what do you know about Synesthesia?

[rosierjay]

 a new book i plan on reading next year, features characters that have different kinds of Synesthesia. I'm really curious how the story will play out and what kind of synesthesia the main character will have.

do you have synesthesia? what kind? have you ever heard of it before?
if you don't have it, which do you wish you did?

[Lady.Arachnia]

I had never heard about if before.... I had to Google it!
On the one hand it could be a fun thing to have, but on the other hand also very scary if you have it and doesn't know what it is! But that is with the most Psychic things a person could have! I think a lot off people who have this are called schizophrenic or even suffering from a psychosis, but doesn't have those diseases!!!

Edit to add.....

I did look a little further on the internet and found an online test.....and I know those test are not 100% but......this test was from i think a reliable source http://www.synesthesiatest.org/
And my result was:
Your Test Results
Thanks for taking the test! Your results are . . .

Would you look at that! You're a synesthete!
You're among the likes of:
Duke Ellington
Billy Joel
Marilyn Monroe
Frank Lloyd Wright
Daniel Tammet
. . . and countless others!

Chances are that you're especially creative, artistically inclined, and a tad bit quirky! There are thousands of others like you, too!
- See more at: http://www.synesthesiatest.org/results#sthash.F74oHHtM.dpuf

[Aitsuki]

I've never been diagnosed, but I sometimes wonder... synesthesia is basically having your senses hooked up together in odd ways. You can see music, or hear smells....words can taste, or be a color. For me, I've always smelled heat and tasted lightning.... So I think I have a touch, maybe?? I mean, people never believe me or get it when I say it smells hot..... but to me, heat has always had a smell. Hot air smells... I dunno, sort of bad? It depends on where the heat is coming from... cozy heat smells nice, sort of like fresh bread, or a hug. Snuggling under a blanket, and then tucking your face in smells good. Hot WEATHER smells bad... dry heat smells sort of like dead things.... taxidermy animal stink almost. Or worn out hay, not fresh grassy hay, but like hay in a very neglected horse's stall... just dead. Muggy or humid heat smells bad too, but different... like... like a wet dog?? I dunno, it's harder to describe, but it's awful. It's thick, and feels so CLOSE in, and the smell is a bit oppressive... I grew up in Southern Idaho, and sort of got used to the dead smell of summers that reached 115 degrees on average with pretty much no rain for years. So it stank, but no one else noticed the smell besides maybe dustiness or city air so I just went about my days. Living in Seattle now, the humid air is taking some getting used to. In the winter, it's not so bad.... cold weather generally smells nice. But the summers.... they're rough. When it gets hot, I'm constantly grimacing and unhappy, because things smell bad and it's like having a wet, OLD wool coat wrapped around my head. Fire smells good though. My folks assume I mean the smoke, and yeah, that can smell nice.... but fire itself actually smells really good. Oh, and lightning tastes kind of like pennies, if they were carbonated. A fizzy, coppery taste. The drier the air, the easier it is for me to pick up on it. The test Arachnia posted seems to say I do have some sort of synesthia.... But it generally doesn't impact my life too much. A fan can help with smelly hot air, or water... the smell of water can refresh me. So I'd say it's okay.

[Aerora]

It's not really a big deal for most people I've ever met who had it (myself included, haha) - it's the kind of thing you don't really conceptualize as abnormal until someone tells you most people don't half-taste those subpar grape popsicles you used to love every time you see this one exact shade of pinkish purple, you know? It's like vividly remembering fifth grade when you hear a certain song, just with a little more sensory mixup. (The assigning-personalities-to-concepts type is a little more nebulous than the rest, but not entirely dissimilar.)

[melodys_angel]

I was going to say no, but I read the one article and I have to agree with the empathy part.  I..yeah, if I see someone falling down the stairs, I CAN feel it as if that was me.  If someone took a nasty fall and is bleeding, I can feel that, too.

Happens in my dreams all too often.

I don't know *what* that makes me but it does make you wonder.

[SnorkMaiden]

When I was at school, the teacher who took the drama club had synesthesia. In her mind, numbers were certain colours. The same number would always be the same colour. I believe that form is rather common. She said it had been that way ever since she could remember.

I myself have synesthesia, too, though I've only been aware of it for a few years. To me, emotions have colours. That one is rather harder to explain because not every emotion has a certain colour, and it's not always the same one, either. It's more as if bursts of strong emotion come with a colour (but again, not all of them). Sometimes, a decision or situation that's associated with a certain emotion will have a colour, too. Like I said, it's hard to explain.

[Chrissytree]

My brother's uni friend has it in a more serious form. I think he sees sound as colours constantly. It's life limiting for him as he can't drive and I think he has to work from home.
My brother can see kind of auras too.

[kaoskat]

Seeing as I thought this post was going to be about a medication I'm going to go with I know diddly squat about it.

[Strawberry Swirl]

I don't believe I have it, but I have a lot of friends who do and they describe it as associating everything from colors to names with scents!

[Lady.Arachnia]

I'm thinking about in what way's it shows up with me, I have colors for smells. For example I know if I like a perfume scent just looking at the color of the bottle, but if you blindfold me and let me sniff at scents I could also tell you what kind of color the bottle would be!
I can smell the coming of rain/thunderstorms and snow! I really like the smell of snow! It smells....magical to me!
When I close my eyes I always see a kaleidoscope off colors....and they constantly change!
I think I will have more things but I never thought what it was...so I never looked into this matter, but now i'm going to look for more info on this matter because it's very interesting!

[McKinley]

I have it. For me, it manifests as words/numbers/letters having colors. I also perceive sound as color to a lesser degree. I thought everyone perceived things that way for most of my life, until I mentioned it in passing and got puzzled looks from everyone. I didn't know it had a name until a couple of years ago.

[Tigerlilyx]

I have synesthesia - I see colours in music. Every song or melody produces colour for me; for example my favourite bands produce lots of warm colours I really like.   

[melodys_angel]

Well, I might just be going crazy.

Last night I was woken up by the faintest barking of multiple dogs.  Mad yips and constant fast barking.  But I like in an area where that wouldn't be happening for an entire hour at 2:30 in the morning, and if it was any softer, I wouldn't beable to hear it.

This thread makes me wonder if there were actual dogs there, or not.

[LadyMoondancer]

I don't have it, but have friends who do.  I find the idea fascinating and pretty neat, except when it plays out in a way that it limits someone's life of course.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

I was going to say no, but I read the one article and I have to agree with the empathy part.  I..yeah, if I see someone falling down the stairs, I CAN feel it as if that was me.  If someone took a nasty fall and is bleeding, I can feel that, too.

Happens in my dreams all too often.

I don't know *what* that makes me but it does make you wonder.

I'm... not alone?  Someone else has that extra-super sensitivity? 

Ugh it's hard sometimes when I see a hill on the road, and my stomach is doing flip flops and making me dizzy before we even go over it!  I sort of "pre-feel" and anticipate what something will be like as I'm watching it.  I used to have this serious issue of concentration when I was little - I could spend HOURS staring at something and be working out in my head what it was like on the other side. Like a porthole in a ship we saw at the aquarium - a few hours later, I was regaling my family with tales of what the inside of the ship would have been like, the motion while sailing, etc. and all I had done was peek through from the outside to the inside! 

It makes for a slightly more photographic memory but it also can fool me when I am thinking "it should feel like this" and then it doesn't.