Do you experience synesthesia? Colors and shapes of music, which is common, or the supposedly less common colors and other traits imbued in letters and numbers? Perhaps other weird sensory associations?
Thinking about two things made me start this thread: articulation and synesthesia.
First I was thinking about the creative power of articulation and how just searching for words to describe something new brings experiences to more vivid life in your understanding. I thought about what would be a good example of this and synesthesia immediately came to mind.
I've had this synesthesia thing for as long as I can remember, mostly visual in nature, color, shape, movement, and later on gender and even personalities imbued into letters and numerals and other things. Before I learned to read, it was mainly music that took color and form and emotion in my mind, and writing or printing was just squiggles on paper, no color or anything. Once I learned to read, numerals and letters took on not only color but often gender and personality. These superfluous traits sometimes change, but there's a lot of consistency there. Fives will always be bright and bold for me, orange or red, like if the numeral 5 were a person, he'd be male and would be very outgoing and friendly and brave. And the number 23 will always be pretty, like a blue flower with green leaves. The number 23 has no real meaning for me, but it's always been a number I love. When my sisters and I were little kids playing house, we gave ourselves ages and I was always 23, based purely on 23 being pretty.
But I never thought much about it or talked about it at all. It never occurred to me to tell anyone about it. In hindsight, had I thought about it as something worthy of mentioning, I would have assumed it was something that happened to everyone. I'm still not entirely convinced it's not all of us. I think some of you just don't notice.
I guess it's like when I heard about people who can't think visually at all. They can't conjure up images in their minds. I just can't imagine that. I don't understand how they function, but they do, and they don't consider it a handicap, although I imagine they probably sometimes get frustrated with visual thinkers expecting them to be the same.
So synesthesia was just something that was there. It wasn't something I did after the fact. The synesthesia informs me of what color or other trait something will be imbued with, not the other way around. I think it's common for people to have visual representations of music, even music that is recalled rather than being actively listened to. So if that's true for you and you can sort of explore that process of music taking color and form in your mind and how it just seems to come from the music and not from you, then you understand synesthesia. That's my belief, anyway.
In thinking about how letters and numerals came to be imbued with color and other traits for me only after I learned to read and do math, I suspect that synesthesia happens along with the process of imbuing abstract meaning, in the process of how we apply meaning to anything as we experience and learn. Obviously, it's not a process that can be directly observed. The brain has already done its thing in applying meaning before you can consciously be aware of the meaning of something, at least in terms of application.
Another way to get what I'm trying to say is to think or say a word over and over until it loses meaning. I'm sure everyone's experienced that before. Say or think a word over and over and it becomes something weird and alien. That's the process of undoing the meaning that your brain had applied behind the scenes in a process starting when you first began hearing and using a word repeatedly enough that the imbued meaning became the thing and the details of the grouping of letters no longer needed attention.
So my idea of what's going on with synesthesia is that it's a kind of side effect of the subconscious process of imbuing meaning in the practical way for normal, useful things.
Anyway, back to articulation. Synesthesia was something I never thought to articulate until someone else did it for me when I learned the word synesthesia and read about its meaning. Wow, it's a thing that people talk about and describe, it has a name, it has people who study it for fuck's sake! WHOOOAAAAA. My mind was blown. Even though synesthesia was something I have experienced for as long as I can remember, now, by reading others' articulations and forming my own, the whole thing has taken on a whole new life and level of detail and understanding for me. Something that wasn't all that interesting to me before, but had always existed for me in a very real way, is now really super interesting due to the power of articulation.
If anyone else here experiences synesthesia or has thoughts on this, especially if you have educated insights into the things I describe in my layman's terms, I'd love to hear about it.
What color is your favorite singer's voice? Are poems colorful? Like in a more literal way than the usual metaphors we use for pleasant or interesting use of language? How about olfactory synesthesia? I don't get that one. I can imagine smells to a degree, but they don't play a role in my synesthesia. I'd love to hear more about that if you experience it.
