My Updated Types!

So, I’ve been searching about synesthesia, and I’ve discovered a lot of my types!

Here are my 14 types (from weakest to strongest) :
– Letter-texture
– Letter-color
– Number-color
– Color-number
– Color-letter
– Mirror-touch
– Song-temperature
– Personality-color
– Spatial Sequence
– Mirror-kinetics
– Ordinal-linguistic personification
– Mirror-pain
– Ticker-tape
– Mirror-emotion

If you have any questions, just leave them below!

 

(EDIT :  I also have sound to pressure and sound to temperature)

ANOTHER New Type For Me

It seems that I’m slowly discovering all of my synesthesia types… I am now up to eight.

This type I call  mirror-kinetics, although it doesn’t really have a name. It’s basically, sometimes, when I see someone moving (for example, falling) I’ll feel as if I’m falling too. It can be really scary, but I tend to be able to snap out of it. It can be really disorienting.

It doesn’t happen on a daily basis, but it does happen from time to time.

So, yeah… this one I’m sure of.

My Synesthesia

Alright, so I decided to answer the three following questions, because I think that they are fun 🙂 You can answer them below, if you want!

1) What is your favorite type of synesthesia (that you have)?

My favorite type has to be my ticker-tape, although it does have its down sides. For example, what’s great about it is that it helps me remember more things than most people. But, when too many people talk, since I tend to rely on my synesthesia, now I have to listen more. Because, what I normally do, is that I let my synesthesia do the work… so I don’t always listen to what people are saying, I just ‘read’ what they are saying.

2) My least favorite type? 

Oh, that’s an easy one. Although it can sometimes be a bit useful, my mirror-emotion is NOT fun. Before I found out that it was synesthesia, I called it super-epic-empathy, but it can be really annoying, and as a child, it was really confusing to feel other people’s emotions and not be able to tell if they were mine or not. But now, I have learnt to kinda control it.

3) Which type do you wish you had?

I’d love to have either : smell to color, taste to color or sound to color. All of these sound great 🙂

Grapheme-Color Synesthesia

Definition :

So, this is the first type that I’m going to describe, since it’s the most common synesthesia type. Grapheme to color synesthesia is when the synesthete associated involuntarily and consistently a letter, number, word, etc. to a color. It can either be associated (seen in their mind) or projected (seen in the outside world). Since this is the most common type, it wouldn’t be surprising that someone you know has it. What is great about every type of synesthesia, is that everyone experiences it differently.

Experiences :

Best experience: Grapheme-color synesthesia, when I was little (like 3 or 4 years old) and that my parents were teaching me Maths, I remember just loving ‘my numbers’ (which had colors and personalities). So, I guess it developed my interest in Mathematics.

Worst experience: I’ve never had a bad experience with my grapheme-color synesthesia.

Examples: A is a pale beige, F is brown, 2 is yellow -Cath (a.k.a. Me)

——-
Best experience: This type of synesthesia helps me spell. In fifth grade, we had charts in the classroom that showed how many times each of us had gotten a perfect score on a spelling test. I was the best speller in the class. Amazed, everyone gathered around my chart as I put another sticker on it. The class bully said, “I wouldn’t want to do good in spelling because then people think that you’re smart and stuff.” I knew that she cheated in spelling, so she really wanted to do good.

Worst experience: I thought one of my classmates was a synesthete because of the way he colored the letters on a poster. I asked him, “what color is A? Yellow or red?” Turns out he doesn’t know. Now he thinks I’m weird.

Examples: A is yellow, L is pink, 8 is orange. -Liz

My Synesthesia Types

Hello everyone! I decided that it was time to make a post about my synesthesia types. Many synesthetes will have many types of synesthesia, and I am one of them! I have 5 types (that I know of) (EDIT) : I have discovered that I have 6 (SECOND EDIT) : I may have a 7th type (THIRD EDIT) : I have a 8th type (FOURTH EDIT): I have 9 types , and some of them are weaker than the others. I don’t know if I have others, since I only just discovered I have synesthesia about nine or ten days ago. I won’t write too much about my types, since I will be doing separate posts for pretty much every type of synesthesia and I’ll explain them more in depth later.

Grapheme-color (numbers-colors, letters-colors)

My grapheme-color synesthesia is probably my weakest type. Only 7 letters have colors, and only the numbers 0 to 9, and 17 have a color. For the other numbers, they have a color, but I need to focus to pinpoint them. As you can see for my letters, they have kind of weird colors (the letter m isn’t that exact shade, and the c has a bit more of a turquoise tint to it). My z is kind of like a ‘moving’ rainbow. My numbers can be yellow, white or a dark blue.

Spatial sequence (days of the week, dates and memories)

My spatial sequence is with the days of the week, but also the way I remember my memories. It’s as if I’m… reaching into files that are interconnected…  I’ll ‘jump’ from memory to memory… like actually jump in my head. All the memories (and years and dates I have to remember for history) are connected in some tiny way that only makes sense to me, and that has always helped me remember things.

Ordinal-linguistic personification (OLP) (numbers-personalities)

Pretty much every number has a personality, although most of them are really ‘faint’. And my personalities are simple; the numbers are either neutral, good or bad. They have some ‘degrees’ of good or bad, for example 7 is a really bad number, any irrational number too. 17 is the best, and that makes it my favorite number. None of my letters have personalities.

