[...] the articles confuse ya — and the links may often lose ya — we wait for the refrain — because it’s all somehow connected — though for sure it’s not perfected [...]

Yeah, like I heard that blind people, because they can’t see, the rest of their sensory things are better sometimes than if they could see. Wierd. I like this post.

The state when I’m either completely asleep nor completely awake? I call it “work.”

[...] więcej: What is it called when you can taste a word? | The Hot Word a-different-sense, a-trope–, also-known, different-sense, known-as-synesthesia, lime-green, [...]

That is so weird. Who ever would have thought that?

i read a book about a girl who had that… it had mango in the title and a’s were yellow.

Which is more dominant organ that organizes the reality, neurons or sensory skin? And language.

N by NE: I’m not completely sure what you are asking, but perception (the organization of reality) is created by the brain as an interpretation of the senses. Neurons are not organs, but because they are a part of the nervous system, I suppose you could say they are dominant over the skin sensors.
In other words, the neurons (by association with the brain) are dominant over skin sensors in perception. However, both of them are cells, not organs.

Can’t zeugma also be applied to this idea, when used a literary term?

i think i might have a little bit of this… i taste words ( to a certain degree) when i think of certain letters and numbers they are always in specific colours and it has been like this for as long as I remember… al so words have textures and flavours.
maybe i’m just crazy

Hmmmmmm. The article terms this sense as being a ‘disorder’. That seems strange to me as I thought everyone did this. That is to say everybody, across the board, assosiatedd colours to words and letters and numbers,(in my case, I also do this particularly to the months of the year and days of the week, as well assosiate different colours to food e.g. to me roast chicken is a pastel/water colour-y blue). I thought that there was nothing strange in doing this. I supposed that it is a way of organising events and memories in accordance to the Ol Factory senses. So…. hmmmmmm?

yeah ryt..this is for real..haha..like like it..:)

when shall educationists and their likes stop pondering on spiritual matters with carnal minds. Spiritualism isn’t understood by your level of education, one can only comprehend through revelation the mysteries of dreams and other spiritual occurrences.

Be a seeker of the truth of God and His statetus; read John. 4:22-24…

Thanks to all!

yeah it all makes sense to me. I’m a musician but also am very visually oriented. often when i hear or play music it evokes colors or abstract patterns. it cool because, well first its cool, but also it helps with learning and playing.

WOW! I wish I could do that.
Love this article!

If the regular correpondance between neurons and body sensors in creating perceptions and images deviates and if such deviations can not be pertain to not only one individual but shared by others, that would be called art.

The thing is the advancement of our new technology and science is contributing to the dawn of art in the 21st century, I wonder.

I am not savvy in the today’s art, but if there is anyone who is experimenting in such a field would be interesting.

I suppose it could be a disorder, but I’m kinda jealous. Of course it would be a bummer if my favorite words started tasting like boiled okra or rotten cabbage. But seeing numbers a colors? Sounds more like a gift!

the olfactory senses is airbourne, which is predominantly found in rather primitive creatures–I guess humans are among them–very strange way of communicating that is really puzzling.

@Cyberquill on November 7, 2010 at 12:04 pm
The state when I’m either completely asleep nor completely awake? I call it “work.”

“Neither” is used with “nor.”

Now I know what that word is, next time I eat mushrooms it will be more fun. Who knew it was real!?

Theres some guy with Synesthesia that interprets numbers as colored polygons, and can do crazy maths off hte top of his head, because he can just put all the blocks together in his head and read the shape.

Yes, I seem to have something similar to this as well, not as much with colors on numbers, but I do associate a lot of words with certain foods. For instance, the word “original” makes me think of tacos. I always thought that it had something to do with where I learned the word. I mean, I was probably watching a commercial for taco bell’s original tacos or something. This is not the case for all words for me, but it is interesting. I suppose I might have a touch of this too. I don’t actually taste the food, but I do visualize it.

Interesting article. I had never read anything about synaesthesia before, especially not in the comments section of last Monday’s Hot Word of the Day.

Also, I imagine that the word ’synaesthesia’ tastes like chloroseptic spray. Would any synesthetes like to verify this?

