Spiritual Forum

This phenomenon, called Synesthesia (also spelled synæsthesia or synaesthesia, plural synesthesiæ or synæsthesiæ), from the ancient Greek σύν (syn), "together," and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis) “aisthesis”, "sensation," is a neurological condition– consists of the pairing of two bodily senses by which the perception of a determined stimulus activates a different subjective perception with no external stimulus (in science, the evoker stimulus is called inducers and the additional experience concurrent).

Recently, difficulties have been recognized in finding an adequate definition of synesthesia, as many different phenomena have been covered by this term and in many cases the term synesthesia ("union of senses") seems to be a misnomer. A more accurate term for the phenomenon may be ideasthesia.

One person out of every thousand has synaesthesia, a psychological phenomenon in which they can smell a sound or hear a colour. Most of these people are not aware they are synaesthetes and feel certain about the way they perceive things: they think the way they experience the world is normal. But, when they realize that something is not quite right, that their experiences were unusual and they realized other people did not have them, others report feeling as if they had been keeping a secret their entire lives, as has been documented in interviews with synesthetes on how they discovered synesthesia in their childhood was a shock and sometimes met with disappointment.

   Most synesthetes become aware of their "hidden" and different way of perceiving in their childhood. Some have learned how to apply this gift in daily life and work. Synesthetes have used their gift in memorizing names and telephone numbers, mental arithmetic, but also in more complex creative activities like producing visual art, music, and theater.

Though most synesthetes report that their experiences are pleasant or neutral, although, in rare cases, synesthetes report that their experiences can lead to a degree of sensory overload.

Often stereotyped in the popular media as a medical condition or neurological aberration, many synesthetes themselves do not perceive their synesthetic experiences as a handicap. To the contrary, most report it as a gift—an additional "hidden" sense—something they would not want to miss.

   Although synesthesia was the topic of intensive scientific investigation in the late 19th century and early 20th century, it was largely abandoned by scientific research in the mid-20th century, and has only recently been rediscovered by modern researchers.  

   Psychological research has demonstrated that synesthetic experiences can have measurable behavioral consequences, while functional neuroimaging studies have identified differences in patterns of brain activation. Psychologists and neuroscientists study synesthesia not only for its inherent interest, but also for the insights it may give into cognitive and perceptual processes that occur in synesthetes and non-synesthetes alike.

In the department of Experimental Psychology and Physiology at the University of Granada, a research group was carrying out pioneer work in Spain on the systematic study of synaesthesia and its relation with perception and emotions.

Professor Juan Lupiáñez Castillo and Alicia Callejas Sevilla have devoted many years to the study of this unknown but interesting phenomenon. Callejas’ doctoral thesis is one of the most detailed studies on this phenomenon at an international level, and it is probably the first doctoral thesis on this topic in Europe. Her study covers the various forms of synaesthesia focussing on the most common one: the grapheme-colour type (for people with this form of Synaesthesia, letters, words and numbers evoke colours in an automatic and involuntary way).

One of the distinctive characteristics of this form of synaesthesia is the fact people are certain about their perceptions: they feel that their way of experiencing the world is correct, and they become disappointed when they realize there is something that is not quite right. ‘Therefore, when a person with grapheme-colour synaesthesia indicates that the word table is blue, it is quite probable that if he or she ever sees the same word written in a colour other than blue, this word will appear to him or her as wrong and consider it a mistake. The synaesthetes might even point out that the word is ugly or that he or she does not like it because it is not correct,’ affirms Callejas.

   Consequently, finding the word table written in red might be unpleasant whereas seeing it in blue might be agreeable. This emotional reaction associated with how synaesthetes perceive consistent or inconsistent stimuli is an extremely interesting subject.

