
The Girl Who Smelled Pink: Are we are all born with synesthesia? - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/26/color/the-girl-who-smelled-pink
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evincarofautumn
I’ve got grapheme→colour and sound→colour synaesthesia, and some other, weaker
associations. Never really examined it too deeply until my teens, when I
started noticing some of the features stated in the article, such as a strong
ability to distinguish and mimic foreign sounds, recognise and draw faces, and
distinguish absolute pitches. It has its pros and cons—I’m pretty easily
overwhelmed, for one thing.

If you want to experience synaesthesia firsthand, many people report
synaesthetic experiences when taking psychedelics. Being accustomed to that
kind of sensory cross-talk, I find it really enjoyable to heighten it, but if
you’re new to the feeling, you may find it difficult.

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black_knight
I wish psychedelics were more like that for me. They (at least psilocybin)
usually just make me feel uncomfortable, and I have to grit my teeth through
the whole experience. Sometimes though… I can get really lost in vivid images
and colours.

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techlibertarian
How have you consumed psilocybin? I've eaten actual mushrooms and extracted
psilocybin and I can say the latter is a much more enjoyable experience.

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black_knight
True, I consumed it in the form of mushrooms. Would you think it worth while
to do an extraction?

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techlibertarian
I enjoy it more that way.

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pessimizer
Is there any evidence that synesthesia exists other than self-report?

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edit as a reply to both responses:

Tests like this were mentioned in the article - but wouldn't the same effect
be caused by people who had an honest belief that they saw the number 8 as
orange, or if you sat someone in a room and played a tape for an hour that
"One. Blue. Two. Violet. Three. Green.[...]" etc.?

i.e. if I've said that I see 5 as blue enough times, wouldn't that affect my
times on an association test?

Are there any stronger examples of tests? Any papers that I should read?
Honest question; not trying to be contrarian.

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pessimizer
Are there any successful tests in which synesthetes mix colors accurately and
quickly when numbers are placed near to each other? That would be impressive.

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david_ar
Daniel Tammet has some pretty impressive synaesthetic abilities. From _Born on
a Blue Day_ :

> I never write anything down when I'm calculating, because I've always been
> able to do the sums in my head and it's much easier for me to visualise the
> answer using my synaesthetic shapes than to try to follow the `carry the
> one' techniques taught in textbooks we are given at school. When
> multiplying, I see the two numbers as distinct shapes. This image changes
> and a third shape emerges --- the correct answer. The process takes a matter
> of seconds and happens spontaneously. It's like doing maths without having
> to think.

> [...] I'm multiplying 53 by 131. I see both numbers as a unique shape and
> locate each spatially opposite the other. The space created between the two
> shapes creates a third, which I perceive as a new number: 6943, the solution
> to the sum. [sic]

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efferifick
Shameless plug: I wrote a firefox addon that simulates synesthesia by wrapping
every character in a span and in a class and adding CSS to assign colors based
on its class.

It may break some sites.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/synsim/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/synsim/)

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lobo_tuerto
Title should read:

The Girl Who Smelled Pink: Are we all born with synesthesia?