~Saf

As I am in the ingestible human waste business.This tastes like a waste of time. But i love the waay it smells.B0Q= 8 >

interesting, i always curious about what it was called when i would hear a color and think of a shape or taste

i have this… i never knew what it was called. actually i never knew everyone didn’t experience this! to me it’s so everyday i almost don’t even notice it any more. it’s been going on since i was a child.

Speaking of trumpet solos – when asked by a musician if he had any specific instructions for the orchestra, composer Arnold Schoenberg is reported to have said, “Why, yes, could you play it a little more greenish-brown-ly?”

This is not a disorder. I think of it as a gift. It helps me with spelling, and remembering lots of things other “normal” people can’t. It’s actually really offending for me when people call it a disorder. It doesn’t limit me in anyway, the only thing that is annoying is when I see a letter or word in the ‘wrong’ color. that just hurts on my eyes.

Alexi–The book is called A Mango Shaped Space, if you wanted to know.

@charolette
Disorder ’sounds’ negative, like ’side effect’, but merely describes something that deviates from the norm. “a disturbance is functions, an irregularity.”

It may be a gift, but its still a disorder =P

Hi guys. I’m 13 years old and I’ve been “tasting words” since I was about 6. I always thought everyone else did that, too, but I guess not. I don’t know if I’m actually tasting words, or simply being reminded of food when I hear words, but I used to be really worried. For example, ‘example’ tastes of maple syrup. ‘For’ tastes like creamed corn. ‘Like’ tastes like cucumber sushi. In class, I cringe when I hear words such as ’squirm’ for it tastes of worms and dirt, ‘try’ because it tastes lile mustard seed, or ‘miraculous’ as it tastes of mayonnaise. I love words such as ‘accurately’, for it tastes of the cereal bits of Lucky Charms, ‘high’ because it tastes like bacon, ‘more’ because it tastes like water and ‘pull’ because it tastes like maraschino cherries.

I read somewhere that Beethoven had this disease. He saw music in colors.

@rr:

I am quite sure that Cyberquill knows the difference between “neither” and “nor”. People are allowed a typo every now and then.

For as long as I can remember I have associated numbers and letters with colors, so it’s weird to think that there are people who don’t do this. I remember one day my boyfriend and I were arguing about what color the number 6 is. I see it as orange, and he thinks it’s green. All day we walked around asking our classmates, “If six were a color what would it be?” Some people immediately gave us colors (orange and green were very common and so was red), but others just gave us weird looks and said, “…What?”

I occasionally can “taste” words, but not often. “Car” tastes like celery though.

I love the word “Joy.” It tastes so sour, like a Warhead, but a million times more so. Also, “Bitter” because it is sweet, like a piece of Cherry Laffy Taffy. I don’t really taste the words in my mouth, but more so in my head. Like when you close your eyes to enjoy something really yummy, you feel the taste. It’s sort of like that for me with most words. Some, though, like “Apex,” “Feather,” and “Rain” I can actaully taste.

This website helps me alot on my homework , its great to usee. (:

Ah, I sense colours when seeing numbers and letters! For example, I see 3 as green, 4 as red and 5 as yellow. So when I see a string of numbers such as 55433433 I see traffic light colours.

In another case if I see the digits 0-9 with one digit missing, eg, 019726835, I can quite quickly tell that the missing digit is 4 because the string of numbers doesn’t have the ‘red’ feeling.

It makes me feel special because I have this. I have both grapheme to color synesthesia, and the type where on hears sounds and sees a color.

This is a cool post! Yeah, I associate letters and tastes and words with colors… or however you want to mix that up. I think I said it wrong. Anyway, I can taste words sometimes… Like, for an example, I think of chocolate chip cookies. Then I can taste them in my mouth… Yumi. Then it makes me want cookies! =P It is an interesting talent that some ppl have.

Why is this called a brain -disorder- ? Who decides what is a disorder and what is the next step in evolution?

Maybe this explains the phrase “green-smelling liquid,” (something I read in a college class decades ago,– thought it amusing-at-best at the time: figured it meant anything from, unripe, to unruly, in the author’s mind).

I do not suffer from this disorder, I enjoy every minute of it.
Just so you know…
Synesthesia is a tasty word.

Tastes like purple.

sunshine, beer, gentle and delicate all have a beauty deep within them… yes?

