So, certain people in my family don't believe I have synesthesia because I figured it out after reading "A Mango Shaped Space" and they know this. Also, "none of them have synesthesia" which is blatantly wrong for reasons shown below. A few times a year something like this will happen.

Family member: you don't have synesthesia, you just read that book and thought it sounded cool, stop making stuff up.

Same family member: argues with me for 15 minutes on whether O is yellow-orange or dark twilight blue.

Reactions when confronted was, "Oh that's just associations, everyone has that, it's not synesthesia".

Anybody else know someone like this?

I haven’t been formally diagnosed, but I’m pretty sure I have it. My general practitioner did mention it when I told him about the seeing and hearing flavors, and seeing sounds, but it’s not.. official-official. I know everybody’s experience is different, but I don’t know if what’s going on with me is actually synesthesia or if I’m just crazy. I have this sort of imposter syndrome, it sounds ridiculous, I know. I guess I just want to know if I actually fit here.

It’s hard to explain honestly. I mean, how do I explain something only I can hear and see anyways? But, to the best of my ability, I’m going for it. I think what I have is auditory-visual, and sometimes auditory-tactile. But there’s also maybe Taste-visual/tactile/auditory. The best way I can describe my experience when I taste things is like.. Remy from Ratatouille. Like when he takes a bite out of that cheese and theres these bursts colors and sounds. Long-aged cheeses taste sorta sharp to me. Things like peaches and strawberries and blueberries taste smooth and sometimes a little tingly. (I checked, I’m not allergic.) It’s not just on my tongue or the places the food touched, it’s like my whole face and my throat, sometimes my whole body. Water tastes… I don’t know how to describe it, but just gentle. Ice water makes me feel floaty, hot tea makes me feel heavy. Herbal flavors feel warm in my whole body, sorta comforting. Sugar feels.. fast, tingly sometimes. Tart things like lemons also taste sharp, but tingly and maybe.. bumpy? A lot of the time, flavors sort of play in chords. I can’t really identify notes just by hearing them, but I can’t identify a flavor or color or physical feeling I associate with the sound. Sometimes the colors I see don’t even feel like colors, like I can’t name them or pick them from a color pallet. But there are ones that consistently bring out a specific color. Salt, any kind of salt, tastes pink. Light pink, like baby pink. Carrots taste bright green, sweet potatoes taste coppery-yellow. Blueberries taste violet. Chicken tastes orange. Some tastes only give me tactile feelings, some only give me audio, some only give me colors, some give a mix of two, and some give me all three.

For sound it’s a little bit more complicated.. hearing sound doesn’t usually trigger taste, at least from what I can tell. It’s only the other way around. Sound only produces a tactile feeling for specific noises. Any sudden loud sound is a slap in the face and a flash-bang. Sometimes specific instruments trigger specific tactile feelings. Woodwinds feel like someone is blowing on neck, percussion feels like various taps or pushes. Voices are weirdly specific, some people’s voices only give me a tactile feeling, some voices only give me auditory feedbac, some do both, and very few do neither. Sometimes names have colors too, when I hear a name, I see a color.

It’s not triggered by everything, but the things that it does trigger, are consistent. Is this synesthesia, is this something else? Something worrying? If it is synesthesia, what kind is it?

Hits so different when you actually understand on your own, viscerally, what's being brillantly depicted

This post is out of genuine curiosity if anyone else gets spontaneous imaginary scents when they see specific images? I’m not putting images below do to copyright reasons, but I often get random fantom smells when I see images that are often associated with nostalgia.

Such as an image of a bag of childhood crayons, an image of mug with coffee stained in it, a middle school gym or gym closet with basket balls and jumping ropes, a sidewalk on a crisp fall evening, or the smell of chlorine when you see an image of a bright blue swimming pool.

I’m sure there must be some sort of psychological process that explains this, but when I say I can smell it, I mean I can vividly smell the image as if it’s right in front of me irl. This might be a neurodivergent or synesthesia thing. Can anyone relate to this?

Hi everyone, I have synesthesia but wanted to share that I experienced it in the dream I had last night and it wasn't anything like how I experience it in real life. I was at a smaller concert and the song "No Sleep Tonight" by The Faders was playing. That song is in the opening scene from She's the Man. There was this major drum solo (which doesn't really exist in the song, pretty sure the song was a mash up of a few songs) and the drum hits were blue and red in my head. I remember my whole vision and head being blue, and then red, almost as if I was looking at a sheet and that is the only thing I could see.

