When people find out that I am a synesthete, most people look very puzzled.  They immediately look as if I might have some sort of disease, extra-sensory perception, or belong to a funny-sounding religion.  Contrary to their beliefs, however, synesthesia is actually a neat little “disorder” whereby a stimulus gets a little mixed up by a person’s senses.  For us synesthetes, that means, depending on the form of synesthesia, we can taste, smell, and touch things such as colors, shapes, sounds, and text — immaterial things to you, but not to us.

The first interesting thing about synesthesia (or synaesthesia for the European readers) is that most synesthetes don’t realize it’s odd until talking with a friend or family member about a synesthetic experience.  Despite my mother reading Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet, an autistic synesthete who is also a mathematical savant and sees numbers in the forms of shapes, and discussing with me his experiences, I never realized that I too was a synesthete.  It wasn’t until years later in a casual conversation about a song to which we were listening and what it looked like did someone finally say, “What are you talking about?”  That song is shown below:

This form of synesthesia is called sound-color.  I don’t know why there are four blue posts, a transparent platform connecting them, or multi-colored strands which run through the posts.  Nothing in the song gives the impression of that image, and yet at a certain point in the song, that image always shows up, as is what happens in most songs to which I listen.  Some songs may only have one image; others will have three.  Very few have more than that.

A music teacher once asked me a question I hadn’t really considered before: “Do some bands’ songs look similar?”  And yes, they sometimes do.  Some bands tend to have bars and lines; others tend to have more blurry lines of soft colors.  Some songs have dots and “auras” or “glows.”  Interestingly, some songs by bands who share members (for example, of two different bands have the same lead singer) will have two completely different images.

Another interesting question posed by a student of mine was very telling of the difference between synesthetes and non-synesthetes: she asked, “If you see listen to music while you drive, how do you see the road?”  Sometimes the best questions are asked by the most innocent and curious!  The answer, of course, is that I “see through” the image.  The images are always there during the song, but I’m not concentrating on them, so I’m able to see through them.  Some images are in my peripheral vision and I don’t even need to see through them to ignore them.  For example, the image above is in my lower peripheral vision.

But that’s not the only kind of synesthesia I have.  Another prominent form of synesthesia I have is called number form.  This is where numbered sequences aren’t linear; that is, when you think if a number sequence, you most likely think of them in a line.  For synesthetes with the number form type, we see non-linear sequences.  While number form obviously infers it happens to numbers, for my synesthesia it happens to months.  Below is an badly drawn approximation of how I see the calendar.

You’ll note two things: first, it doesn’t even remotely look like a calendar.  When I spontaneously imagine where I am in the year, it looks very similar to this.  In June, July, and August, it’s as if I’m looking down a ramp.  It then turns into a 2-D clock-like image which slowly trails off.

The second thing you’ll notice about the image is that there are two months missing: March and May.  Those two months are completely missing from the image which I see, and I’m often at first confused on which one comes first in the year.

Another implication of seeing this image is that it takes me a few seconds to realize just how far away other months are.  For example, if I’m in November, August seems very close while February seems very far away, when in reality both are the same distance from November.  Largely regardless of what month I’m actually in, April and July usually seem very far away while June seems reasonably close.

The third type of synesthesia I have is called personification.  As the word infers, synesthetes with personification type see numbers, letters, and some symbols as having inherent personality types.  For my synesthesia, I see numbers as having body types.  Some numbers are inherently skinny while others are fat.  Some are beautiful while others are ugly.  When choosing my sports numbers, I always took this into consideration, trying to match my jersey number with a number which fit my body type.  For example, when I started playing as a hockey goalie in hockey, I chose 39 since its body type is pretty skinny, as I once was.  Then I changed to 43, which has a more “average”/athletic body type.

Unlike Daniel Tammet, who seemingly uses his synesthesia in conjunction with being a mathematical savant, I don’t have any keen insights or advantages due to synesthesia.  Instead, I just have a number of neat experiences and images which I can draw, paint, or describe to others.  I’ve even considered painting my synesthetic images for bands or people who would like to “see” the image of their favorite songs.

For more information about synesthesia, there are many books about the subject, including Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia, The Hidden Sense: Synesthesia in Art and Science, The Man Who Tasted Shapes, The Frog who Croaked Blue: Synesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses, Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds, and for the more academic-minded, Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses – Second Edition and Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience. Prominent researchers and research institutions include Richard E. Cytowic, M.D., Edward M. Hubbard, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of Sussex.  You can even test yourself online at The Synesthesia Battery to see if you have a number of types of synesthesia.