Thinking about two things made me start this thread: articulation and synesthesia.
First I was thinking about the creative power of articulation and how just searching for words to describe something new brings experiences to more vivid life in your understanding. I thought about what would be a good example of this and synesthesia immediately came to mind.
I've had this synesthesia thing for as long as I can remember, mostly visual in nature, color, shape, movement, and later on gender and even personalities imbued into letters and numerals and other things. Before I learned to read, it was mainly music that took color and form and emotion in my mind, and writing or printing was just squiggles on paper, no color or anything. Once I learned to read, numerals and letters took on not only color but often gender and personality. These superfluous traits sometimes change, but there's a lot of consistency there. Fives will always be bright and bold for me, orange or red, like if the numeral 5 were a person, he'd be male and would be very outgoing and friendly and brave. And the number 23 will always be pretty, like a blue flower with green leaves. The number 23 has no real meaning for me, but it's always been a number I love. When my sisters and I were little kids playing house, we gave ourselves ages and I was always 23, based purely on 23 being pretty.
But I never thought much about it or talked about it at all. It never occurred to me to tell anyone about it. In hindsight, had I thought about it as something worthy of mentioning, I would have assumed it was something that happened to everyone. I'm still not entirely convinced it's not all of us. I think some of you just don't notice.
I guess it's like when I heard about people who can't think visually at all. They can't conjure up images in their minds. I just can't imagine that. I don't understand how they function, but they do, and they don't consider it a handicap, although I imagine they probably sometimes get frustrated with visual thinkers expecting them to be the same. So synesthesia was just something that was there. It wasn't something I did after the fact. The synesthesia informs me of what color or other trait something will be imbued with, not the other way around. I think it's common for people to have visual representations of music, even music that is recalled rather than being actively listened to. So if that's true for you and you can sort of explore that process of music taking color and form in your mind and how it just seems to come from the music and not from you, then you understand synesthesia. That's my belief, anyway.
In thinking about how letters and numerals came to be imbued with color and other traits for me only after I learned to read and do math, I suspect that synesthesia happens along with the process of imbuing abstract meaning, in the process of how we apply meaning to anything as we experience and learn. Obviously, it's not a process that can be directly observed. The brain has already done its thing in applying meaning before you can consciously be aware of the meaning of something, at least in terms of application.
Another way to get what I'm trying to say is to think or say a word over and over until it loses meaning. I'm sure everyone's experienced that before. Say or think a word over and over and it becomes something weird and alien. That's the process of undoing the meaning that your brain had applied behind the scenes in a process starting when you first began hearing and using a word repeatedly enough that the imbued meaning became the thing and the details of the grouping of letters no longer needed attention.
So my idea of what's going on with synesthesia is that it's a kind of side effect of the subconscious process of imbuing meaning in the practical way for normal, useful things.
Anyway, back to articulation. Synesthesia was something I never thought to articulate until someone else did it for me when I learned the word synesthesia and read about its meaning. Wow, it's a thing that people talk about and describe, it has a name, it has people who study it for fuck's sake! WHOOOAAAAA. My mind was blown. Even though synesthesia was something I have experienced for as long as I can remember, now, by reading others' articulations and forming my own, the whole thing has taken on a whole new life and level of detail and understanding for me. Something that wasn't all that interesting to me before, but had always existed for me in a very real way, is now really super interesting due to the power of articulation.
If anyone else here experiences synesthesia or has thoughts on this, especially if you have educated insights into the things I describe in my layman's terms, I'd love to hear about it.
What color is your favorite singer's voice? Are poems colorful? Like in a more literal way than the usual metaphors we use for pleasant or interesting use of language? How about olfactory synesthesia? I don't get that one. I can imagine smells to a degree, but they don't play a role in my synesthesia. I'd love to hear more about that if you experience it.
