Synesthesia

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My son (6) has started showing some signs of synesthesia (like his dad)! DS says most numbers have colours, and explained them all to me...all very interesting. Anyone else have anything like this?

i have this, though with me it has lessened as i got older and mostly was related to people (i associated people with colours). My friend has it as well though hers is much stronger. She associated letters with colours so words are a veritable rainbow.

I have it - the bog standard 'I hear music I see colours' kind.

I'm a synaesthetic. I'm told there's a strong inherited element to it. I have colour associations with numbers. Synaesthitics often have an internal numberline and/or calendar that is unique to themselves. Mine twists and turns in 3 dimensional space with myself always located on it with the past behind me and the future in front. It's hard to explain. I also have a sound/vision cross over. This is usually not noticable, but after dark or when there are few distractions it cam come out. When loud noises wake me it is the sight of them rather than the sound that wakes me. I experience them as light patterns on a dark background in the centre of my vision.

I found when teaching maths to low achieving students that, if they were synaesthetics, we could get a long way by identifying how their internal numberline looked and, by internally moving along the line they could feel much more comfortable with numbers. To do this I would spend the first few weeks getting students to visualise numbers in their head at the beginning of every class. I would get one or two a year who would light up with recognition when I mentioned moving up and down or around the numbers.

That is really fascinating Slug.

I have bog-standard grapheme synaesthesia with letters and numbers (also days of the week). Also some other colour thing going on that I don't really know how to explain.

I could have done with you slug as a maths teacher! I was rubbish at maths compared to other subjects. I have always seen numbers, letters and days of the week in colours plus names. However I think it has become less 'strong' as I have got older.. wonder why..

There was an interesting article in The Observer on Sunday about a woman who has a rare kind and 'experiences' the emotions of others as if these were her own. So the sight of a man being punched rendered her unconscious

DS2 has it, I'm sure. He is 3 years old and was explaining that March is greeny-yellow but October was purple.

I also have the sort where you see letters and numbers as colours. My twin sister also has it, but she sees a different set of cplours for her numbers and letters.

here

I saw that article...so interesting! Am pretty sure my son does NOT have the mirror touch thing as he is poss the least empathetic child in the world, but it was interesting.

lovely kids book about this www.amazon.co.uk/Here-Comes-Frankie-Tim-Hopgood/dp/0230706460/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300738618&sr=1-1

I'm synasthetic; everything that is conceptual has a colour, so when I think of anything - as opposed always to experiencing it - it is coloured. So when I think of a person, they have a colour, but when I am with them I'm not usually experiencing the colour. But with numbers, I actually experience them as colours and they have certain qualities - shiny, iradescent, matt, hard, soft etc. Numbers are always the same colour but the colours of everything else interact so they aren't always the same (so for example, Es can be orange or green, depending on the context). Somethimes I can get confused (is the bath five or red or hot?) but only when I am tired. It usually means I can remember phone numbers etc very easily (because they have a physical and visual quality) but in certain contexts it is a handicap - so if I make an appointment on a Tuesday afternoon, for example, I always get confused when the appointment is, because Tuesday afternoons fade from light blue (the colour of 2) to dark blue (the colour of 4) so I always end up remembering the appointment at 2 or 4, and even when it at either 2 or 4 I think it is synasthesia playing tricks on me. People are usually interested to hear about it (specially when I've accidentally said something stupid, like, "What ist that pink smell?") but it sometimes makes me really aware of how alone you are in consciousnesss.

My twin sister is synasthetic (colours for numbers and days of the week) but I am not. Interesting huh!

I get your bit about the concepts and colours Sparklyboots. Learning to code was a bit of a nightmare for me. I found some languages easy and others didn't, notably C#. I realised, eventually, that while the environment I was coding in displayed different languages in different colours, the C# colour was WRONG. I switched to using Notepad and doing it all in black. Suddenly it was all easier. (I hope I haven't just out geeked everyone on Mumsnet by the above comment)

Are you and your twin identical, monkoray? My sister and I are. I don't know anyone else in my family who has synaesthesia though.

I too have this - most strongly with days of the weeks and months. My Tuesdays are blue too sparklyboots, as are Thursdays but these are much darker!

normanTF, no my sister and i are fraternal twins so i guess thats probably why i don't have it.

I have it. Numbers are coloured. Letters, are too, but not as vividly as numbers. As are musical notes.

Someone asked me a really interesting question recently - "are they always the same colour?" I'd never thought about it but they aren't.

I read about synaesthesia in an article about a decade ago (had never heard of it before) and went around with the magazine for weeks after saying "isn't everybody like this?? Are your number not in colour? Really?? You see them in black???" Made a right twat of myself :o

I also thought everyone was synasthetic, til I went to a lecture at Uni about it... So cool that someone else has a blue Tuesday Alphabetsy, though what other colour could they be, in all honesty???

Ahem!!!! Tuesdays are a pinky colour.

When I was a child, I assumed everyone saw letters and numbers as colours. Then when I was older I realised they didn't and thought I must just be a bit odd! Then I heard a radio programe about it (this would be when I was about 30 or so, I'm 49 now.) I just thought then, "That's me!" I was so excited that what I was experiencing was a known phenomenon.

My Tuesdays are pink too! Mondays are blue with a blob in the middle and Fridays are yellow. I also see months and numbers in colours. Very interesting that other people experience this too!

No, no, no. Mondays are yellow and Tuesdays are dark pink. Today is Thursday and that is almost the same colour as Tuesday. There are NO blue days - that's just so wrong!

I love this - thank you all so much! My son has got an exciting time ahead of him with this. I have definite 'patterns' and internal schema for things like months of the year and so on, but I'm pretty sure no more than people do when they try to conceptualise things. I definitely don't have proper synthesethia though, where other senses actually kick in...so interesting. Do any of your kids have it?

Tuesdays could be ruby :o

Look, who are all these pinky Tuesday people? OBVIOUSLY missfiring some neurons somewhere. Ruby Tuesday? However did they get away with that?