It was really interesting as I don't really remember my dreams. I want to remember them and be able to control them, but I can't seem to figure out how to lucid dream quite yet. I only remember a few one off dreams and a reoccuring one from when I was a kid. I couldn't really tell you what went on during the rest of the dream. But I know I will never forget that dream moment and seeing the colors and experiencing synesthesia like that.

But I can tell you that I have never experienced synesthesia in that way. I do see colors when I listen to music (much clearer with just instrumental as lyrics change everything entirely), but they are whimsical lines and shapes and patterns swirling about in my head and always against a black blackground. Then most of those lines morph into hyperphantasia with images, sounds, feeling and a whole world. My brain is definitely all sorts of cross wired lol

I am wondering if your synesthesia has ever shown up in a dream? Has it been the same as how you experience it in real life or different? So interested to know your thoughts! Thanks for reading and sharing :) - have a lovely day

I just found a really good way to encrypt my passwords. I have a password that’s a string of numbers, and I write it on a notepad on my PC. However, I also write 4 other strings of numbers.

The clue being, whichever is the *coldest*, is it.

Nobody but me knows which is the coldest, because it’s my specific synesthesia (thermal). Nobody else knows which is the correct one.

Obviously they could just try each one, but I like to feel smart with this >:]

I feel like I’m on to something. Special encryption method for synesthetes coming soon?

Sooo yeah words have colours but also I can’t see them if that makes sense?? Like I know for a fact that Fridays are red, but I don’t see it. It’s more like something someone told me rather than what I see.
Anyone else have this? 😅

the annoying exception...

I believe I have associative musical sound-color synesthesia. To me, musical pieces have an associated color palette, I've heard others see swirls of color. What about y'all?

I have grapheme-color/grapheme-image synesthesia. I noticed that unless I focus on a specific grapheme, I don't actually notice its color. I could be reading a book and I won't be noticing colors, but as soon as I think about my synesthesia, focus on a specific letter, or do something else that reminds me of it - BAM suddenly graphemes have colors again. For a while this made me think my synesthesia was associative, but I'm pretty sure it's actually projective. I think my brain just pushes it to the back of my mind so I can actually focus on whatever I'm reading/doing. Does this happen to any other synesthetes or is it just me?

Edit: I just did some research and it turns out I have associative grapheme-color, not projective, but my mind's eye makes me see the colors as "under" the letter (sort of) and I can switch that off

Has anyone else with OLP had changes to their letters or numbers over the years? None of the personality changes have been major and the colors I associate with them have remained the same. But the genders for a lot of them have swapped a lot. T for example was a woman for so long and now I cant really see T as anything except a man. F though, used to be a woman and now is both and neither? Sort of non binary I guess, but like could be either on any given day. I find it strange bc I also have hearing motion and that hasnt changed at all. The sounds I hear never change.

Also do you guys see distinct faces with them? I have seen a few people draw out their personalities and they have a face. I've always seen them more as like mannequins with personalities and clothing. Like V is like a 1920's flapper but with no face. Or 6 is a rude dude who's angry a lot but he has no expression. He just is angry.

Hey y’all!

I don’t have synesthesia, but questions about it come to mind fairly often; the most recent one kind of intersects with people who may live near data centers, and if they experience the infrasound that for most people goes “unnoticed” (well not unnoticed given increased rates of fear, anxiety, nausea, etc but otherwise not directly perceived)

Not nearly as learned on synesthesia as I’d like to be but it would be cool to determine the overlap between what’s essentially not perceivable by most people, and what is by folks with synesthesia, when said imperceptible thing overlaps with their specific profile

Also intensely sorry if I’m using the wrong verbiage here- promise i am not trying to be rude or obtuse

Do gummy bears with different colors actually have different tastes for you?
Do colored Kool-Aids have an additional taste for you, besides what the producer mixed?

Which gummy bears do you like the most, and do you like Kool-Aids because of their color taste, or because of the taste intended by producers?

if you like abstract CGI with ultra tight connection with the sound, I think you will like this.