Some of Callejas’ conclusions show that these emotional reactions occur automatically and cannot be ignored. Moreover, they can affect the synaesthetes to the point of slanting his or her preferences when faced with certain stimuli, which correspond to his or her inner experiences. Even more important is the fact that these emotions can transform how they perceive events associated with these experiences. These events may have no emotional meaning initially but they can become more or less pleasant if they take place at the same time the synaesthetes finds a word in the correct or incorrect colour.

   ‘Then, there are people for whom time units evoke colours – explains the researcher. It is also common for a synaesthetes to see colours when listening to words, sounds in general or music notes (people who can see music, for instance). There are also cases, although fewer, where people can see colours in flavours, others perceive flavours or experience touch sensations when listening to different sounds, some link flavours to touch sensations, etc.’

 These researchers from Granada underline that synaesthetes always experience the same vision; synaesthesia is permanent (a given stimulus always evokes the same colour for one person) and idiosyncratic (it is different for each person). Therefore, if for a synaesthetes the word dog is red, every time he or she sees it, it will be perceived as red.

Ordinal Linguistic Personification.

OLP has not been studied much until recently, so there isn't as much research about it, but scientists believe that it is caused by "cross-talk" between the area of your brain dealing with representing ordinal sequences, and the adjacent part of your brain that deals with the identification of personality and "theory of mind". There have, however, been some synaesthetes that attribute personalities to objects, but they have not been studied that much, so it's hard to say for sure whether it is synaesthesia, or an active imagination.

It is hard to know how fast the onset of the condition is as many people fail to realise that what they are perceiving is different to what others see or hear. The best answer is a little scientific - basically as the condition arises as a result of cross wiring in the brain.

Now, in normal brain development as we experience certain things the neuronal pathways are set up. When we are born there are countless neurons all meshed together? As pathways are reinforced (through repeated experiences) any neurons not used essentially die off. This is known as 'neuronal pruning' and one theory is that cross wiring arises as a result of a failure to properly 'prune' neurons in earlier stages of development. There is even recent studies suggesting all babies experience sound-colour synaesthetic experiences! Most synaesthetes you talk to would tell you they remember there experiences as far back as their memory serves them, however there are few instances in which people have developed it later in life.

People with music-colour synaesthesia would be able to hear the music (as this is what would be inducing the colour sensation). Music-colour synaesthesia is not quite the same as sound-colour synaesthesia. The difference is that the former is an association with a phrase of tones whilst the latter is an association with single tones (for instance the note C may induce the colour green).

Every synaesthetes experiences something unique, so whilst one might have many associations another may have few and they may be completely different. For example, person A has music-colour synaesthesia and experiences an explosion of colour when listening to Mozart's K545sonata and a completely different scene of colours when listening to Bach.

Person B has sound-colour synaesthesia and only experiences the colour mint green with the note middle C. Furthermore Person C has both sound and music-colour synaesthesia and sees whizzing circles of colour when listening say to Jimi Hendrix's 'All along the watchtower' and experiences a shimmering blue when they hear the note E and pale blue when they hear middle C.

Synaesthesia definitely differs from person to person! It is also more likely that their interests are curbed towards there synaesthesia as opposed to the other way around - you can't really choose, it's more like it chooses you.

Even though synaesthesia has been known for a long time, its scientific study is relatively recent. Writings such as the Castel one, in which reference is made to previous studies about a synaesthesia case in a blind person, are found in the 18th century.

The evolution of the study of this phenomenon has been spectacular – the number of researchers working on this topic is constantly increasing,– and, as the phase of proving that this phenomenon exists has been overcome, Quote: Alicia Callejas, “we are starting to approach questions of major theoretical importance, and to develop adequate study strategies.” The results of her research have been published in the following prestigious scientific journals, among others: Cortex, Experimental Brain Research and Consciousness and Cognition.

The research field has grown from the widely known grapheme-colour synaesthesia to include other forms of synaesthesia in which flavours are evoked by music or words (lexical-gustatory synaesthesia), space structures by time units, colours by music, etc.

In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme → color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored, while in ordinal linguistic personification (OLP), numbers, days of the week and months of the year evoke personalities.

