I'm a Synesthete

After watching a documentary on one of my geek channels, I learned that I have synesthesia. I am a synesthete.

“What is synesthesia?” I hear you say. Okay, I’m so glad you asked.

Synesthesia is “a neurologically-based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.”

In other words, one sensory pathway in the brain gets crossed with another. For example, when I think of the number 2, it has a color. 4 has a different color.

All my letters of the alphabet have colors as well.

Apparently, I’m a triple-synesthete, because not only do my numbers and letters have colors, but they have a gender as well. I also have spaces assigned to them, too.

I’ve thought of letters and number like this ever since I learned my numbers and the alphabet.

When I studied Russian, the Cyrillic letters automatically and instantly had specific colors.

Here is how I think of the numbers, one through ten:

1 white neuter
2 black feminine
3 yellow neuter
4 grayish red feminine
5 blue-black male
6 dark yellow neuter
7 gray-blue male
8 light yellow neuter
9 dark gray feminine
10 black male

Here are some letters:

A dark red feminine
B navy blue male
C light yellow neuter
D dark gray male
E white neuter
F deep orange feminine
G dark gray male

Subsequently, every area code is either male, female or neuter and has a color depending on the dominant colors of the three digits.

312 is Chicago and it’s definitely yellow because 3 and C are light yellow and neuter
412 is Pittsburgh and it’s dark red because 4 is grayish red, 2 is black and P is red.

Also, my numbers are in certain spaces and they’re not linear. My alphabet is, though.

Now, it gets even weirder. . .

When I hear an F on a piano or hear a song in the key of F, I see orange because F is orange. It’s also feminine. B-flat is dark, gray-blue.

Once, when I was a freshman in college and taking music theory, the instructor played a scale on the piano (we couldn’t see his hands) and he wanted to know if the scale was major or minor.

He played a scale and I blurted out, “It’s F minor.”

I saw orange-red. Orange because of the F and red because of the A-flat which made it F minor instead of F-major. (If it had been F-major, it simply would have been orange, naturally).

This synesthesia thing makes it really easy for me to memorize numbers, mainly because of the spatial thing. When I think of a telephone number, I think of the relationship of the spaces on the telephone keypad along with the colors of the numbers.

Miss Healthypant’s cell phone number is dark, navy blue and it’s masculine even though she’s a definitely girly-girl. Iwanski’s number is light yellow and neuter even though Iwanski is definitely a guy.

Do any of you assign colors to numbers and letters? Or genders?

Or am I just a freak.

Tell me about it.