This is really, really fascinating. Reading all these comments confirms that I definitely do not taste words, but I wonder if it’s because I am not too keen on food in general?
I definitely don’t have synesthesia, but when I do make associations, it’s with sounds, and it is almost always visual. Numbers are nothing to me but black shapes whose value I can’t visualize easily, which is probably why math isn’t my strongest point. But music? I remember notes and chord progressions by the images I see when I hit them, but it’s always related to what I’m thinking about in the song. Sometimes they bring colors along, like a song can feel nothing but “yellow” despite it being un-cheery or another one is definitely “gray” without being sad, but I think this is just that I’m a very visually-oriented person.

r and s are always red, 2 is orange, 7 is green and blue always tastes like blue

Synesthesia is not a “disorder”; it is a neurological condition. People with synesthesia function normally and in many cases do not even recognize that their perceptions are abnormal.

I’ve always associated words, letters and numbers with colours, same with the days and months (Monday being blue, June being green, etc.). Even music comes in colour.
It gets tricky when trying to think about the meaning of a word, or a name. For example, the word Argentina has always been purple, but the country itself is of an orangy golden shade.

I read about synesthesia a few months prior to reading this article, and it had me quite surprised. I thought it was a normal thing. The article also stated it was a genetic condition, and indeed, when I asked my family about it, I got confused frowns from my mother and brothers, but my father immediately started to sum up what colours his numbers and letters are.

Blind people are Ninja

Chartreuse Cats and Blue Kittens. It’s a book about synesthesia. Or maybe it’s Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens. I’m not sure, but it’s a very interesting book. I forgot the name of the author.

wow so interesting…people who have synesthesia are so lucky

to be able to experience it

no, youre all WRONG we can all taste certain words if a literary passage leads us to do so. In the same way descriptions are often strengthened by IMAGERY which makes us see the scene in our mind. but theres a word specific to tasting a word, what is it???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I have gustatory synethesia. I didn’t know the name of it though so I looked it up. Thanks for the help

everytime I say Phillip, since I was little, I have an iron taste in my mouth. I don’t remember ever knowing a Phillip. … I can smell things or associate smell and taste. Like the smell of skunks make me taste Wendy’s French fries. When I smell a skunk I want those French fries.

Synthesia is so cool!
I would love to be able to see colours when I heard certain words or letters. Tasting things would be a little less fun if I didn’t like what I was tasting.
It’s so interesting how the brain can connect the senses like that.

This is interesting. When I was younger, I would always say, “This room tastes like the smell of gramma!” Not until this moment did I realize I was using synaethesia.

mind telling me if this is the same case for every other language around the world?

Can this condition change with time? I guess as a kid I did associate words with certain images (which could be very different from the actual meaning) but not any more.. I’m not even sure if that counted as synaesthesia or not.. but I would love to have such an interesting “disorder”, if that’s what you think it is

I might have something like this, but for me it is olfactory/visual. I can smell things, like a perfume or a soap, and see a vision in my head of something totally unrelated. I once opened a bottle of cooking oil and smelled it, and I saw a sandy beach. Another time I smelled rain on concrete and I saw a cottage with stone steps that I somehow knew was in Ireland.

@aqilah I guess so. I can, uh, ’see’ colors in both English alphabets and Hangul (Korean). The colors are the same if they have the same sound.
I didn’t know this was abnormal until I told this to my friend and she told me that I’m weird…

Interesting! I often feel like I can see what color songs or voices are. Some songs are multicolored, though I tend to prefer singular-colored ones. For example, Fireflies by Owl City is distinctly yellow. I didn’t know there was a name for that until now. Cool article.

Do you guys think that you can consciously make an effort to develop this “disorder” over time? It seems like such an amazing skill to have – I’m jealous!

@Ken – That is incredible! Wow, it must be so fun!

I’ve always thought this was so cool, since I read the book “A Mango-Shaped Space” by Wendy Mass. It’s about a middle-school girl who has synesthesia and finally lets people know she sees colors after a couple “problems” occur. It is actually a really sweet book which brought tears to my eyes.
This amazing ability sounds like a very blazing world of wonderful things, but it also must be hard to learn other languages, and/or concentrate on a conversation during dinner(not everyone has the same kind). But, i’m not an expert.
So does anyone know what color my name is???? Sometimes i wanna believe i have it because to me, my name is: K-RED Y-YELLOW R-almost a DARK RED BROWN A-also RED. Everyone with this is truly something special:)

I doubt I have anything like that but I associate names with colors and the names I like, I associate with colors I like.