In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, and/or days of the week elicit precise locations in space or may have a (three-dimensional) view of a year as a map (clockwise or counterclockwise).

Yet another recently identified type, visual motion → sound synesthesia, involves hearing sounds in response to visual motion and flicker.

Surprising, as it may seem, there are people who can smell sounds, see smells or hear colours. Actually, all of us, at some point in our lives, have had this skill (some authors affirm that it is common in newborns).

Coloured hearing is in fact the phenomenon of synaesthesia - where two or more of the physical senses evoke concomitant feelings or perceptions.

Synaesthesia is defined as a neurological state, although it is not an ailment and does not interfere with a synaesthetes (one who experiences synesthesia) daily life or cognitive abilities. It is merely a case of perceptual difference, and most synaesthetes think their experiences are neither positive nor negative, but sometimes even enjoyable.

Over 60 types of synesthesia have been reported, but only a fraction have been evaluated by scientific research. Even within one type, synesthetic perceptions vary in intensity and people vary in awareness of their synesthetic perceptions

There are five main common types of synaesthesia: grapheme-colour, lexical-gustatory, ordinal-linguistic personification, musical-colour, and number form. In grapheme colour synaesthesia, the most common type of all, one perceives individual letters and numbers to have distinctive colours or hues, though no two synaesthesia experiencing people will have the same colours for each letter.

The much more rare lexical-gustatory synaesthesia evokes different tastes of spoken words, like the word table triggering the taste of egg, the word dog triggering as the taste of tomatoes etc.

Within ordinal-linguistic personification synaesthesia, a synaesthetes links personalities for ordered series, like days of the week, letters, and months. For them, Tuesday might be passive, female, and coloured pink, or 1984 might suggest a violent, untrusting personality. Because it is somewhat different from other types of synaesthesia, and seemingly more common (children may feel this sort of personalization when learning language) it is more difficult to recognize.

As the name might imply, musical-colour synaesthesia is when synaesthetes view colours when listening to music, or even parts of music such as different tones or scales. Interestingly, the hue or colour of a sound can be affected by varying pitches.

Number form synaesthesia allows those who experience it to form a mental number map that appears unintentionally whenever one thinks of a number. This type of synaesthesia is speculated to occur because of a possible cross-activation of the brain's parietal lobe, since different areas of it process spatial and numerical cognition.

In all of these forms, synaesthetes usually have unchanged recognition of colours (a red A will always be red for them), though they all have very different experiences of how they perceive it and are affected by it.

Although synaesthesia deals with such personal manners of perception, many of which every human being can "have" (like giving letters colours or personalities) due to their imagination or creative perspective, recognizing synaesthesia is fairly uncomplicated.

Neurologists or psychologists generally test and retest an individual over long periods of time on their perceptions of coloured words and similar objects. Although synaesthesia is easy to recognize and test, how to accurately diagnose and define it has been a source of debate for decades.

In the last twenty years, researchers have refined the basic criteria for synesthesia; neurologists Kevin Dann and Richard Cytowic's definitions are currently the most accepted. They classify diagnosable synaesthesia as having the following properties:

1. Synaesthesia is involuntary and automatic. (Cytowic)

2. Synesthetic images are spatially extended, meaning they often have a definite

"location". (Cytowic)

3. Synesthetic precepts are consistent and generic (i.e. simple rather than imagistic). (Cytowic)

4. Synaesthesia is highly memorable. (Cytowic)

5. Synaesthesia is laden with affect. (Dann)

6. Synaesthesia is non-linguistic and somewhat ineffable. (Dann)

7. Synaesthesia occurs in people with normal, non-injured, non-diseased brains.

(Cytowic, Dann, various).

