Kiki’s Autistic Stories!

Living with synaesthesia is very interesting. To me, drinks, especially homogenous and complex ones like espresso or vine, make sound I can describe. This is a system, this is not random. People are agreeing with me. Colours have taste.

But I fear just one thing. There is a certain colour, especially when it’s a glass of that colour, that “tastes” so fucking bitter sweet that it gives me migraine. When I see it, I have to immediately close my eyes, go away, do something to forget it, otherwise migraine. Somehow, thinking of it is unpleasant, but thinking alone doesn’t induce a migraine.

Interesting.
When you drink a drink which has a specific color, does the actual taste of the drink override the taste that comes from the color?

Sounds like a trait that trivializes dish choices and diets as you can make anything taste good by just adding some food dyes.

have something similar to synaesthesia. my brain strongly correlates aromas with the sounds of musical instruments and notes. so in a way, i'm literally composing in the kitchen.

What?? I know I'm asking much but could you show us the color? Sorry, I'm too curious

When I was a kid, numbers had their own characters in my mind. Some where kind while others were evil. Calculating stuff felt like a story where the characters interacted.

I think I lost that quite early on in school, but I might still be more prone to mix up numbers that were friends back then if I need to memorise them.

@electrineer I do something similar, numbers for me have colours, and calculating means mixing them sometimes, or creating a gradient.

Yet I suspect synaesthesia goes way beyond that

@dmonkey I'm not sure if what I described is considered synesthesia, but I think it should be. What you described is called grapheme–color synesthesia.

After reading Wikipedia, I realised that I always visualise months on a circle counter-clockwise with winter on the top (that's probably copied from some illustration I saw as a kid). I once saw a similar representation drawn out in a different way and it felt repulsive.

I also used to visualize numbers in an animated 3D space. That was so inconsistent and cumbersome that I'm glad I no longer do that. However, I do still have a 2D number form that I still "see".

I don't think I've had any colour-related synesthesia. I recall not knowing the names of some colours at some point in kindergarten while other people already did. Maybe I paid attention to colours too late for any synesthesia to form, and maybe that's why I'm not very good with colours.

@dmonkey it's almost unbelievable for me to think that some people would not have any kind of synesthesia. After all, even I haven't thought about it for years and years since my kind rarely causes anything to feel off. When I read this rant, I didn't even remember I had any myself.

I'd argue that synesthesia is the normal way for a brain to associate things; different people just have different associations, and some might have strong side effects.

@electrineer well, if you _do_ have synaesthesia, it's hard to realise - because to you, it's completely normal, you've never known it any other way.

i wouldn't say it's _the_ normal way - it's just that sensory inputs and processing are calibrated differently.

it's a normal thing to happen, since such variations could open up new, more efficient processing, and therefore provide an evolutionary benefit - but for most people, it doesn't happen in any significant magnitude. (sadly, just like "logical thinking")