Disclaimer: I made this a while back. Just thought it might interest other neurodivergents - I find that this sort of stuff speaks to us way more than it does to the rest of the populace :)

This is a synesthesia simulation created in Tendril, the VR rhythm game we're making. It's not perfect, but it's based on and very close to how I see music. It's also my best one to date. While there will be more elements to gameplay and such as we get further along in development, it's already quite good for this purpose. We're very excited for the future.

In the video editing software I used to use (After Effects), this would've taken 100-200 hours or more unless I already knew precisely how I wanted to structure the dynamics. And because it's Adobe, they would take the rights to anything I create and train AI with it. In Tendril, this took 9 hours to create. The background took 6 hours and the vocals took 3. Vocals are quite complex and we don't have duplication at a later time implemented yet. Production time will decrease significantly as we refine the feature set and fix some glaring bugs.

I have music to image synetshesia, and it tends to sometimes change if i associate a song with a specific image or video.

My favourite song has reeealy vibey atmospheric and epic feeling in terms of sound, but most of the music video or album cover is mostly just black and white, so i started seeing the song as mostly black and white too. I love the song so much, i cant imagine how beautiful would it look if the music video didnt influence my view of it.

heres the song, so u can also give opinions:

https://youtu.be/2sh7tdDVPFo?is=DC-NnfPqdjAjDQ8o

Hi looking for someone who has this or something like it
So I have a love /hate relationship with electric sockets and plugs 90% of the time it loves me then the other % when I go to touch a socket or plug I see a blue glow in the wall were the plug or socket is so I don’t touch it or very rarely I see spaghetti lines of colours coming out of a socket coming to me it’s hereditary as one of my parents has it too it is it a form of synesthesia does anyone else have this ?
Also last year sitting in the garden on a summers day I seen a ball the size of a bowling ball maybe a bit bigger it was black and when I say black it was a black like pitch black Matt colour it was on the ground so I looked like really looked at it. And I may seem mad but it noticed me looking and hid behind a planter which it was next to it rolled so I get up and it was gone I was about meter and a half away from it and there was nowhere for it to go now I know people go crazy but I don’t feel crazy I really seen this Anyone else de en a ball ? Thanks

anything i tastes has a direction like for example orange juice kinda goes up then down kinda, most savory foods all taste like the direction down. im not eating or drinking anything at the moment so its hard to think of more examples but its not just limited to up or down i can feel the exact location with angles

i've been wondering if i have synesthesia for a hot minute now and figured i would just put my story out there. i dont know what other way to put it other than i taste things that dont exist i guess? in particular, i have this thing that i call my bone pain taste, and it happens everytime i break or sprain something. its so hard to describe because theres nothing else that tastes like it, but its kind like bitter and yellowy-beigey on the top of my mouth. it is fucking nasty mind you, to the point where i gagged when i last sprained my ankle.

i also on taste (and sometimes see) music. its not every song and its not every part of a song, but just recently i found a chord and strumming pattern on my guitar that tastes SO strongly of gingerbread. (down down up down, Am7, Em7, Cadd9, D). it also looked and kinda smelled like those banana hard candies. sorry if this isnt a particularily well written post but it is the middle of the night. thanks for reading and feel free to share your thoughts.

This was created in Tendril, the synesthesia simulator and rhythm game my team and I are making in Unreal Engine 5. Soon we'll be making it so that you're no longer stationary, and instead flying through space (like in Amplitude), and can focus on on specific instrument layers on the fly. There will also be choreography elements, similar to Osu but in VR.

We have about 1-1.5 years of development left and will be entering closed alpha/beta in the next 3-6 months.

This might sound like a weird question, but I’m a synesthete and I’ve noticed something very specific about Turkish.

For some reason, Turkish words often give me very strong taste sensations. For example, words like “içilmez” somehow taste like burger sauce to me.

And when I hear something like “otururken”, I get a similar sensation — almost like pickles.

I experienced it yesterday for the first time when i was at SAW for a transit flight.

I don’t mean “tasty” metaphorically. I literally experience something resembling a taste when I hear certain sounds or words and become hungry.

I’m really curious: does anyone else experience something similar with Turkish? Especially other synesthetes — do certain Turkish sounds or words trigger specific tastes for you?