My Synesthesias, Part 1: Time & Numbers = Colors & Positions

Synesthesia occurs when the wiring in the brain gets crossed between multiple sensory areas. It’s not just a symbolic association, though they’ve found links with that, it’s an actual perception of things that is completely involuntary and unavoidable for the synesthete. Anyone and everyone can think of piccolo music as baby blue or pink for instance, when asked– but do you always see that color when you hear a piccolo play? That’s the difference.

If you want to know what I’m talking about, here’s a good place to start: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

I have several types of synesthesia, and I had this first one I’m going to describe pretty much since I started reading and writing around age 3 to 4 years old. It’s stuck with me all this time!

The first type of synesthesia I have is more conceptual and based upon memory perception than actual hallucinatory experiences, which I’ll convey in later posts. It is also the most common type of synesthesia reported. In fact, you may have a version of this yourself. I was amazed when I found out that not everyone thinks like this…

Grapheme-color synesthesia

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

How I see individual digits of numbers: with assigned colors.

Note how zero is black and 1 is white (or the closest I could get to that and still see it on a white background). I had that before I ever heard of zeros and ones in programming language, so that’s a cool synchronicity!

Grapheme-color Synesthesia is tested by sitting a person down one day to ask them what they see for these things, then inviting them back at a random time weeks or months later to re-test. The chances of a person answering the same exact way by memory are quite remote for some of these things because they are not otherwise logical or connected. But synesthetes don’t have to remember, these things are automatically just “there” all the time for them.

This is combined in me for another kind:
Spatial sequence synesthesia

Those with spatial sequence synesthesia (SSS) tend to see numerical sequences as points in space. For instance, the number 1 might be farther away and the number 2 might be closer. People with SSS may have superior memories; in one study, they were able to recall past events and memories far better and in far greater detail than those without the condition. They also see months or dates in the space around them. Some people see time like a clock above and around them.

For instance, I see days of the week and months of the year as on a weird gigantic wheel that turns into a straight line where I happen to fall on it. It’s May right now, so that part is flat and it’s flat behind me (March & April) and ahead (June & July) but if I “look” further in my mind’s eye, it all starts to curve. Eventually, if I “pull back” to look at time, it’s a series of spirals going on to infinity.

I also see months of the year with the same colors, and I get upset with calendars that use different ones than I think are “right.”

Months are arranged about like what you see above, but more 3-dimensional, and I move along it in my perception like I’m on a track or something…. sort-of. Hard to describe.

I don’t see special colors beyond individual digits, though some do. I DO see them in a weird line, similar to what you see above, though not quite the same way. Rather, I see all sequential things– numbers, months, etc., as being on a segment of a line that branches out into spirals eventually. But it can distort in the “close up” view. Like… December into January I see as the top of a “hump” sort of, with the old year going UP on the right side, and the new year going DOWN on the left– which is the opposite of how our culture views time, sine we see it as left to right, —–> that way, just as we write and read.

So, in my mind’s eye, time and sequential things go counter-clockwise and up spiral stairs– except when switching to a new year or category (like from 199 to 200 or something) when things appear to go “down” again. It’s hard to describe exactly, but maybe you can picture it.

Oddly, days of the week don’t have colors (other than “Saturday” seems a little pink-red maybe…) just the time-spiral type of thing I have with numbers and months.

Overall, this type of synesthesia is very low-key and rather enjoyable. It also enhances learning and memory, so I have no quibble with it. That is not always the case with all the forms I experience…

Source: https://lucretiasheart.livejournal.com/1505292.html