This makes my tongue tingle:
This makes my eyes cold:
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
"Sleepyhead" by Passion Pit
When I hear music, I also see a picture. In my mind there are shapes, colors, and patterns. I'm doing my best to recreate these images.
This is roughly what I see when I hear the song "Sleepyhead" by Passion Pit. I've included the song so you can take a listen.
This is roughly what I see when I hear the song "Sleepyhead" by Passion Pit. I've included the song so you can take a listen.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Alphabet and Numbers
Finally! Some pictures! There's going to be quite a few picture posts.
This shows what colors I see for letters and numbers.
Something I've learned through the Facebook group for synesthesia is that a lot of people see "A" as red.
This shows what colors I see for letters and numbers.
Something I've learned through the Facebook group for synesthesia is that a lot of people see "A" as red.
So why the blog?
Why the blog, indeed.
Something I noticed while first reading up on Synestheisa is that all the sites on the web are very scientific. There are lots of pages speaking about the neurological side of it. Even the page for kids reads like a textbook. I was looking for something a bit more personal, but I couldn't find it. So I went to my personal motto "If I can't find it, I'll make it!"
I'm going to use this blog as a way to try to explain every day life with synesthesia. I'll try to explain the good parts, the annoying parts, and the hard parts. I just want to make this a place for the personal side of synesthesia.
...and I promise, no more long winded posts.
...maybe.
Something I noticed while first reading up on Synestheisa is that all the sites on the web are very scientific. There are lots of pages speaking about the neurological side of it. Even the page for kids reads like a textbook. I was looking for something a bit more personal, but I couldn't find it. So I went to my personal motto "If I can't find it, I'll make it!"
I'm going to use this blog as a way to try to explain every day life with synesthesia. I'll try to explain the good parts, the annoying parts, and the hard parts. I just want to make this a place for the personal side of synesthesia.
...and I promise, no more long winded posts.
...maybe.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Synesthesia and Me
Synesthesia and Me. Not quite a love story, but a story nonetheless. Kind of a long story, but stick with me.
For as long as I can remember, I've seen gender in everything. As in "That car is female, but the tires are male. The headlights are male, but the bumper is female." It came as natural as the name or (actual) color. I thought this was normal. I saw personality in everything, like "The number 1 is a boy, kind of a loner, a bit like Charlie Brown." Again, I thought it was normal. I also saw colors in everything: letters, numbers, sounds, feelings, taste. It was how I saw things and I thought it was how everyone saw the world. I thought everyone looked at a rubber ball and thought "that ball is male, it is sort of shy, and while it is physically red, it's actually a dusty blue."
I believe I was in the 3rd grade, around age 9, when I found out I wasn't normal. I don't have an exact memory of it, but I think I was telling someone the gender of something and they made fun of me. I remember thinking if other people don't see it, I must be crazy. I never talked about it to anyone after that,that is until about 2 years ago.
About 2 years ago, I was doing a little meme on my livejournal that asked to list interesting facts about myself. I mentioned the thing about seeing genders. A then faily new friend left a comment saying that she saw gender too. When I read that, I FREAKED. Someone else like me? Seriously? It was like Christmas. We talked about it for a while and she asked if I thought we might have synesthesia. Syne-what now? I had never heard of such a thing so I looked it up. Site after site, link after link, article after article, holy crap. It was like these people were talking about me! I read page after page, nodding my head. It was amazing.
After that, I understood that I wasn't crazy, I had synesthesia! I kept that in the back of my head until recently. Within the past 2 weeks, synesthesia has been jumping up and down like a little kid "Hey! Hey! Remember me?!" It happened after watching the Kennedy Center Honors.
Yeah, you read that right. The Kennedy Center Honors brought my thoughts back to synesthesia.
Here is how it went down. I watched the Kennedy Center Honors because Bruce Springsteen was being honored and I am a big fan of The Boss. After watching the program (which as amazing and you must watch it), I began listening to Springsteen's music all day for many days. While listening to his songs, something strange happened. I realized all his songs look the same. All songs look different. Even songs by the same artist look different. Something was different with Bruce Springsteen's music, and by different I mean the same. Every song was giving me the same colors, composition, shapes, and it was distinct! I could see it like I was looking at a picture. The different shades of greys, the greyish blue with streaks of greyish purple. On top of that, it was beautiful! Not beautiful like a rose, or sunset, but beautiful in the way that it makes you stop and think "everything is amazing".
I was so excited I had to get online and look around. I found a group on Facebook and oh my gosh. It was that feeling of discovery all over again. People from all over the world, different ages, genders, walks of life, and they were describing things I've gone through. They were sharing their colors, sounds, shapes, personalities, and the same sentiment: "I'm so glad to know I'm not alone." It felt strange, but a confortable strange.
The best way to decribe it comes from a wallpost by someone with the name Carly Stasko:
"reading people's posts is very comforting....like finding other aliens from my home planet."
For as long as I can remember, I've seen gender in everything. As in "That car is female, but the tires are male. The headlights are male, but the bumper is female." It came as natural as the name or (actual) color. I thought this was normal. I saw personality in everything, like "The number 1 is a boy, kind of a loner, a bit like Charlie Brown." Again, I thought it was normal. I also saw colors in everything: letters, numbers, sounds, feelings, taste. It was how I saw things and I thought it was how everyone saw the world. I thought everyone looked at a rubber ball and thought "that ball is male, it is sort of shy, and while it is physically red, it's actually a dusty blue."
I believe I was in the 3rd grade, around age 9, when I found out I wasn't normal. I don't have an exact memory of it, but I think I was telling someone the gender of something and they made fun of me. I remember thinking if other people don't see it, I must be crazy. I never talked about it to anyone after that,that is until about 2 years ago.
