Living With Grapheme Synesthesia

syn-es-the-sia n. Physiol. Sensation produced at a point other than or remote from the point of stimulation, as of a color from hearing a certain sound 
(fr. Gk, syn = together + aisthesis = to perceive)


My daily life is affected with something called Grapheme Synesthesia.

It's not actually that bad.

Let me call on my friend WikiPedia to explain:

 Grapheme → colour synesthesia is a form of synesthesia in which an individual's perception of numbers and letters is associated with the experience of colours. Like all forms of synesthesia, grapheme → colour synesthesia is involuntary, consistent, and memorable. Grapheme → color synesthesia is one of the most common forms of synesthesia, and because of the extensive knowledge of the visual system, one of the most studied.While it is extremely unlikely that any two synesthetes will report the same colors for all letters and numbers, studies of large numbers of synesthetes find that there are some commonalities across letters (e.g., "A" is likely to be red).^[1][2] Early studies argued that grapheme → colour synesthesia was not due to associative learning, such as from playing with coloured refrigerator magnets.^[3] However, one recent study has documented a case of synesthesia in which synesthetic associations could be traced back to colored refrigerator magnets.^[4] Despite the existence of this individual case, the majority of synesthetic associations do not seem to be driven by learning of this sort.^[2][5] Rather, it seems that more frequent letters are paired with more frequent colours, and some meaning-based rules, such as ‘b’ being blue, drive most synesthetic associations. 

So...

pretty much, I see numbers and letters in colour.

I have all my life, but only learnt recently that it has a name. Grapheme synsthesia. I took this test, where each letter of the alphabet came up 3 times. They came up in random orders; each time I had to make it what colour it was in my mind. Then at the end, it took my results and lined up each letter to see if they were the same (just letting you know, that for some strange reason, the letters 'J' and 'N' don't have any colour for me, that's why they are different colours; because I couldn't remember what I'd done last time):

Grapheme Color Picker Test

0 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 6 7 7 7 8 8 8 9 9 9

A A A B B B C C C D D D E E E F F F G G G H H H I I I J J J K K K L L L M M M

N N N O O O P P P Q Q Q R R R S S S T T T U U U V V V W W W X X X Y Y Y Z Z Z

Score: 0.8

In this battery, a score below 1.0 is ranked as synesthetic.

I didn't realise that I had colours for months and weekdays until I did this test:

Weekday Color Picker Test

Sunday	Sunday	Sunday
Monday	Monday	Monday
Tuesday	Tuesday	Tuesday
Wednesday	Wednesday	Wednesday
Thursday	Thursday	Thursday
Friday	Friday	Friday
Saturday	Saturday	Saturday

Score: 0.5

In this battery, a score below 1.0 is ranked as synesthetic. 

Month Color Picker Test

January	January	January
February	February	February
March	March	March
April	April	April
May	May	May
June	June	June
July	July	July
August	August	August
September	September	September
October	October	October
November	November	November
December	December	December

Score: 0.48

In this battery, a score below 1.0 is ranked as synesthetic.

There are lots of different ways that synesthesia can affect you. For some people, like me, it makes letters/numbers/months/days have colours. Some people have an image that they associate with the letter or number (I have this but only for a few numbers and letters)(4 and 'H' are green and the image is a house; the image for 8 is the black ball on a pool table; etc). Here are some other examples- some are so weird:


-people can taste words and/or shapes
-some associate a colour to a tone of music (eg; "F sharp is purple.")
-for some people, a noise can produce and colour, texture or shape.


You can read more about it, if you're interested.


British author Steve Aylett sums it up pretty well- "It’s not as strange or unusual as 
it’s made out to be - it’s just a bit of a crossover of different senses. So I see music, taste some colours and so on."


~~~~

It's annoying at times, because when I need to remember an important group of numbers, sometimes they look 'wrong' because the colours look awful together; so it's makes it harder for me to remember that group of numbers. 

Eg; one important number I have to remember all the time is disgusting- orange, white, red, blue. Ugh! 

The other day I was at a friend's house, and we ended up talking about this very topic. I randomly said, ''E' and 3 are the same colour, and 'S' and 5 are the same colour too.' I pondered this, and wondered why. My friend's mother said maybe because they LOOK very similar. And I've realised that this is true!! It's the same for 'A' and 4, and 'R', 'D' and 2!! Very interesting. Just 'coz they're similar shapes.

{i will add photos when computer stops being stupid} 

Colour is a big part of my life (you should see my bedroom!!) and it helps me to concentrate, and to learn. Like- I did a Certificate IV in Disability earlier this year, at the Centre of Adult Education. 

ADULT education. 

In my time working at several schools, I have seen some schoolbooks with beautiful graphics, pictures and COLOUR on the pages. 

But adults?? Surely they are mature enough to have plain 'black-text-on-white-paper' books?!! Yeeeah, but nah. Not if colour helps them to concentrate on long, tedious words that the teacher says they must read. 

So sometimes if I was really struggling, I'd get my five coloured pens out, and underline the things I had to read.

{i will add photo when computer stops being stupid} 

I dunno, maybe I'm just still a little kid at heart  ;)

But grapheme synesthesia can be fun; the other day when I was at my friend's house with her mum and two sisters, they were pretty fascinated, and the girls were asking 'What colour's my name? What colour's Kitty's name?'

Orange and white of course.

KITTY

(p.s. The letters can change colour if they're in a word, or be the same colour as the letters around them. That's why the letters in 'Kitty' separately would be 'brownish-white-red-red-yellow', when they are all together as a word, it's orange and white. I have no idea why  :p)