Do you Experience Synæsthesia?

[Beekeeper]

There isn't really a methods of perception section any more, so I had a bit of trouble deciding where to put this.

Something I discovered very quickly upon learning to meditate was that any external noise would result in visual patterns of light behind my closed eyelids. I didn't think anything about this but heard or read somewhere that this is actually an experience of Synaesthesia and, allegedly, fairly rare. Under 1 % of the population apparently exhibits synaesthesia. I'd first encountered the word "Synaesthesia" as a young teacher teaching my high school students about the Romantic poets, who occasionally liked to write poems where one sense was conveyed in terms we usually apply to another. Here's a definition from Wikipedia:

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 condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes.

According to http://www.syn.sussex.ac.uk/1.html#howcommon the most common form of synæsthesia is experiencing days or months in terms of colour.

So, my question, do you experience synæsthesia?

[CFTraveler]

I don't think I have ever experienced synesthesia (I could have copied and pasted the word from yours, but I'm too lazy) but I think doing energy work does encourage your brain to do this tactilely) so I wouldn't be surprised if it did induce it.
But I have to say, that although I don't have it, I can produce color in front of my closed eyelids (that is, produce a voluntary hallucination) on purpose, if focused enough. Some colors are easier than others.

[Beekeeper]

Yes, I can produce colours and images behind closed eyes too, but what I'm describing occurs involuntarily and corresponds with hearing the sound. It looks like light but in patterns like a pebble thrown in water or a splash of liquid.

I feel I have other sensory experiences that I would also like to ask others about related to nostalgia but I can't formulate a way to express it yet. I'll just mention it and maybe somebody will say something that corresponds with what I experience or I'll have the experience again soon and having started this thread will make me sit down and try to capture it in words.

[ButterflyWoman]

I experience most smells as colours. Most common colours are green, brown, yellow, gold, and occasionally red (I can't think of any "blue" smells offhand, interesting). This kind of thing isn't uncommon, though, in people who are particularly olifactorily oriented, as I am (i.e., I have a very keen sense of smell ).

I also experience numerals (not numbers; numeral and numbers are not the same!) as having specific gender (most are male). I've had that since I was very, very young, and I have no idea where it comes from. Letters of the alphabet (which are similar to numeral in concept) used to be gendered, too, and if I think about it I can still see which letters are which gender, but I haven't had the immediate association there for a long time, mostly because letters are now almost always part of a word or words, and those don't have any particular gender or colour or other such association. I'm not sure if gender counts as synæsthesia, though.

[Beekeeper]

I don't think it does but it's interesting. I wonder if that has a name.

[psionickx]

For me personally it also a "taste issue" - after working with applied energetics you so develop (so to speak) a "taste" for energy i.e what is that your psychic palette wants to be tantalized with? sometimes "tasting" atavisitc/brute energies hits the spot at others times zen/spock affected energy feels scrumptious.
Also sometimes i have very badly wanted to "taste" an idea or a preson not by the neuro-physiological faculties of the CNS but instead by some taste-sensitive feature of the psyche (hard to explain sorry)

[Beekeeper]

Also sometimes i have very badly wanted to "taste" an idea or a preson not by the neuro-physiological faculties of the CNS but instead by some taste-sensitive feature of the psyche (hard to explain sorry)

That could make a lot of sense, given how we start life experiencing just about everything by putting it our mouth. I've also noticed you like the word "scrumptious" and that others tend to choose adjectives and verbs according to their preferred learning modes. See what I mean? Hear what I'm saying? How do you feel about that idea?

[psionickx]

See what I mean? Hear what I'm saying? How do you feel about that idea?

i have to ruminate this over

[CFTraveler]

I'm curious as to which numerals you see as female, CW.
Three, perhaps? It's the only one that comes to mind (in my mind, anyway). Must be the breasty curve of 3...
I hadn't realized that I think of numbers as male, but in my case it's a language thing- in spanish everything is gendered, and the numbers are said in 'male' 'el numero uno ends in 'o'- they all end in o (male) e (neutral) or consonants, which are probably male-ish. Sort of.

Oops, I think I'm taking the thread a little off-topic. Apologies for that.

[ButterflyWoman]

I'm curious as to which numerals you see as female, CW.
Three, perhaps? It's the only one that comes to mind (in my mind, anyway). Must be the breasty curve of 3...

Let's see... this goes back to when I was REALLY young, just learning numerals, so it's kind of strange.

Masculine: 1, 4, 5, 7, 8
Feminine: 2, 3, 6, 9

They all have a kind of "character" that I associate with them, too, a sort of "personality". Some are ####y and some are gentle and shy. I have no idea why. Maybe it was just my very active imagination and how I learned to remember them or something.

Interestingly, none of them have any colour or sound or smell associated with them, but numbers and I have never gotten on that well, anyway (dyscalculia).