Wednesday, July 7, 2010

I just found out about Synesthesia, "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." I had never heard of this before, but read about it on this blog. She actually links to a few other blogs.

Anyway, I was amazed reading about this condition. I mean, it's not a bad condition at all, just a way of understanding certain peoples quirks, I suppose. Go the synesthesia link and scroll down to the Personification section. I do that and have done that since childhood. Fingers, colors, numbers, and tons of other inanimate objects and ideas have a set personality in my mind. I don't ever talk about it, because I thought it was a weird quirk I alone had. But I guess there are other people who do this as well!

There are several types: Grapheme (associating colors with letters and words), Sound (certain sounds create set images in your mind), Number form (a mental map of numbers--the wiki site has a great illustration--and I think this can also apply to days and months), Personification (things like numbers, months, days, and letters have set personalities), and Lexical or Gustatory (words and sounds create taste sensations).

So are any of y'all synesthetes? I would love to hear if you are!!!

3 comments:

Courtney said...

I would say that I probably have number form synesthesia - the spacial type where numbers and days of the week have a place in space. And sound -> color. Maybe more.

Bella said...

Huh???

brennan said...

i artificially re-create the taste of things when i hear the word for them. if i've ever tasted something, and you say the word for that item, i'll immediately taste it. weird, huh? i think it helps me in my cooking, b/c i can say words and taste what i'm thinking. that was phrased oddly, but you know what i'm saying.