What Does Synesthesia Feel Like?

What does Synesthesia feel like?

A lot of people want to know what synesthesia feels like. I cannot imagine what it feels like not to have it, as everything has always been a mix of different textures, sensations, temperatures...

Synesthesia is known as “union of the senses,” and it's cross-sensory experience that allows synesthetes to experience several senses at one time. It affects about 4% of the population. But I'm not going to write a detailed scientific essay on synesthesia. I will just describe some of my synesthesia idiosyncrasies. Apparently a lot of creative people have it such as Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Nabokov...

Synesthesia is more frequent among women and often a synesthete has a relative with synesthesia. My mom also has it and sees different colors with letters of the alphabet. 

To me it has always felt natural, like learning the alphabet and math in school, every number and letter had an unexplained assigned color... 

Like L's are light yellow and happy, my favourite letter too, hence my daughter is called Lila. Names with L are yellow too.

M's are red, strong and tonic...

5 has a temper, it's sharp, hot and red...

4 is cold, it's nice and blue...

3 is strong yellow, and it's harsh...

1 is white and a bit arrogant...

2 is friendly and gentle...

Circles are also friendly and gentle, while squares and rectangles are sharp and quite feisty.

The months of the year make a rectangle, snake shape. Days of the week have colours too and a shape that I can only draw, as it doesn't exist in geometry, I think!

I go crazy when someone rips paper by my side. It makes me cold, tastes like metal and It sends paralysing shivers up my body like a frightened cat.

If you mention veins or blood, I taste salt, and feel sucked out of blood. I feel faint and you will see me go white. Biology and human physiology had me lying on my table in reaction to these words.  

Football match stations feel sharp give me a sensation of indigestion, nausea, headaches, and feel horribly disgusting.

Classical music feel so colourful, sensorial and give me lots of body sensations, tingling, a change in temperature in different places, feelings of expansion, lightness... But I think this happens with everyone, right?

Perfumes, also have colours and are loaded sensorial experiences filled with texture, breezes, coloured light shows...

I cannot imagine not experiencing the temperature or colours of things, if they are piercing or soft... I don't know any better, but synesthesia is so precious too me. I see it as a gift.

If you have synesthesia, let me know in the comments some of your interesting idiosyncrasies.

Sending love and light,

Dani xxx