Neurologist Richard Cytowic identifies the diagnostic criteria of synesthesia in his first edition book. However, the criteria are different in the second book:

1. Synesthesia is involuntary and automatic.
2. Synesthetic perceptions are spatially extended, meaning they often have a sense of "location." For example, synesthetes speak of "looking at" or "going to" a particular place to attend to the experience.
3. Synesthetic percepts are consistent and generic (i.e., simple rather than pictorial).
4. Synesthesia is highly memorable.
5. Synesthesia is laden with affect.

Cytowic's early cases included individuals whose synesthesia was frankly projected outside the body (e.g., on a "screen" in front of one's face). Later research showed that such stark externalization occurs in a minority of synesthetes. Refining this concept, Cytowic and Eagleman differentiate between "localizers" and "non-localizers" to distinguish those synesthetes whose perceptions have a definite sense of spatial quality.

As it is previously mentioned, synaesthesia is believed to occur due to a cross-activation within areas of the brain. The area of the brain in which colour processing occurs is beside the area, which identifies numbers and letters; thus information may be mismanaged or cross-activated in both areas, creating the experience of synaesthesia.

It is speculated that synaesthetes may also suffer from left-right brain confusion, and have difficulty in writing and performing mathematics. At the same time, synaesthetes seem to enjoy and excel in creative activities, and offer an infinite source of research on the function of the human brain (and how information can "cross over" into other areas) as well as on states of consciousness.

Generally, synaesthesia is speculated to be to an extent, hereditary. Nearly four percent of the population reports being a synaesthetes. These are naturally occurring, non-induced clusters of synaesthesia within families, and are fairly common.

  A newer theory stemming from the hereditary synaesthesia idea suggests that its mode of inheritance is due to sex - women tend to carry the "gene" for synaesthesia, and are usually prevalent synaesthetes. Supporting evidence of this "female gene" in synaesthesia is the fact that all cases of inherited synaesthesia have a female carrier or receptor, be it from mother to son or daughter, or father to daughter, but no male-to-male inheritance has ever been documented.

Inherited synaesthesia is not consistent, and like baldness, skips generations; the type of synaesthesia that inherited synaesthetes experience can also be vastly different.

There are also cases of adventitious synaesthesia, or non-inherent synaesthesia, which infer that this condition can be deliberately or naturally induced: individuals who consume psychoactive drugs, like lysergic acid diethylamide.

(LSD) and phencyclidine (PCP), those who experience synaesthesia after a stroke or other brain injury or in conjunction to deafness and blindness have said to experience synaesthesia or aspects of it.

This sort of synaesthesia "caused" by drugs or after a stroke is singular in which individuals who experience it only have synaesthetic occurrences altering their musical-colour, vision, or touch perceptions. Drug induced synaesthesia does not last long, and since psychoactive drugs observably alter one's natural brain processes and perceptions, this type of synaesthesia is not necessarily worth to research. However, non-inherent synaesthesia does indicate that there is a significant link between consciousness and the condition.

Synaesthesia is an uncommonly known condition, and although research and debate regarding its causes has been ongoing since the 1800s. As so far, still nowhere near completely understanding all aspects of it. It is a distinct phenomenon with various consequences; it affects individuals and their perceptions of reality and life, and may be behind the creative genius of various artists, writers, and musicians such as Duke Ellington, Richard Feynman, Franz Liszt, Victor Hugo (American Synaesthesia Association, site), and many others who, though have not been classified as full synaesthetes, are pseudo-synaesthetes, or merely incorporate synaesthetic aspects into their work. Above all, synaesthesia is also a prime example of our limited knowledge of the capability of the human brain, as we know it. The simple fact that synaesthesia exists can give us all hope that the key to discovering the immeasurable possibilities of our brains, and even realities, may be one day unlocked.

Of course the beauty of synaesthesia is that for every individual it is a unique experience. This means that for one person they may experience many colour associations to many different pieces of music or musical phrases, whereas others may only experience a limited number of associations.

I chose to write about synaesthesia because I had noticed that so many artists (including myself) experience it, or choose to depict it in their works, it has also shows its self when I wrote poetry, which I found so interesting. 