Mirror-touch (touch, pain and emotions)

My mirror-touch synesthesia, even though it’s a bit weak, it’s way more present in my life, and I now notice it way more. When somebody gets touched, I can feel kind of a tickle. Sometimes I won’t notice it, since it’s a part of my life. When I’m watching a horror movie (I only watched one in all my life and HATED it), I’m always so tense sand I don’t feel good at all. When somebody gets hurt, I’ll feel an extreme discomfort in that place in my body, and I noticed that I always need to shake it to get the feeling out of my body. Mirro-touch also affects my empathy. I always over-empathize! It’s just ridicule!

Ticker-tape (English and French)

Even though it sounds weird, Ticker-tape synesthesia is actually my ‘favorite’ synesthesia. And, it’s also my ‘strongest’.  I love it, since it helps me remember things better. Since it’s a rare type of synesthesia, it’s not really well know. Well, basically, when somebody talks, I see ‘subtitles’ of the words they are speaking. It can get annoying when either I just don’t want to listen to someone, or that TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE TALKING AT THE SAME TIME. When too many people are talking at the same time, I’m like : asdfghjkl; and my ticker-tape goes WILD, and I have a hard time concentrating on one of the conversations.

I love my synesthesia. Pretty much any synesthete will tell you that. It can sometimes bug me a little, but most of the time, it helps me! I wish everyone could experience it!

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below!

(EDIT): I have discovered that I have a sixth type of synesthesia; mirror-emotion. It’s similar to mirror-touch, except… you guessed it…. with emotions! I’d say this type is as strong, if not stronger, than my ticker-tape synesthesia.

(SECOND EDIT) : New type : Mirror-sound.

(THIRD EDIT) : ANOTHER new type : Mirror-kinetics

(FOURTH EDIT) : I have nine types, since mirror-touch and mirror-pain aren’t the same

How to Self-Diagnose Your Synesthesia

Since there is no ‘real’ test you can actually take to know if you have synesthesia (when I say real, I mean, that you’d get your blood analyzed or a brain scan… on to the brain scan later), the diagnosis is pretty hard. But, you can diagnose yourself.

First step

Pinpoint which kind of synesthesia you may have. There might be only one, or there might be a dozen, or even more!

Second step

Search on Google or any search engine for any article for each type, and search for some people’s experiences with the type of synesthesia you are looking for.

Third step

Compare how you experience them, and remember that it is normal that everything you experience isn’t the same as other people’s experiences, so, OF COURSE it’s going to be a little different.

Fourth step

For some types of Synesthesia, you can take the Synesthesia Battery, which is an online test. If your score is less than 1, you have synesthesia. Now, this is a long test, but you can still save along the way. I recommend taking this, because there was still a little doubt in the back of my mind about my synesthesia, and taking this and having a score .33 took all the doubt away.

Fifth step

Since the Synesthesia Battery test is only for some types of synesthesia, and so maybe the previous step isn’t for you, but make sure your synesthesia is consistent and unintentional. For example, an A for me will always be a pale sandy kind of beige.

Also, this is a well known test for grapheme-color synesthetes (with numbers), you need tofind the twos quickly! But, my twos and fives have the exact same color… yellow. So, I could still see them quickly, but not as quickly as other synesthetes.

Hopefully, this helped you a little. Maybe you discovered that you also are a synesthete? Maybe you already knew that you were a synesthete, and this just confirmed it!

*About the brain scan, there is a way with MITs… I think… but it would cost way too much money, and the results would still be vague*

 

(If you want to add anything in the comments, don’t be afraid! :D)

What IS Synesthesia?

You may have stumbled upon the word synesthesia while doing God-knows-what, and even though you have searched and searched on the web to find an easily understandable definition, you simply couldn’t find one, because most of them have many technical terms, or sometimes it’s hard to imagine, especially for a non-synesthete.

I’ll try to explain it without sounding all sciencey.

Synesthesia is a pretty rare occurring; the synesthete will experience things that seem normal to them, but to non-synesthetes,  it may seem taken from a Marvel comic.  They experience a ‘cross-wire’ of senses. And that means that, for example, some synesthetes will hear a sound, and they’ll see a color (which is called sound to color synesthesia). There are many types of synesthesia, and we haven’t discovered every type yet!

Synesthesia can be associated or projected. Associated means that the synesthete experiences their synesthesia in their head, wherehas a projector feel as if they see it in the ‘real’ world.  Both are considered like synesthesia.

Now, if you’re here because somebody you know (a friend, family member, etc.) told you that they have synesthesia, if they are telling, it’s probably because they trust you and they are most likely NOT lying to you! More on to that on a later post, though.

Many synesthetes will experience many types of synesthesia. Some will only experience one, but if you know you have one, you can search others!

One thing I can’t say enough, is that synesthesia is unintentional and it always stays the same.

There are many types of synesthesia, here are a few (I will put a link as I post more details about them):

-Grapheme-color

-Sound to color

-Sound to taste

-Emotion to color

-Ordinal-linguistic personification (OLP)

(these are just a few, as I said, but I will be posting a ‘complete’ list in the future!)

Hello! (short introduction)

Hey everyone (synesthetes and non-synesthetes too!),

I am Cath, and as a synesthete, I decided to create a blog mainly dedicated to synesthesia-related stuff. I’ll talk about my experiences, and hopefully I’ll be able to feature other synesthetes, since I don’t have every type of synesthesia.

I am hoping that the synesthesia community will expand, and that we’ll be able to communicate and help each other.

(for example, if you’re looking for a group, here is the group on ExperienceProjet, there is a forum and a place to post story where you can just talk about your experiences or ask for advice, it is called ‘I Have Synesthesia‘ if you are wondering, my username is ccath17c!)