A Quick Note on Changing Colors
Previously, I noted that my F was a light-ish blue and my K was yellow. Upon closer examination (namely, paying better attention to things), I’ve realized that my F is actually purple and my K is magenta/pink. I’m not sure why I had seen them otherwise previously, but I know that the purple and magenta are correct, and they have been my whole life. Strange.

Sensations As Colored Shapes
The other day I was talking with my friend about the band Nightwish. I was trying to explain to him why, for some reason, I don’t like the band’s music very much. On the surface, it seems like the music would be right up my alley. Orchestral, epic metal music with harmonic, operatic vocals. but for some reason it just gives me the heeby-jeebies. I’ve pretty much narrowed it down to the conclusion that its color/shape is just… wrong. The funny thing is that I reached this conclusion by noting the color/shape of a sensation I got from eating a certain food.

You know that spinach & artichoke dip with cream cheese and pine nuts and stuff in it? It’s tasty. But at the same time, it feels bad. This probably won’t make sense to nonsynesthetes, but basically when I eat that dip, it feels/tastes like a large white teardrop. This white teardrop is, for me, the epitome of uneasy. Anything at all that gives me the feeling of unease will undoubtedly resemble this white teardrop.

Nightwish? The music is usually a large white teardrop, only sitting on its side instead of upright like usual. It is outlined in a haze of pink, especially near the point. Pink is, for me, the epitome of pleasure. Anything that gives me a pleasurable sensation radiates in pink. So perhaps now you’re getting the picture. The epitome of unease tipped on its side, wrapped in a halo of pleasure. It’s just… uncomfortable. I NO LIKE!

What’s interesting is that even though I have been aware of synesthesia for a few years now, and have been actively cataloging my experiences, I still was not totally conscious of this part of it until yesterday. I’m going to start paying attention closer to the rest of my shapes!

Months of the Year
My year is a large circle around my head. The months run counter-clockwise, with January at the “top” slightly to the left of center. The months follow around the circle, until June and July are basically inside my head, then continuing around to the right until December meets January. Whenever I think of a month, I see it in its spot and its color. My calendar does not rotate. It is always the same no matter what month it currently is. If I think of a month, I can sort of move myself into it, but retain the dominance of the static calendar. I don’t know if this is making sense to anyone but me…

The idea of this circular spatial sequence is that the months are constantly flowing one into the other, in a constant, repetitive pattern. There is no break in the pattern, which is why my circle is so appropriate. Below I’ve drawn a couple of diagrams of my year, complete with each month’s color. The first one is as if you were standing behind me. The second is as if you were looking down at it from above my head.

Days of the Week
My week is similar to my hear in that it is circular and runs counter-clockwise. It is much smaller than my year, and sits in a space in front of me and slightly to the left. Sunday and Saturday and in the “back” of the circle, and the rest of the days are in the “front”. It also has less dimension/depth than the year does. Each day has a color as well. Just like my year, I can move myself into each day, but the week never changes its spatial sequence. Below I’ve drawn a diagram of the way I see my week, with each day in its color.

This is a very rough sketch of how I view the days of the week via my spatial-sequence synesthesia. It’s a circle, where Saturday and Sunday are farther away and Wednesday is closest to me. It’s really hard to depict this properly. The days are also colored based on how they are colored to me (via my grapheme-color synesthesia). This is not necessarily how the actual words look to me, just the DAYS.

Hours of the Day
The hours in my day are slightly different from my year and week. My day is like an elongated oval, and sits vertically, as opposed to horizontally (like my year and week) in space. It is like a big oval that I could draw on the wall in front of me, and is about the same height as my body, but higher than me (it doesn’t start at my feet, but maybe my waist). It is also different in that it runs clockwise, but it is not exactly like a clock.

Midnight is at the top. 6:00 am is at the bottom. Noon is halfway through the left side. The chunks of time also have colors associated with them, but it’s mainly just the color of the sky during that time of day, so I don’t know that it counts in a synesthetic way.

Below is a diagram of my day (click it to make it bigger).

First the screen was colored in boxes of different colors. Then it would be blank, then it was covered in boxes of varying shades of grey/black/white. It did this about five time, so they could see how my brain works when viewing colors vs. no colors. Then they showed three different series of graphemes.

Some that I view in “colors”, some that I view in black or white (which I still consider “colors”), and some characters in another language (I’m not sure which, didn’t look like anything I’ve seen before). It did these all several times. Then the last 15 minutes I was supposed to be viewing a video of Sesame Street, but it wasn’t working for some reason so I just saw a black screen and was having to try very hard not to fall asleep, haha.

