Synesthesia+Survey+Responses

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 * < || [[image:https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif width="15" height="15"]] [[image:https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif width="16" height="16"]] === ** Pamela McKenna ** ===

Questions For Synesthetes 1: Describe the type(s) of synesthesia you experience. What does your synesthesia cause you to experience? Any specifics or an example that you can explain in detail?

> I have General Sound to Color,Music to Color, Touch to Color, Temperature to Color, Pain to Color, Kinetics to Color and I just found out I have Taste to Color and Odors to Color. All my synesthesias except Kinetics to Color are stronger in the dark or with my eyes closed. In the light the photisms are faded ghosts of themselves. The photisms are composed of color, lines, pattern and movement.Occasionally the pattern is static or the photism can be a 3-D object(Oboe music forms a 3-lobed 3-D shape). Violin or fiddle music are whispy, grey forms - differnt forms for different pieces of music.

> The Kinetics to Color synesthesia requires light. The brighter the light, the stronger the color, which is transparent (you can see the background through it). A neutral background makes it easier to see. The object or myself has to be going the right speed in order to see the color. Have you noticed that when driving in a car, objects that are actually standing still, appear to be moving? For me, that perceived motion can cause me to see colored bands up the sides of telephone poles or running along the tops of mountains. An example of a object that is actually moving would be a ceiling fan. The color forms rainbow bands between the blades, travels outward and then gets thrown off the ends of the blades. Just this year my husband and myself decided to walk across the Golden Gate bridge for the first time. I found that at walking speed the red bridge railing throws off bands of yellow and purple. I can induce different bands of color by waving, in front of a neutral background, different circles of color on a wand. > 2: If your synesthesia causes you to experience something visual, please describe what it looks like to you, or how you experience it. If it evokes a different experience please describe that? Details etc? >

Our old telephone ringing would form a strong black and white checkerboard pattern that on the right side would skew down into a spiral. If I heard this in the dark and it startled me, this pattern filled my vision and was all I could see for a couple of seconds. The taste and smell of honey are similar but still different. Different honeys (orange vs clover) have slightly different photisms. These are now in my Synesthesia Notebook Album that you have a link to. Lime is glinting silver blue clouds conforming to a spiral. Salt is bright green blobs of color conforming to a spiral. One unknown sound at night formed 3 intwined black and white worms. An other unknown sound formed a pile of limp lavender french fries. The sound of my in-law's RV heater looked like a yellow pyramid with black and white steps up all corners. > 3: What is your earliest memory of synesthesia?

I remember telling my mother that somethings that move had extra color when i was little and she gave me the "wow, that's weird" look. > 4: At what age did you notice your synesthesia? At what age did you become aware of synesthesia as a “condition”?

I noticed the photisms but thought that all people saw things that way. I didn't know until last year at age 50 that I was different and that it was synesthesia. > 5: Has your synesthesia ever “set you apart” from others (aside from the obvious ways of having a different way of perceiving)? How?

I hesitate telling those people who have to see to believe, for how can they see through my eyes? > 6: Has your synesthesia ever brought you a feeling of belonging or acceptance?

Meeting other people with synesthesia is great because I don't need to explain it, they already **//get//** it. > 6: Do you think of your synesthesia as a positive or negative thing?

Positive. I've lived with it so long, it's like another eye. My third eye. > 7: In what ways do you think of your synesthesia as positive? Do you see it as an advantage? Any examples?

My life is filled with color, pattern, and movement. As an artist I might use those examples or I might not. I don't see it as a big advantage, more of a pre-disposition. > 8: In what ways do you think of your synesthesia as negative? What might be troublesome or unpleasant about it? Examples?

Dark is not dark, it is thick with color, pattern and movement and can be hard to see through. The darker the night, the thicker it is. So while it's dark there is no relief from the photisms. Thank God for sleeping. > 9: Does your synesthesia effect what you find pleasant or unpleasant?

A song that I like listening to, is even better if it has good photisms. Unpleasant smells (Vicks Vaporub) are more tolerable if they have interesting photisms. I'll listen to my husband's snoring for a while so I can see the photism which is like muticolored lightning coming toward me from the black background. A hotflash is fireworks against a white background. Pain is easier to handle if I focus on the color which is green. The brighter the green, the stronger the pain. > 10: Do you have any favorite things because of the synesthetic association it evokes?

Some of my music CDs because they have outstanding photisms. > 11: Do you think your synesthesia has affected any major “life choices” you’ve made? Like what kind of career or hobbies you have? Where you live etc?

No. The art and poetry spring from many wells and the synesthesia is only one.

> 12: Any experiences you’d like to share? Anecdotes?

Because most of my synesthesia is very faint during the daylight, I realized that there was a possibility that I could have Taste to Color or Odors to Color synesthesia and not know it, because I don't tend to eat in the dark or with my eyes shut.So I decided to experiment with food and odors while wearing a sleep mask. I sketched what I saw for each food and smelly item 3 times each. The results are in my synesthesia notebook album for which you have the link. I have both synesthesias.

Anne,

I don't know if this will be of help, but here are some links to albums on my facebook page showing images of some of my synesthesia.

http://www.facebook.com/album. php?aid=20453&id= 100001735882966&l=f06c6efa7f

http://www.facebook.com/album. php?aid=22128&id= 100001735882966&l=9aa134353c

http://www.facebook.com/album. php?aid=22131&id= 100001735882966&l=4a60585577

Pamela



** Sally Hewson **
to me

Questions For Synesthetes > > > 1: Describe the type(s) of synesthesia you experience. What does your synesthesia cause you to experience? Any specifics or an example that you can explain in detail?

