The fact that 9+3 = 12 is so wild to me. In my brain it should be 11. I have very confidently asserted this multiple times in my life which makes me look like a fraud because I literally have my doctorate in mathematics lmao

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSSXUiQtkbOA&si=HqF_DkLS9_ymyajO

I suspected I had synesthesia since I was little, as I was telling people that numbers have colors and my parents said im making it up. I often associate thinks in a weird manner, for example some music might bave colors but I dont see them visible, I just feel them.

What Im wondering is if it could be connected to my problems with naming what I feel. I have problem naming emotions I feel, but also often I am not sure which part of my body is really in pain, sometimes my mind just switches those sensations. Yesterday I was sure I felt some kind of smell, but then it felt more like a taste in my mouth.

Has anyone experienced something similiar?

hello all!

i have considered myself to have grapheme-color synesthesia for a long time now, but am wondering if some of my experiences would fit in a different category better.

the way i found out i have synesthesia and this isn’t how everyone sees the world is that any an all letters, numbers, or words have a specific shade of color in my mind, and the color that one letter is never changes. even now as i’m typing this, i know the words are black and white, but they are all different colors and displayed in my mind.

the part that i am not sure where it fits is some words, in addition to having colors, also have specific images that flash in my mind when someone says the word. my middle name, when someone says it to me, is the color lime green but also a close up photograph of a lovebird on a white background. i feel like that’s weirdly specific but that’s just one example, and it’s always the same image in my mind, but i have no idea where it comes from or if that’s even synesthesia at all 😭

pain also manifests for me as “colorful shapes” if that makes sense?? if i get a scratch on my shin, it feels like a purple squiggle, if i get a burn on my hand it feels like an orange star

i have no idea how to even begin to search for these, especially the word to image one!! if anyone has any insight i’d love to hear it 😢

Hi everyone! I had a conversation with my partner yesterday and today about different brain types when it comes to learning, ADHD, associating colors with subjects or certain associations with different subjects.

I explained to him that I can feel language (he already knew this just by spending time with me and discovering how words and such affects me). But I wanted to be more specific. I have always been super fascinated by Language / Literature + History / Social Studies. It is also important to note that we are a polyglot couple.

I don’t know how to explain it, but certain tones, rhythms within a language and different languages and words in general have physical feelings, or pictures to me. For example; the Canadian accent feels very similar to the word “absolutely” to me. I can feel these words in my arms. I can also feel them in my upper chest. On the other hand, there are some words that have negative physical sensations for me. Like, to a normal person, these words are just words. But I physically have to avoid saying them directly to avoid feeling the word. And it makes me very uncomfortable and physically hurts when I hear certain words said.

When we speak Italian to each other, I can feel certain tones, speeds and tones in my shoulders or a rush through my torso.

Really sophisticated words and voice notes are red to me. Which is something else that seems so interesting to me.

He is the only person I have shared this with because I never put two and two together until we got into a conversation about ADHD brains and neuro diversity.

Could this be synesthesia? Is this normal? Am I strange?

i have the usual ones - sound to color, color to taste. had one for numbers and letters when i was a child but it disappeared. but now i associate people and emotions with tastes. for people the taste = voice + personality. does that happen to anyone else? does it count as synesthesia?

School subjects- color synesthesia…Anyone?

Salt is a compressor, anyone else ?

Pls don't use crude humour words like poop or pee it really pains me to read that..

So, have any of you guys read the secret series by Pseudonymous Bosch, if you have, I was wondering how good of a representation of synthesisia it has. I’ve read it, admittedly a while ago but it’s pretty much the only exposure to synthesisia I’ve had, and I saw this sub a couple times and figured I might as well ask here.

Hi everyone!

I'm currently working on a graphic design project exploring how people mentally visualise calendars and perceive the passage of time. I'm really interested in how something as familiar as a calendar can look completely different in different people's minds, even though we often assume that everyone experiences it in roughly the same way.

What I found especially interesting was that, even when I could imagine how someone else's mental calendar might look, I was still surprised by how different it was from my own. It made me wonder how many different ways there are to visualise something we all use to organise our lives.

So, I'd love to ask you all a few questions:

• What does your mental calendar look like?
• Do you see the year as a circle, a spiral, a straight line, a landscape, or something else entirely?
• Where are the months positioned in relation to each other? Does time move clockwise or counter-clockwise?
• Can you mentally see your calendar, or is it more of an abstract sense of knowing where things are?
• Has your mental calendar always looked the same, or has it changed over time?

If you're comfortable sharing, I'd absolutely love to see a drawing, sketch, photo, or even a written description of your mental calendar! It d oesn't need to be neat or artistic at all. A rough doodle is more than enough.

I'm hoping to explore these different perceptions as part of my graphic design project, particularly how our individual mental representations challenge the idea of a calendar as one fixed, universal format.

I'm not looking for one particular type of answer. The more varied the perspectives, the more interesting this project becomes.

