Synaesthesia, Can You Smell Or Taste Colours And Sounds, Or Anything Similar That Most People Can't?

[Draggletail]

''Synaesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.[1][2][3][4] For instance, people with synesthesia may experience colors when listening to music, see shapes when smelling certain scents, or perceive tastes when looking at words. People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synesthetes. Awareness of synesthetic perceptions varies from person to person with the perception of synesthesia differing based on an individual's unique life experiences and the specific type of synesthesia that they have.[5][6] In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme–color synesthesia or color–graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored.[7][8] In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (e.g., 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may appear as a three-dimensional map (clockwise or counterclockwise).[9][10] Synesthetic associations can occur in any combination and any number of senses or cognitive pathways.[11]

Little is known about how synesthesia develops. It has been suggested that synesthesia develops during childhood when children are intensively engaged with abstract concepts for the first time.[12] This hypothesis—referred to as semantic vacuum hypothesis—could explain why the most common forms of synesthesia are grapheme-color, spatial sequence, and number form. These are usually the first abstract concepts that educational systems require children to learn.

The earliest recorded case of synesthesia is attributed to the Oxford University academic and philosopher John Locke, who, in 1690, made a report about a blind man who said he experienced the color scarlet when he heard the sound of a trumpet.[13] However, there is disagreement as to whether Locke described an actual instance of synesthesia or was using a metaphor.[14] The first medical account came from German physician Georg Tobias Ludwig Sachs in 1812.[14][15][16] The term is from Ancient Greek σύν syn 'together' and αἴσθησις aisthēsis 'sensation'.[13]''

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

[cressida]

I'd like to but i I can't,  can you?

[Draggletail]

8 hours ago, cressida said:

I'd like to but i I can't,  can you?

No, I can't either. It's something I read about ages ago, and popped into my mind, so I thought I'd start a thread about it but I really didn't think it through. I don't think Synaesthesia is common so the chance of anybody experiencing it on here and responding is probably slight! But yes I agree with you, I'd like to be able to too!

[cressida]

I bet someone in America would know @Sierra

[el_spectre]

I have something called temporal synaesthesia: I have a visual image of what a year looks like. This explains it a bit: https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/health/mind-brain/space-time-synesthesia/

I have actually drawn what it looks like to me in the past. All the summer months get quite squidged together, and the winter months are closer and take up a lot more space. I don't have a mental idea of what a week looks like though, or associate particular colours with things.

 

I also had a strange experience that I think was olfactory synaesthesia last year. I was in the gatehouse of Fountain's Abbey in North Yorkshire and I strongly smelt the type of incense used in Catholic masses. I was raised and educated Catholic, so I experienced that a lot, especially before the age of about 15. My partner was certain that there was no smell, and - even if I believed in ghosts - there's no reason why there'd be the lingering smell of incense in the gatehouse rather than the main church. I think I just had a strong reaction to all the sounds and imagery and my brain connected it to the smell in a very weird way.

I listened to a podcast episode about it, and there are so many different types! https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/

 

It's also heavily correlated with autism, which does apply in my case.

[Draggletail]

Thanks for posting the links and sharing your experiences, that's really interesting! I haven't clicked on the links yet, but I will. 

[el_spectre]

I always wanted some element of synaesthesia, and I didn't realise I had it until a friend sent me a link to a Twitter thread where everyone was sharing their drawings of how they envisage the year. I suppose I hadn't realised that everyone didn't have that mental image! But it's certainly not very interesting compared to all the other types.

[Draggletail]

1 minute ago, el_spectre said:

I always wanted some element of synaesthesia, and I didn't realise I had it until a friend sent me a link to a Twitter thread where everyone was sharing their drawings of how they envisage the year. I suppose I hadn't realised that everyone didn't have that mental image! But it's certainly not very interesting compared to all the other types.

Would you like to explain more about the "other types"?

[el_spectre]

I suppose I meant the ones everyone knows about, where certain words have auras, or numbers and days of the week have defined, unchanging colours.

[cressida]

9 minutes ago, Draggletail said:

Would you like to explain more about the "other types"?

Re your comment about words having 'auras'  there are words I particularly like e.g.  fragrance,  frisson,  renaissance and convalescence,  essence.