Synesthesia

Synesthesia? What is that?!

This.
I FINALLY found information on the way things work in my head! I'm not actually crazy! ...or at least, not alone.
Previously I attributed my way of thinking, cross-associations, visual memory, and music "hallucinations" to an over-active imagination. Now I know it's a documented, real pathology.


"Synesthesia is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway."

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.

It explains all of the things in my head:

Grapheme --> Color Synesthesia
"...individual letters of the alphabet and numbers (collectively referred to as graphemes), are "shaded" or "tinged" with a color."
When I see words and especially numbers in my head, they are immediately colored text.

Sound --> Color Synesthesia
"...voice, music, and assorted environmental sounds such as clattering dishes or dog barks trigger color and simple shapes that arise, move around, and then fade when the sound stimulus ends. For some, the stimulus type is limited (e.g., music only, or even just a specific musical key); for others, a wide variety of sounds triggers synesthesia."
When I listen to music, particularly rhythmic music (especially swing), and particuarly played with brass instruments (especially trumpets; again swing & ska) I see colors and shapes and lines dancing around in my head, usually projected in the space in front & a little above my head. It's almost as if the notes themselves are dancing to how they are being played.
Trip-hop music (Hooverphonic, Massive Attack, Portishead) doesn't do that, but has a different effect I can't easily describe... it's more of a combination of emotion plus mathematical calculations going on... I'm weird, I know!

Number Form Synesthesia
"A number form is a mental map of numbers, which automatically and involuntarily appears whenever someone who experiences number-forms thinks of numbers."
I've always pictured numbers in my head as a sequence along an elevated line, with elevation-resets at every decade (at 20, at 30, etc) as the last couple of numbers per decade (the 7s, 8s, 9s) curve downward. But when counting by skipping (counting every other number, or at every 5) the numbers I'm aiming for are larger before I call them out. This mental map was true when I learned to count in Spanish in elementary school, as well as learning to count in French in middle school.
I have also always pictured a calendar in my head as a squished, lopsided oval. January is at the top, months working counterclockwise down to July & August sharing the fattened bottom, and working up to Dec near the top.
To count hours (How many hours until dinner?) I have to picture a clock face and go around it.


This phenomenon also explains why I instantly memorize numbers when I hear or read them: "What has been confirmed is elevated, sometimes photographic, memory." When I read, I don't just remember the information, I remember the layout of the pages. Though not actual photographic memory (I can't read the text of the pages in my head), it is involuntary and elevated memory.

Involuntarily memorizing numbers is something that actually got very annoying in the job I had right after college because I was often inputting research projects' financial information into databases, and I could accurately tell you who's budget was what, out of several hundred projects! I spent a good deal of effort consciously trying not to let numbers get lodged in my head.


I guess I'm not any less weird or crazy now, but I'm fascinated that I'm not alone.
Reading through that article creeped me out at points when I had the revelations of "That's me!"