I guess this is what I could be described as, except my senses of touch and taste are linked. For example, I can reach into my pocket, and if I touch an old copper penny, I can taste it in my mouth. This also works with silver coins, and I can "feel" some smells, bleach for example makes my fingers tingle, even if I don't touch a surface that it has been on. I can be touched on parts of my body and can hear the touch that sounds to me like static on the am radio band. Even depending on the person’s per-se persona I can actually sometimes receive an electric spark, the colour and intensity is dependent on the individual.

When I listen to music, As well as seeing the colours/hues of the tones, I sometimes get this strong, un-ignorable smell, and sometimes a taste, that lasts throughout the song. But it doesn't happen all the time as it comes with conditionals -it reacts only to music, namely the instruments; voices and other daily sounds usually don't trigger anything in me.

I learned to play guitar this way. C is orange. D yellow. F brown. A baby blue. A minor purple etc etc... Just the way it's always been for me. If I put on some county and western guitar instrumentals for instance and I get a lot of brown, beige, yellow and cream.

Same with the violin, each of the strings has a colour: G is grey, D is green, A is red, and E is yellow. If I play, say, a B (indigo) on the G string, it's a grey shade of indigo, if I play it on the A string (or 3rd pos. on the D string or however you want to get to that pitch) it's like a reddish, shade of indigo, sort of more purpley, and B on the E string is a lighter indigo, almost sort of see-through. So when I play the violin, I see the notes as I play them, but the song has an overall colour.

Letters are just as powerful as numbers, but less hazy. A is beautiful, intelligent, natural. F is arrogant, a bit lazy; C is intelligent but too vain. R is very a high brow, H is very humorous and looks good, G though is pushy, D is earthy etc.

When I listen to music, as well as seeing or feeling a certain colour, I see a whole landscape/city/planet and I also feel and taste it. I usually have vibrant colours flash before my eyes and every time I listen to the same song the colours appear the same. But if I’m not feeling well or upset the colours will appear less vibrant and sometimes vibrate. Certain emotions or situations appear to me in distinct, constant colours, which come out a lot in my writing.

Also when I see artwork, it's almost as if I can jump right into it and touch the colours and swim in it and live in it as if it was a world...Some forms of art ‘sing’ with tones that touch my skin like feathers or even needles dependant on the art depiction. Fractural art can leave me feeling quite ill, feel sick or even cause me to loose consciousness momentarily; very few of these actually evoke beautiful music or ‘sing’ harmoniously.  

My perception of the world is like it's as if it's a movie.... I can turn a house to a taste or feeling and when I hear certain notes or harmonies in songs I get butterflies in my stomach and I just feel like I’m in euphoria. I get that same feeling when I see certain colours or landscapes.... although with certain songs or high-pitched noises I see bright flashes in my mind.

I've always had this ability...certain songs have always had colours to me, and they always stay the same. I don't recall it being a gradual or overnight thing; it just is. I hear the music and see the colours, which I think is fantastic. It just adds an entire other dimension to what I listen to. I sometimes I have tried to stop seeing the colours when I hear music, but I mostly just fail at it.

 When I was young I thought that everybody thought like this about stuff, so it didn't occur to me that I maybe different to the norm, when I read an article about synaesthesia and I saw that there is also something called Ordinal linguistic personification. I began to have suspicions, but I thought that mine is a mild form, but when I thought more about them I realised just how complex these can be.

 I also have what is called OLP, and I always had genders and personalities for numbers, letters, days of the week, and months with letters having the strongest. I don't think about the personalities I just see, hear or think about a letter and I know what kind of personality it has immediately. Plus, some letters have stronger or weaker personalities and they combine in words so that I can tell what the word's personality is. They are all ordinal sequences.

Most people with sound colour synaesthesia do not actually see the colours projected in front of them, it's more like they "feel" the colours, or the just inherently know that the certain sound is a certain colour. Every synaesthetes is different, so your synaesthesia doesn't have to be the same as everyone else's.

