synesthesia is a light and creamy green

[mountain tree]

Is it possible for synesthesia to vanish over time? I have vivid memories from when I was younger of associating words with colors, shapes and even personality traits. I haven't experienced it in probably a decade

From my experiences, I think it can reduce due to stress and sometimes depression, or even methods of schooling.

I just thought of that last one because early education kinda emphasizes the sensory experience of abstract concepts like letters and numbers, whereas later education just gives you the raw concepts without feeling. I dunno, but it seems kinda plausible.

^^this caught my attention.
I've never experienced any differences of intensity of my synesthesia, but it wouldn't surprise me if people (such as yourself!) experienced it. I wonder if it's because I have such 'mild' synesthesia that it's easy to ignore. It sounds like you had very vivid synesthesia growing up, so you noticed when it stopped happening as much. That's kind of curious. Also, I know that synesthesia can intensify (and sometimes "appear" even if you don't genetically have it) if you take certain medications and sometimes through acupuncture. But that isn't considered "real" (?) synesthesia, because it wasn't formed within your developing brain and/or passed down genetically. I wonder if, as a child, you have projections, if they could disappear once you got older, even though that means your synesthesia is very apparent?

Hello! I'm not a synesthete, but I stumbled across this forum and I find it absolutely fascinating. I came across synthesia a really long time ago, but didn't entirely understand it because internet explanations can sometimes be a bit vague and not really comprehensible - in essence I just wanted to say that you are all super duper awesome and I'm happy you have a thread that can spread awareness and comfort for yourself and others ;v;

Furthermore, love the title. Idk. This thread just makes me really happy and warm inside, and I'm not sure why, but it does <:

So yeah I might pop in every now and again to ask questions, if that's okay of course, and just to read what people post. So far this thread has educated me far more than the internet has, but maybe I wasn't looking in the right places //shrugs

Sorry if I'm bothering/butting in

hey there!
when I was looking for information about synesthesia online, I was super disappointed that there was so little information. It makes sense, though. I think that there are a lot of people who probably have at least mild synesthesia who don't even know that they have it. And I know that there are a lot of people who do have it, but don't like to talk about it. That's why I wanted to make sure this thread was around- to encourage people talking about their experiences and asking questions!

Also, just a side note but something kind of interesting:
A MAJORITY of people in the world do have a type pf syn that's sort of considered having synesthesia but that, as a synthete, I find "obvious" I guess. It's called the "Kiki/Bubba test. There's an image of a kind of spiky looking shape, and an image of a very curvy, paint-splattery looking shape. Basically, it's like a matching test. Most people will naturally name the spiky shape Kiki, and the curvy shape Bubba because of the way the words sound in relation to the words. To anyone with and type of syn that's more apparent, this answer comes easily to them, and so do the shapes, colors, or textures, or tastes, etc, of any other word.

[Lunarchy]

i believe i have synesthesia.
for me, songs are colored (all my favorite songs are teal or dark blue) and some of them have smells. For example, there's a song on this soundtrack that smells like rain AND it's a murky blue, making it one of my favorite songs. also, numbers have personalities and 'looks' in a sense (i.e. 2 is a daydreamer and 8 is rebellious and likes creating chaos) and my "lucky number" is 12 because its personality is a lot like mine and it also is a very pretty number. ALSO (idk whether this is synesthesia or not) people have "auras" that are colored. For example, my girlfriend's is lavender and mine is the same color blue as the song that smells like rain.

so yeah, i'm pretty sure that's synesthesia.

[depressedanonymous,]

I think I MAY have this. If I've been somewhere in the past and return, that has a musty smell to me. Almost all memories and dreams are smells and colors, but I understand what the dreams are. Is that synesthesia? Can someone explain how I would know?

[Zone0Neko]

i'm pretty sure i have the music/color variation of this, but it doesn't happen with every song though...
like i can see it a LOT on pop radio stations (a lot of the songs are like a dark blue with black)
does it have to happen with any piece of music i hear?

[fuiuki]

I seem to have a pretty abstract form of synesthesia, since a lot of "feelings" I get from things are just... undescribeable. It can actually be pretty frustrating at times, since I'm trying to describe something that has words, but they don't mean the same thing when actually made into words. Aah it's really complicated... and a thing to note can be that even if everyone has associations, synesthesia makes it even more vivid or stronger. I think of a lot of numbers as black and red because of calendars, but not the COLOURS black and red, but the feeling of them.

It really is like trying to describe a colour, and to a blind person none-the-less.

Something interesting to note is that my dad has absolutely no trace of synesthesia. When I started talking once about a number being yellow or something, or having a shape, he got so confused! He just doesn't seem to have any vivid associations. My grandfather, whom I'm not actually biologically related to, has it really strong too. I see seasons of the year and the months a bit like a treadmill, where they are different coloured sections that come and go. He sees them as a triangle, with winter on one long pointy end. We have a lot of things in common to say that we're not related biologically.


So uh... please don't ask me personally what I think of words or items or some such, because it's just a headache trying to explain a lot of the time. Some things I can only describe with sounds accompanied by gesturing. Bwooing!

[deathpiggie]

synesthesia is a soft, pale yellow to me! i have chromesthesia and spatial sequence synesthesia!

[mountain tree]

welcome new synthetes!
I loved reading your posts. It's so cool how different people can have different types of syn, or the same types with different "results"!

I think I MAY have this. If I've been somewhere in the past and return, that has a musty smell to me. Almost all memories and dreams are smells and colors, but I understand what the dreams are. Is that synesthesia? Can someone explain how I would know?

Wow! I've never experienced synesthesia in a dream before. That's really cool!
I think that if particular memories have particular smells/colors that you always associate with them, then that's probably a mild form of syn. If so, welcome to the family!

[MoMoYA]

can I be a mod?
How often are you on this thread? All the time
Do you have synesthesia? Yes
How comfortable are you with the thread rules? Very
Have you ever been a thread or CS mod? No

Haha those are my Synesthetic colors xD I have grapheme color synesthesia <333

[lyssavirus]

I can only see color if a word is spoken at a certain tone! It's often red, blue, or yellow. Really strong feelings will also bring brighter versions of those colors.

[Yaeli]

Just found this thread! I have synesthesia.
My main one is color-grapheme. Letters, numbers, and symbols each have unique colors.
A more unusual form of synesthesia I have is with music. Different types of chords have different colors when I'm listening to or playing music. Also, when I look at a piano keyboard each of the keys is a different color.

"Is it fun?"
It would be more fun if I could choose/change the colors. For some reason my associations tend toward the brownish or natural colors. I always wonder what a person sees who has bold or neon color associations. Although I kind of like mine because it isn't that distracting since the colors are all mellow and peaceful.