After the fMRI, we went back to their research lab/office and I got to speak with Dr. Eagleman who is heading up the research. We talked about their research on grapheme->color synesthesia, as well as their research on tracking synesthesia genetically. We laid out my family tree and they asked me to contact as many family members as I can, to see if they want to participate in the genetic study (all they have to do is donate a sample of DNA – some saliva). They also told me that they’re creating some more research studies for synesthetes. They couldn’t tell me everything but they told me it will be a series of computer games — and they want me to pilot the research! Woohoo! I’m so excited to be a part of something like this. In addition, Dr. Eagleman has a book coming out in March and he said he would give me a copy. High five!

P.S. Yes, those are images of my brain. They gave me a whole disc of images from the MRI!

Toward the beginning of my Googling, I came across a page talking about synesthesia and asking for synesthetes in the Houston area to be volunteers for their research. However, the page had no dates on it, and there was no link to that page from anywhere else on the site. I decided to give it a shot anyway and email the doctor (Dr. Eagleman at Baylor) to find out. To my surprise me emailed me back within the hour and put me in contact with one of his graduate students!

I’ve been corresponding with her all week, and she asked me to participate in their research. The experiment they are running right now involves doing an fMRI of the brain while the synesthete performs certain tasks (I don’t know all the details yet) to see which areas of the brain are working for different things. I’m scheduled to do this next Thursday morning. Woohoo!

She also asked me if anyone in my family had grapheme-color synesthesia since they are doing research to trace this genetically. Coincidentally, I was planning to visit my parents that afternoon and talk to them about it. Strangely, up until this point nobody in my family even knew about my synesthesia. I spoke to my family about it. My mom was trying to understand the concepts but was having trouble, so I was certain she didn’t have it. She asked me to explain the grapheme-color variant one more time, so I did. Thus our conversation follows.

Kelley: For example, ask someone “What color is 5?” and they–
Mom: — GREEN! — gasp! — *covers her mouth in surprise*
Kelley: Mom! Oh my god! You have synesthesia!
Mom: *still slightly in shock* … But… I didn’t understand what you meant until now. I never even thought about it, actually, until now.
Kelley: *elated* So your five is green? Mine is blue!!
Mom: But I can only go up to five… And only ABC… But E is yellow. And 1 is always yellow….
Kelley: *bouncing like a loon*

I’m still excited about it, and every time I remember her blurting out “GREEN!” and then covering her mouth in surprise… I just can’t help but giggle! I have never met anyone IN PERSON with synesthesia. It’s one thing to talk about it online, but I didn’t realize how different (and validating) it would be to actually speak to someone who shares something so special with you.

In any case, I can’t wait for the fMRI next week. I’ll post about it here! It would be so awesome if they let me have a couple of the pictures. (Oh yeah and they said they will pay me for my time, too! Wow.)

For example, the word “yellow” is initially yellow. This might be because of its meaning, but also because three of its letters are yellow (Y and L), and O is a light orange. As the word’s initial color fades, however, I can see the underlying blues of the E and the W. The word “banana” however, is never yellow. It is always an orange-ish red, because B and N are orange, while A is red. Because of the repeating color sequence in this word (not to mention its fun alliterative quality), I really enjoy this word. Another example is my name: Kelley. While K, L, and Y are all yellow, E is blue. So my name becomes a blend of blues and yellows that gets translated into green. Perhaps this is because Kelley is also a shade of green, and because it is my favorite color so I tend to associate myself with green. Interesting, that.

Whenever I hear audible speech, I see the words in my head. This is why it is essential for me to know how words are properly spelled (and pronounced), because it all is important to how I perceive them. I can’t know a word’s “true color” unless I know how it is properly spelled, and that frustrates me. (Similarly, I can’t know a word’s “true taste” unless I know how it is properly pronounced). When thinking of letters individually, they always have the same color, and I see them in their proper place along my alphabet line. Below I’ve made a little diagram of my letter sequence along with each letter’s color. (As an aside, all punctuation marks are black. That is not to say that they are colorless – they have a color: black.)

Similarly, each number has a specific color. Each digit 0-9 has its own color, but when they are combined to form larger numbers, each digit retains its original color. So a string of digits, like 67521, does not have an overall color (like words do). I would still see the number as lightgreen-orange-blue-magenta-white. Because of this, some numbers are more beautiful to me than others. Since green is my favorite color, that may be why I have such an adoration of the number 3 and its multiples (even 6 is green, and 9 is a close neighbor – yellow). Numbers like 24, 56, and 99 are especially lovely to look at. Perhaps that is also why I so enjoys patterns and palindromes in numbers. I also see my numbers along a sequence line. While not as complex and whirly as other synesthetes’ mine is still particular enough to count (I think). Below, I’ve made a diagram of my digits’ colors, and a drawing of my number line.