I can also associate colours with personalities and genders; for example, black is rather emotionless, suave, and female. Baby blue is gentle and naive, while mustard yellow is tough, blunt, and male. I have always seen words as shades, as opposed to specific colours. While all words are shaded in my world, names are also particularly shaded. The letters a,e,i tend to be lighter than the letters o and u.

I knew what they are from their personalities and their feel (the feeling that you get when you say them (force words are a pressure in your head, words such as velvet make my fingertips tingle). There is a couple of downsides though; like in maths. It annoys me doing calculations because some numbers shouldn't go together (like 7 and 3) and I hate having to put them together. Now that’s quite odd! . I also at certain times seem to have spatial synaesthesia (with numbers appearing around me).

Generally when I deal, e.g. with numbers in maths, I don't really THINK a lot about their personalities, but I FEEL them... it's like when I talk with a person, I don't necessarily think of their personality, but I FEEL how it is to ebb with them, their colour, their texture somehow. But if I think more about them, their traits just spring into my mind.

When I see numbers and have to do math with them, I feel like I know them really well, but its hard to find words for the personality unless I think. It helps me do math because I remember their "chemistry" and relationships, 0s make things so much less crowded and less tense. I have personalities for numbers from 1-9 and the rest are like groups of each number's personalities mixing together. I don't really have defined personalities for letters, only the "feeling" of knowing that I know what they are like. But, I can easily put genders on them. My numbers are so complex! Some of them have hidden personalities that only emerge sometimes, and sometimes, there are interesting relationships between them that pop up out of nowhere. It's like having a complex plot of a drama, always finding new things out about the characters

In what I've read I can't be classified as any one specific Synaesthetes, but I am capable of some colour-letter/number Synaesthesia. I see months as a half circle in front of me, have personalities for numbers/letters/symbols/days of the week/months, have empathy for others to the point of feeling what their feeling (physically, emotional, or spiritually), I don’t have a hard time understanding most things, but prefer to hold on for a final decision until I first experience it using the 5 senses (but then I'm hard pressed to forget it).

I always regarded my combinations as the 'harmony set' or 'universal set'. Yes, there are conflicts with personalities between two letters and can be quite un-idealistic. I try to find commonalities between the actual meanings and the personalities I’ve perceive so I can focus on those that relate both.

In my art, I do sometimes play with spatial specificity in minimalistic conceptual repetition of form, traditionally I have always tended to aspire to the calm, serenity and order that is present in many forms and parts of this kind of art. So I could metamorphosis it into a contemporary concept simultaneously valueing the complexities of nature and be composed of distinguished intentions.

   I’ve have frequently been enthused by patterns of nature, using astute observation and the uncommonly high intention of my own inner nature ‘even at such a young age’ has seen the creation of astoundingly beautiful and majestic masterpieces with highly complex ‘light pattern vibrations’ and many other variations.

As a child, the spider inspired me as one of nature’s architects, whose ability to weave a delicate web of pattern, which provides the means for survival, but because of the ‘matrix’ this form is naturally stable.  Using an interesting curatorial decision it became the conception of my own web; I’ve taken this symbol of creativity and enlarged it to much more gigantic proportions, spinning a web of light across the entirety of my existence.

At the heart of this idea, I decided to create a solid pattern depiction and within this intricate construction is the Spherical Horus (type of shaped stone) crystal, studded throughout the nexus point lei lines are the light phosphorus type of opallio crystallite stones. However, there are zones of conflicting energies’ transmuting the frequency to the principles of resonance and vibration. They emit vivid flashes of color – blue, green, gold, red, and ‘peacock’ combinations. but this expression is symbolic as it comprises the more familiar electromagnetic spectrum and the energy that creates matter.

