h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I want to know your personal experiences of synaesthesia, particularly what specific things sound/look/taste/smell/feel like; the alphabet in particular, since it's a standard and we all have different ones. (I might base a huge illustrative project on this, but then again I might simply mull over the findings.)

I don't want to go in to great detail about my synaesthesia, but your name is purple. I am glad to see it recognised as a condition, but I am also aware that people say it must be very "useful", I haven't found a way to "make use of it" really and more often than not find it confusing because when I try to remember someone or something or a place I am thinking "well it was a brown name". Like-wise music, I can only enjoy a few songs or pieces and after a while I can't really distinguish them from the colour they produce. As no doubt you know there are a lot of aspects to synaesthesia, some of which interfere with every day things but at least recently I understand why, and no longer think I am a fruit cake as I have seen is explained about the brain synapsis etc. and it is becoming more understood as a straight forward biological condition and not some "weird creepy thing"

I agree with you about my name (although 'Scry' on its own is deep green with a cracked surface). I have trouble describing things to others if I use terms like 'brown name', so I try to use simple onesense. (Ooh, new word!)
I think it's the reason why I'm afraid of the dark- it used to make a hideous, loud vibrating noise.

Certain creatures (cats and snakes for example) have the Jacobson's organ which enables them to smell and taste something simultaneously- i.e. if they can smell it, they get the taste as well. Makes up for their other senses, which are quite poorly-developed.

I wonder what happens if they sniff something but they haven't tasted it before. Do you suppose they get the "real" taste from a sniff, or is it a surprise when they actually eat it?

Regarding seeing sounds, I had that happen once many years ago when I was doing some mental pruning and tried LSD. I heard/saw Robin Trower and Ted Nugent. The music made pulsing, colored, geometric forms. It was quite a neat thing, but it must be terribly distracting to live with that all the time.

Well, taste and smell are´t that different. So they probably get the correct taste the first time.

In synaesthetic terms, I put taste and smell together as they're usually very similar. Unless it's something that's different, like cheese.
I don't find it distracting, although (with me) it's an extra 'depth' to sounds etc. rather than a separate thing you have to concentrate on. Most of us (I certainly did) think, until we find out otherwise, that everyone 'sees' things like us; it's not distracting if you're used to it.

Well, how are we supposed to find out otherwise. It´s not often you tell people you see colors along with letters, because you think everybody else does. So you just go on thinking everybody are the same way.

Actually, it can get confusing if (as several people have said) you describe a name, word etc. as 'green' and they go 'Wha'?'
But this happens with other synaesthetes, since we don't share common colours. Still, they'll know where you're coming from.

I only found out what this was called a few weeks ago in a TIME magazine, but ever since I can remember I've connected shapes, numbers, letters and colours. When I was bored I often used to try and connect all the numbers up to ten with a colour and shape. I didn't get very far, now I realise that is because not everything is connected to everything else, sometimes something is just a shape or colour, not both. Also, I remember smells a lot, often in connection with other things, and often when I say to someone "hey, this tastes like the smell of cherry blossom" they just go "what?!" because they just don't get it. I agree, it doesn't distract you at all if your used to it, and it can be quite boredom relieving. When I read the article in TIME and explained to my mumhow I thought, she was absolutely astounded, her surprise possibly enhanced by her total dislike for fantasy and sci-fi, which is strange, because she's and englich teacher. Are people who experience synaesthesia generally more creatively inclined?

I find that synaesthesia is not something to talk about too much because people who have never heard of it think it is something to do with mystics, mediums, clairvoyants....anything of that ilk. They don't understand that it is just the way one's brain is wired.
It's nice to be able to talk about it here though, quite naturally.

The Guide seems to attract extreme minorities like us.
I'm trying to catalogue letters and numbers in a definitive list of my own perceptions, that's why I want to know everone else's alphabet.
I once told someone (a catering student) that his salad tasted like car upholstery. Not that I know what it tastes like, but it was like it smells. And when I was little I used to want to eat something that tasted like the smell of the cellar, it was so nice and earthy.
I discussed synaesthesia without fear of ridicule because I didn't know what it was and thought everyone did it. Now I do it because people find it fascinating and are usually quite envious- no one's ever thought it supernatural.

I don't have synaesthesia, but I've always wanted to find something that tasted like the smell of laundry detergent. I also like finding words that sound like they ought to be a real food, like fried quotes and an oatmeal soup sandwich.

I'm weird.

Why are people who disbelieve the 'Paranoral' so extreme in their stubbornness? I espouse the belief that the senses used by "mystics, mediums, clairvoyants" are explicable by sciences we don't know, just as they do; but I say they're possible and haven't been proven, and they say they're not possible or they would have already been proven!

For the record (sorry for any repetition to those who've heard some of the following):

Phone numbers/strings of numbers. I see colours, which I think are seasonal - pale yellow (sunshine) for 1, through yellow (sweetcorn) for 2, green (peas) for 4, light brown/grey (dried clay-mud) for 7, brown (acorns) for 8, and slate-grey for 0.
Whew! Never done that before - all for you, Mandrake!

Constant tones (ie. telephone tones). I can't give examples here, but these range in colours, and can irritate my sense of balance.

Music. I see patterns - vaguely related in a four-dimensional way to the two-dimensional bars on a visual graphic equaliser display - but I couldn't define any examples!

Mandrake - I hope this helps!

Yes, that's excellent. Ta.
(And where are all the people saying "Oh, I wish I could do that? You must be soooo lucky!" C'mon, I want to bask in some multi-sensory glory.)

"Wow - you must be so lucky! I wish I could do that!"

If it helps, your perceptions are vastly different from mine, and I couldn't imagine sensations like yours.

I just thought of another mixed sensation: I feel very uneasy when I'm experiencing rough tactiles, like carpet, or small beads. The feeling is a similar one to that provoked by a very low-pitched vibration. Does that suggest that I *hear* the sound when my fingers explore such intricacies?

x x Fenny

Ah, Fenny (I am sewing as we speak)

This sounds likely. I always hear rough things (if I hear them at all, this isn't my main sense) as being low-pitched and 'thrumming'. Doesn't unease me, though.

Laundry detergent? Some makes of those gelatinous sweets - cherry lips. Some of them taste disgustingly like soap.

I always thought Turkish Delight (especially the English-made variety) tasted intriguingly soapy!

x x Fenny

I have re-read my posting Fenchurch and no where did I say I either disbelieved or believed in the paranormal, so I assume you just felt like having a rant and picked my posting, though you have in a way proved my point that it is difficult to talk about synaesthesia.