I experience grapheme --> colour synesthesia. When I read or think of words or hear someone's name or look at a number or think of a number there is a specific colour that accompanies the comprehension. "Anne" is sky blue with green in the middle. "McMeeking" is green like lush trees and grass. There are little shots of pink and orange, black and a green like the shadows in a stand of pine trees -- so dark it is almost black.

A more rare experience is a feeling of revulsion accompanied by a sensation in the fingers of my right hand and mouth that I experience when I look at certain types of organic configurations (such as barnacles clinging to rocks). > > 2: If your synesthesia causes you to experience something visual, please describe what it looks like to you, or how you experience it. If it evokes a different experience please describe that? Details etc?

The colours are seen inside my mind. It's like another transparent layer of meaning seen simultaneously. > > 3: What is your earliest memory of synesthesia?

Grade One, age 5. > > 4: At what age did you notice your synesthesia? At what age did you become aware of synesthesia as a “condition”?

In Grade One, at age 5, I asked some of the other kids about their colours for letters and numbers. They were outraged. They accused me of "making things up" and threatened to beat me up. I went home and asked my older sister. She didn't know what I was talking about so I shut up about it.

Years later when I was 16, my mother had gone back to university and was taking a course in psychology. Synesthesia got a brief mention in one of her texts. On this occasion, my boyfriend and I were in the room as she mentioned that she had experienced synesthesia when she was a child but claimed it had faded. My boyfriend also experienced it on a number of modalities and me too. So 100 per cent of us in that room were synesthetes! I was left thinking that it was something that more people experienced, but it was somehow unacceptable to talk about it. I continued to remain quiet about it until about 2004. > 5: Has your synesthesia ever “set you apart” from others (aside from the obvious ways of having a different way of perceiving)? How?

Yes absolutely. I believe it is only now that science and the wider public are coming to an understanding of how much perceptual experience differs from person to person. I have known this most of my life and have accepted that others may be experiencing the same event or literature or music quite differently than I am. I still encounter people who are outraged by the idea that perception can differ. They can get really angry about it. Maybe this is a frightening idea in some way. > > 6: Has your synesthesia ever brought you a feeling of belonging or acceptance?

Only more recently. Thank you Sean Day for the Synesthesia List where I can be part of a world wide community of synesthetes and non-synesthetes that accept perceptual differences. > > 6: Do you think of your synesthesia as a positive or negative thing?

Positive. It is other people who sometimes try to turn it in to something negative.

I believe I may require visual peace and quiet a little bit more than others. I intensely dislike shopping malls. The coloured signage and visual stimulation is exhausting and sucks the life right out of me. If I have to go there, I visit the map first and plot my route to the store I want to visit. I go straight there, buy what I came for, then flee. I totally understand men who say they can't stand shopping with their wives. Their wives should cut them some slack.

I really prefer to shop in little neighbourhood shops instead. (Fortunately I live in downtown Toronto where I can do all my shopping on foot. Each neighbourhood has its own high street, so if I am tired of mine, I just go to another neighbourhood.) > > 7: In what ways do you think of your synesthesia as positive? Do you see it as an advantage? Any examples?

I think I am more open to other people's differences and more willing to like people who are different than me. I realize that others have an inner life that they may or may not be in touch with. I don't expect others to act logically at all times. I don't expect others to understand themselves at all times. I believe understanding these things makes me a better designer because I am fully aware that others might read something differently or use a website differently or respond differently to a call to action. I believe synesthesia may make me a more original thinker; I score well on tests of divergent thinking. Perhaps this is because my mind is more interconnected. > > 8: In what ways do you think of your synesthesia as negative? What might be troublesome or unpleasant about it? Examples?

I have to manage how I talk about it with other people. It is sort of like being gay. You have to manage how you "come out" to various people. Typically I am not "out" at work. On the other hand, I am "out" online. If someone googles my name they can find my paintings and know I am a synesthete. I tweet about it on Twitter sometimes. > > 9: Does your synesthesia effect what you find pleasant or unpleasant?

I don't like the pattern --> tingling fingers/mouth feel thing. The accompanying emotion requires self-control. > > 10: Do you have any favorite things because of the synesthetic association it evokes?

Yes some words are very beautiful. > > 11: Do you think your synesthesia has affected any major “life choices” you’ve made? Like what kind of career or hobbies you have? Where you live etc?

I decided to become a designer when I was only 9 years old because I saw it as a way to earn a living while practicing art skills. I wanted art-making to be part of my daily life. I didn't want it to stop at the end of childhood. I still don't want art making to stop. Turns out being a designer is different than art making, but it is complementary. (That is a whole different discussion.) > > 12: Any experiences you’d like to share? Anecdotes?

The individual colours are very beautiful. I have gone to considerable effort to document them as accurately as possible in paintings. I made the paintings because I wanted to see them with my outside eyes and to be able to show them to other people. "Look at this beautiful colour!".

Here is the wierd thing though, is sometimes the colours really clash. Some words or paragraphs are a cacophony of colours that ought not to be seen together. When I finished my paintings, I had to have a friend help me hang them. Normally when an artist creates a whole show of works, it hangs together harmoniously. My work is more difficult because many of the colours just don't "go". This mirrors what it is like to live with this palette every day in my internal life.

That's it! best regards, Sally