About 2 years ago, I was doing a little meme on my livejournal that asked to list interesting facts about myself. I mentioned the thing about seeing genders. A then faily new friend left a comment saying that she saw gender too. When I read that, I FREAKED. Someone else like me? Seriously? It was like Christmas. We talked about it for a while and she asked if I thought we might have synesthesia. Syne-what now? I had never heard of such a thing so I looked it up. Site after site, link after link, article after article, holy crap. It was like these people were talking about me! I read page after page, nodding my head. It was amazing.
After that, I understood that I wasn't crazy, I had synesthesia! I kept that in the back of my head until recently. Within the past 2 weeks, synesthesia has been jumping up and down like a little kid "Hey! Hey! Remember me?!" It happened after watching the Kennedy Center Honors.
Yeah, you read that right. The Kennedy Center Honors brought my thoughts back to synesthesia.
Here is how it went down. I watched the Kennedy Center Honors because Bruce Springsteen was being honored and I am a big fan of The Boss. After watching the program (which as amazing and you must watch it), I began listening to Springsteen's music all day for many days. While listening to his songs, something strange happened. I realized all his songs look the same. All songs look different. Even songs by the same artist look different. Something was different with Bruce Springsteen's music, and by different I mean the same. Every song was giving me the same colors, composition, shapes, and it was distinct! I could see it like I was looking at a picture. The different shades of greys, the greyish blue with streaks of greyish purple. On top of that, it was beautiful! Not beautiful like a rose, or sunset, but beautiful in the way that it makes you stop and think "everything is amazing".
I was so excited I had to get online and look around. I found a group on Facebook and oh my gosh. It was that feeling of discovery all over again. People from all over the world, different ages, genders, walks of life, and they were describing things I've gone through. They were sharing their colors, sounds, shapes, personalities, and the same sentiment: "I'm so glad to know I'm not alone." It felt strange, but a confortable strange.
The best way to decribe it comes from a wallpost by someone with the name Carly Stasko:
"reading people's posts is very comforting....like finding other aliens from my home planet."
What is Synesthesia?
Maybe you are thinking "WTH is Synesthesia?" Most people have never heard of it, even some people who have it don't know what it is.
So what is it?
Here are some definitions:
Synesthesia is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes.
Confused? how about this one:
Synesthesia: sensation produced at a point other than or remote from the point of stimulation, as of color from hearing a certain sound.
An involuntary joining in which the real information of one sense is accompanied by a perception in another sense.
Still confused?
Synestheisa: A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.
Or
Synesthesia is considered by many to be a disorder characterized by the crossing of the senses. To be more precise, stimulating one sense causes the stimulation of another sense
I like that last one.
It's hard to grasp if you don't have it, and it's hard to explain if you do. I will try my best.
People with synesthesia experience things with multiple senses. The more common kind is colored letters and numbers. If i say A is red, does that make sense? It does to me. A is red. B is blue. C is light blue, and D is a dark green. There are many kinds of synesthesia. Synesthetes can "see sounds", "taste words", or "feel color". That might sound absolutely mental, but it gets even stranger. Some see gender, shapes, or even personality.
Synesthesia is involuntary. Synesthetes do not choose what colors they see, what tastes they taste, or the personalities. It comes naturally. If someone asked "What color is grass?" the obvious answer is green. So what is the answer to the question "What color is the sound of a chair leg scraping against a wood floor?". Not so obvious, but to a synesthete it is! (By the way, that sound is sort of a dark orange.)
How many people have it? Well, "estimates for the number of people with synesthesia range from 1 in 200 to 1 in 100,000." That's a big difference. I will just say I realized something was different for me when I was about 9 years old but didn't find anyone else who understood until I was about 20 years old. It wasn't until very recently that I found people who had the same types as me.
I hope that may have answered a few questions. If you are still confused, and I don't blame you, hopefully you will start to understand as I continue to post more about living with Synesthesia.
So what is it?
Here are some definitions:
Synesthesia is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes.
Confused? how about this one:
Synesthesia: sensation produced at a point other than or remote from the point of stimulation, as of color from hearing a certain sound.
An involuntary joining in which the real information of one sense is accompanied by a perception in another sense.
Still confused?
Synestheisa: A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.
Or
Synesthesia is considered by many to be a disorder characterized by the crossing of the senses. To be more precise, stimulating one sense causes the stimulation of another sense
I like that last one.
It's hard to grasp if you don't have it, and it's hard to explain if you do. I will try my best.
People with synesthesia experience things with multiple senses. The more common kind is colored letters and numbers. If i say A is red, does that make sense? It does to me. A is red. B is blue. C is light blue, and D is a dark green. There are many kinds of synesthesia. Synesthetes can "see sounds", "taste words", or "feel color". That might sound absolutely mental, but it gets even stranger. Some see gender, shapes, or even personality.
Synesthesia is involuntary. Synesthetes do not choose what colors they see, what tastes they taste, or the personalities. It comes naturally. If someone asked "What color is grass?" the obvious answer is green. So what is the answer to the question "What color is the sound of a chair leg scraping against a wood floor?". Not so obvious, but to a synesthete it is! (By the way, that sound is sort of a dark orange.)
How many people have it? Well, "estimates for the number of people with synesthesia range from 1 in 200 to 1 in 100,000." That's a big difference. I will just say I realized something was different for me when I was about 9 years old but didn't find anyone else who understood until I was about 20 years old. It wasn't until very recently that I found people who had the same types as me.
I hope that may have answered a few questions. If you are still confused, and I don't blame you, hopefully you will start to understand as I continue to post more about living with Synesthesia.
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