didn’t know this many other people had it unti
Born on a blue day
and a mango shaped space.
I have sound to colour. which is projected for the most part which is a pain in the BUTT
my school bell looks like a flatline on a heart monitor in yellow with a bump if i can hear the bell clear.
and my numbers all have genders and personalities.
at first; my parents thought it was skitzo..
Jess !
5 May 2010 at 8:40 pm
i didnt know that what i have is synesthesia. for a long time i thought it was a mild form of scitzofrenia but since i read the bok ‘the society of S’ I know what it is now. but i dissagree S is not blue its green. i also see colors when i hear music and hear peoples voices and other sounds. but it doesent explain why i see things that arent there, like an old building that was once there but got torn down. i see it as if it were standing right in front of me but i can tell that it isnt and i only see it for a moment. is that synesthesia or something else? i also so black and white in almost full color and letters and numbers are colored. i also know people by the color of thier name, not the name itselfl. but synesthesia is not a diseas, wich was a reliefe to me coconsiddering that i thought i w schitzo.
christinaXashley
11 May 2010 at 10:01 pm
so im not really sure if i have this or not. Is it a known form of synesthesia to see images with a form of movement, or vice versa?
taylar
31 May 2010 at 8:31 pm
i have no idea
bob
21 June 2010 at 6:48 pm
synesthesia isn’t fun. in a loud place it can drive you crazy
gary
21 June 2010 at 6:48 pm