Aiden – pink
Micheal – light blue
Ophelia – orange
Annie – red
Samantha – purple

but not individual letters. Never.

I learned about this a long time ago, and I’m still slightly jealous, that must be awesome to have! I thought it was regular to associate some things with colors and stuff. I think all humans have a bit of instinct to associate colors, tastes, sounds and smells to things and the people with full-on syntheshia just have a highly amplified version? or something like that. I’ve always associated “A” with red,circles with yellow, triangles with orange, and quite a lot of other things.. I think its not exactly a “Disorder” but more like your mind.. like.. ergh I can’t explain correctly..

I just realized something else that may somehow be related? idk, I’m pretty sure I’m just talking nonsensicaly now, but you know how people know the taste of something, like cardboard or metal? yet we technacaly have never eaten/tasted it?

@Like, Totally: Since they have a certain smell, you can get a hint of how they might taste like. Though, I don’t know why people would ever taste them in their right minds….unless you’re a baby
Btw, nice name. It kinda has it’s own personality. ;]

Thats…wow….I have the same thing, but I just never really thought about it-thought everyone else has it too. I do that all the time, but I can’t actually recall anything’s color or taste, I just feel it when it comes. By the way, you do taste metal = blood is made of iron, if you’ve ever gotten cut in your mouth

i think everyone has this, at least a bit. i tend to associate certain sounds with unique shapes, movements and colours, sometimes i even try to draw them, even though im not a very good artist. it works both ways, in that i can also make sounds/names to go with abstract art that i see. its fun. it’s a little weird to have it presented as an unusual mental ability, because it’s so natural to me and i don’t think i’ve ever met anyone that cant do it, at least a bit.

@charolette 1) i don’t think they said “disorder”, i believe they said “condition” which, to be fair, sounds almost as bad. 2) im curious, what colour are those two words, to you? (for me i think “disorder” is a smuged gray and dark-gray mixture, and it…hm, it feels like the first sylable is moving quickly away from me, then the last two syllable come back and twist around themselves. more of a movement that a real shape actually. “condition” is a sort of grass green to begin with, and it looks like the curve of a ball that’s thrown straight forward, then starts to dip. the syllable that sounds like “dish” is two branches from that line shooting up and down, both curling back toward the beginning, they are a sort of yellowy-gray. after that the line continues in a dark blue and pushes forward, but it doesn’t really move, it turns into just curls and spirals, like it’s a gust of wind meeting an equally strong gust of wind blowing in the opposite direction. again, it feels more like movement than a solid shape.)

@Anna Lynn i know what you mean, sort of. for me those names would be
Aiden – bright green
Micheal – pastel pink
Ophelia – baby blue
Annie – pink
Samantha – yellow
also, sometimes names have numbers for me too, like Melissa is 17 and Carter is 8.

P.S. @Like, Totally this may not be true, but i was just thinking-you may associate triangles with orange because of traffic cones, circles with yellow because of the sun, and it may be that when you first learned the letter A it was written in red, since red is a bight, vibrant colour and is frequently used in kindergarten classrooms, and that image subconsciously stuck with you. Just a thought, mind you; I’m not saying this is the real reason.

I found a typo!

TI7E

This is really interesting. I never really thought about it before I learned about it, but it brings up a really interesting argument about how different people perceive the world. Do different people taste food the same way? Do we see colors the same as others? Do we remember things the same way?
It kinda makes me wanna steal inside someone else’s brain just to see. Too bad that’s not possible.

I sometimes hear colors when listening songs. I can sometimes “taste” colors, but it’s more like feeling a color with my tongue. But more prominently I see letters and numbers as colors.
Aiden – yellow, mostly, with some green and pink
Micheal – a lighter red with green and orange
Ophelia – light, light tan with pink and orange
Annie – yellow and pink
Samantha – Green, yellow, and pink
O’s are kind of weird, but most letters have prominent colors.

I used to think everyone saw the world the same. But now I wonder…