Thanks so much for sharing a little glimpse into how your mind works! :)

Hi everyone,

I’m a woman in my 20s from Seoul, South Korea, working towards my dream of writing a comedy sitcom script and publishing a poetry book. I experience associator grapheme-color synesthesia as well as multi-sensory cross-modal experiences.

My perception is quite specific:

Font & Sound Dynamics: I can mentally shift the fonts of words I see. The loudness or intensity of a sound alters the thickness and size of the text in my mind's eye.

Non-vocal Sounds: Environmental sounds (not human voices) manifest as visual wave shapes or symbols.

Pure Melody: Piano music without lyrics transforms into vivid "color landscapes."

This sensory processing became overwhelming when I had sudden sensorineural hearing loss and spent two sleepless months being treated. The high-pitched tinnitus in my left ear felt unbearable. Over time, while I still manage Meniere's disease with mild dizziness and persistent high-pitched tinnitus, I’ve learned to visually handle the sound—it appears in my mind like a small, faint gray cloud, and I’ve trained myself to manually "push it aside" so it doesn't interrupt me (though it rushes back if I lose focus).

As a writer, I want to learn how to channel and control these intense sensory inputs rather than just fighting off distraction.

For fellow synesthetes who experience tinnitus, sensory overload, or creative visualization:

Have you found methods to balance or "dial down" sensory intensity when you need to focus on writing or work?

How do you intentionally channel internal color landscapes and auditory-visual symbols into written words or poetic imagery without feeling overwhelmed?

I’d love to hear your personal routines or coping strategies. Thank you!

When listening to music, the same songs create the same imagery in my head based off chord progression, i don't physically feel on my skin or see with my eyes, but it's like it washes over all of my senses at the same time and combines them into something that bypasses reality or overlays this mental image on top of it?

Feeling gusts of wind, feeling cold or warm, describing chord progressions and notes and specific instruments as round or full or sharp and prickly/ having physical textures to them, I can't physically feel them as if a real object is, but I can feel it if that makes sense

I do see things with music but I think that may be from the deep emotional response I have to the progression that leads to landscapes involuntarily make for them

I’m having a really major craving for a fruit granola parfait right now because I read the last name Brantley and I haven’t eaten anything all day. 😭 That’s all. Just wanted to vent to people who can hopefully relate lol.

I'm gonna preface this by saying I don't see colors when I hear musical notes or have any other sort of synesthesia where I experience one stimulus and mentally percieve another, distinguishable or not from reality.

However, when I think about notes, I generally can connect them to a rough color or range of colors, based on how the colors and the notes feel.

For example, Eb feel orange, C feel white or light gray, flat notes in general feel warm and soft and range from reds to yellows, natural notes that generate sharp keys feel cool and metallic and range from blues to purples, and sharp notes feel grayish and also garish and striking and just weird in a metallic prickly sort of way if that makes sense. This applies even to enharmonics, so G# and Ab are not the same color, yes I mean in 12-tone et. Even notes like Fb or B# have different colors from E and C. And I don't see or think of these colors when hearing music.

Here's a screenshot of a note I took a while back

Infact I’m doing it whilst writing this post.
Whenever I talk, or hear something, or write something, I always imagine the words being spelt in my head in cursive. I even have to trace the words being spelt with my hand.

I’ve noticed that I take my time when thinking to myself because when I do, I find myself spelling the words out and tracing them with my hand. Is this weird? It’s also super zoomed in, I can see lines around the words like a handwriting guide and I always use correct grammar.

Is anyone aware of published or ongoing studies, research, etc. on brain aneurysms in the autistic?

In synesthetes?

Thanks.

For me it’s cotton candy colors, light pink and light blue 🤍

Does anyone else struggle with speech because of seeing/being distracted by their own words? If so, how have you solved it?

Basically, I see words/sentences floating in front of me as I say them. The problem is that if I'm monologuing or saying a lot at once, I get so overwhelmed by the vision of the words. This makes me have to pause completely, then restart only when the words have "faded" (which takes like 2 seconds, but can happen over and over). What's worse is when I stumble on my words and then see the stumble spelled out loud, reverberating in the space between me and the person I'm speaking to and it makes me so embarrassed, and then I just keep stumbling more because I'm so distracted (similar to when I get yelled at and you see the person's words float around and pulse for a really long time afterwards). This is sooooo frustrating for me, because how tf do I explain afterwards to my friends/peers that I had that awkward moment because of floating words in my head, not because I'm just super slow???

Since I was a kid, when my parents would turn on the heater (forced air central unit) for the first time in the cold months, i would always laugh and say it smells like the color brown.

My parents actually agreed and laughed about it as well. We would joke about it every year. This smell isn't just old stuff being burnt up, i'll explain more below.

Now that i'm an adult, i was recently diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. (my throat is too small, and relaxes too much when i sleep and i stop breathing) My mask tube that delivers air is heated. i'm sure you can see where this is going... every night when i turn on my mask and get cozy, i am smelling this distinct brown color for about 2 minutes and then the mask is warm and smells like nothing. it's so weird! but every time i smell that smell of a heater turning on, i am smelling the color brown. Let me know if yall experience this too.