When viewed from one side, the reflected illumination and shimmering from these little crystals depict the celestial signature of ‘almost hieroglyphic script’, the lights, which are emitted, allow you to enjoy a paradoxical image of dew glistening in the sun. This however, was not really my intention, nor indeed my goal, the resulting concept merely an unexpected fascination …oxalis…

   I’ve since made many modifications to this ‘art concept’ usually teardrops or ‘biwa shapes” (similar in shape to the musical instrument)/ (triangle and circle adjoining, becoming one) these are starting to occur everywhere in many of my inspirations,

I can innately capture the embedded codes of the sounds around me with only a slight need to modify some of the values, alter the variables and can change the order to affect the outcome to simpler or more complex, or just to tailor the interaction to my own personal desire, or to trigger events. I’ve observed patterns in the world around me-- patterns that did not require blind faith and acceptance of logical contradiction to recognize –

Another avenue of discovery I’ve made have been the energetic realities that surround standing stones and stone circles, ancient tombs and tumuli. All of them are different tones of colour, even depicting varying patterns of light. Each one is different to the next; some have vertical columns of energy that travel from the sky (and beyond actually) into the ground beneath standing stones.

Some stone circles exhibit a ‘spider web pattern’ of energy lines connected together and others have spiralling energy vortices both above and below them. Sometimes I’ve come across a column of light entering the ground at an ancient site where there was not a stone present - and these were where the stone had actually been removed.

On studying ancient churches and castles I can see their distinct (mostly yellow, in varying intensities and hues) ‘information field’ that is surrounding them, the situation can be different again; the latter always have a spiral energy extending below, around and above.

Then there are the tiny ‘etheric dragonflies’ (black with white/ yellow aura or white dots with yellow/creamy coloured aura) that flit about in the skies above me; this of course is another matter…as I don’t have any idea what these are, when I was a child I thought they were the souls of the dead, maybe? As far as I’m concerned it is open to debate and for other ideas or perceptions perhaps?

I've never known anything different, but after I explained an object's personality to family and friends, they said, "wow! Your life must be amazing!" and that sort of stumped me. It was like, no, my life's not particularly amazing... but it got me thinking about the fact that, to me, literally EVERYTHING has a personality, and I guess that IS sort of an unusual thing for my brain to do. (Which is to be expected, considering everything else has a personality), spatial-sequence synaesthesia, and sound-->colour synaesthesia.) I wish there were more studies on this particular type of synaesthesia.

All my life people have said how unique my view points and one liners are, and I've always wanted to know myself better. But now that I've found the closest thing to defining me it still seem out of reach. I wish I could enlighten, classify, or define "me" better? I'd love to know more about it than what I can gather from my own experience.

I‘ve often wondered if that is one of the reasons I suffered serious migraines and whether there is maybe a link between synaesthesia and migraines

Synaesthesia is best described as ‘Cognitive conditions’ so don’t be shy using that expression - at this moment in time it isn't usually associated with any disabilities.

Other questions that I would ask others with this ‘condition’:

1) Does this condition (if could be called that) turn on in ones brain slowly or does it sort of just happen over night?

2) Do people with this type of synaesthesia hear the music as well as see colour?

3) What would they see if they played the violin or the cello, or an instrument with many different tones?

4) Does the type of synaesthesia differ from person to person, or does it lean toward their interests?

5) Do songs/pitches/sounds have colours to you? Have they always? Are the always constant?

6) Have you had synaesthesia all your life, or when did you notice it?

7) Does your synaesthesia affect your perceptions, emotions, or maybe serve you in a creative outlet?

8) How long was it before you noticed that not everyone thought of numbers the same as you?

9) If the number is negative does it effect what you think of it?

10) What if the number is huge such as say 7 billion does that change anything?

11) Does anyone in your family have it?

12) I would ask whether you could quantify your experiences?

13) Do you often have the same sensations listening to the same phrases?

14) Are they memorable and vivid?

And many, many more that would probably be added by the participants, as they would have questions as well!