“It is really difficult to portray my number-line in a two-dimensional space. The line snakes in and out, closer to me and farther away from me. Negative numbers plunge infinitely downward. Numbers above 200 rise infinitely left and upward.”

Synesthesia (also spelled synæsthesia or synaesthesia, plural synesthesiae or synaesthesiae)—from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), “together,” and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), “sensation” — 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.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been synesthetic, but I didn’t even know that what I had was unusual — or that it had a name — until a few years ago. Even in college when my eccentric Design teacher was telling us about synesthesia, it still didn’t register with me. I don’t even really remember anything she said about synesthesia; I just remember her trying to explain it and being very excited about it. Perhaps it was because she had a mystical idea of what it was — since she doesn’t have it. In any case… a few years after that, my dear friend Miss EC introduced me to what synesthesia really is, and I instantly related.

Grapheme → Color Synesthesia
In one of the most common forms of synesthesia, grapheme → color synesthesia, individual letters of the alphabet and numbers (collectively referred to as graphemes), are “shaded” or “tinged” with a color. While synesthetes do not, in general, report the same colors for all letters and numbers, studies of large numbers of synesthetes find that there are some commonalities across letters (e.g., A is likely to be red)

This has always been a part of me. I’ve never known letters or numbers without color. By extension, words are colored also. Days of the week also have a specific color and months of the year have a specific color (which may or may not correspond to the color of the actual word). I will go into more detail about this in my next blog post. For a good article about synesthesia, please go here: link.

Spatial-Sequence or Time-Space Synesthesia
One type of synesthesia studies is called spatial sequence synesthesia, in which synesthetes experience time units (such as weekdays or numberlines) in distinct spatial configurations.

Again, this has always been a part of me. I see the months of the year, days of the week, and hours in the day in a spatial, circular sequence in front of me. I see numbers along a specific line pattern, but it isn’t as complex as other synesthetes with number-lines. In addition, I also see letters of the alphabet along a specific sequence line that cascades in space. I will go into more detail about this in my next blog post. For an excellent article about spatial-sequence synesthesia, please go here: link.

Sound → Color Synesthesia
In sound → color synesthesia, individuals experience colors in response to tones or other aspects of sounds.

Music makes me see colors. Certain instruments are especially vibrant in my mind, and certain music more so than others. In addition, sounds and music often illicit specific touch sensations.

Lexical → Gustatory Synesthesia
In a rare form of synesthesia, lexical → gustatory synesthesia, individual words and phonemes of spoken language evoke the sensations of taste in the mouth.

I have this as well, but to a lesser extent. Not every word will illicit a specific flavor. But words do have a profound impact on my mouth. Some words taste and feel delicious in my mouth. Some words are too bitter to say. Some words are uncomfortable for my mouth to hold. Some works make me nauseous. It works whether I am speaking the word or hearing someone else speak it.

Mitempfindung
Referred itch (also known as Mitempfindung) is a phenomenon where scratching an itch on one part of the body produces an itching sensation on a different, apparently unrelated part of the body.

This is not a direct form of synesthesia, but some researchers feel that it may be related. It is not necessarily an itch, either, but just a touching of the stimulus creates a sensation of feeling in another part of the body. And yes, I have this, too. I didn’t even realize it was rare or unique until I was reading an article about it yesterday. I always just thought it was weird — but never ventured to ask anyone else if they experienced it too, because I didn’t want them to think I was crazy! Touching my fingers in a certain spot, for example, will induce a tickling sensation on my tongue, and it won’t stop until the stimulus is stopped. Similarly, it will also happen if you touch my arm or foot, I will feel it in a spot on my back.
For more information about mitempfindung, please go here: link.
For information about mitempfindung and how it relates to synesthesia, please go here: link.

I found an awesome battery of tests for syensthetes that was created by Dr. David Eagleman at Baylor. After taking these tests and answering questions about my synesthesia, it made me even more excited to research about it. It was really cool seeing all of my colors documented like that, and even more cool to get to actually visualize my spatial-sequence for the months of the year. If you’re a synesthete, you should check it out! http://www.synesthete.org

In my next blog post, I’ll tell you how I was able to hook up with Dr. Eagleman for some awesome research! :D

Color by COLOURlovers