Me and My Synesthesia
I am a 13 year old named Emily. I have two types of synesthesia: Space-Time and Ordinal Linguistic Personification. I took an online test made by doctors in Houston, Texas, and I learned that I have severe Space-Time and mild OLP. I am considering doing my Freshman Science Fair project next year on the relationship of people's personalities/gender and if they have it/what kind of Synesthesia they have.
Space-Time:
I can see all different types of time units. Seconds of minutes, minutes of hours, hours of days, days of weeks, weeks of months, months of years, and years of centuries. The most severe time unit with me is the months. I see backgrounds for each month. Each month has a color scheme. I have sounds associated with each month, but I only hear them when I am in a good mood. Otherwise I don't. Most Space-Time synesthetes see the months circulating/orbiting around them, but I physically see mine in front of me. When I need to look at it, it kind of slides down in front of me like I pulled it down on a touch screen. Here is an image I created on paint that represents my mental image of the months (do you like my PacMan font? :D). The pictures by the month names are the sounds I hear. The music notes are just random songs I've never heard before. In June I hear "Happy Birthday" because that is when my birthday is.
Space-Time:
I can see all different types of time units. Seconds of minutes, minutes of hours, hours of days, days of weeks, weeks of months, months of years, and years of centuries. The most severe time unit with me is the months. I see backgrounds for each month. Each month has a color scheme. I have sounds associated with each month, but I only hear them when I am in a good mood. Otherwise I don't. Most Space-Time synesthetes see the months circulating/orbiting around them, but I physically see mine in front of me. When I need to look at it, it kind of slides down in front of me like I pulled it down on a touch screen. Here is an image I created on paint that represents my mental image of the months (do you like my PacMan font? :D). The pictures by the month names are the sounds I hear. The music notes are just random songs I've never heard before. In June I hear "Happy Birthday" because that is when my birthday is.
January: chimes in the wind
February: wind
March: violin music
April: rain
May: flute music
June: Happy Birthday song
July: Fireworks (independence day)
August: I hear some sort of song made up of autotune sounds.
September: Marimba song similar to the marimba ringtone on an iPhone
October: creepy Halloween music
November: leaves rustling
December: handbells
New Years': Those party blower things
Now here is an image of my weeks PacMan style! :) (excuse the little PacMan thing at the top, I couldn't resist...I found out I could do that by pressing numbers...)
February: wind
March: violin music
April: rain
May: flute music
June: Happy Birthday song
July: Fireworks (independence day)
August: I hear some sort of song made up of autotune sounds.
September: Marimba song similar to the marimba ringtone on an iPhone
October: creepy Halloween music
November: leaves rustling
December: handbells
New Years': Those party blower things
Now here is an image of my weeks PacMan style! :) (excuse the little PacMan thing at the top, I couldn't resist...I found out I could do that by pressing numbers...)
In my mind, I see the yellow ones as glowing. I think it's because these are significant days in my mind. Saturday and Sunday, of course, because they are the weekend, by break from school. Friday, because they are the last days of the week. Everybody loves Fridays! And Tuesday, for several reasons. One, because I was born on a Tuesday. Another because Tuesday has always been my favorite day of the week. And lastly because Tuesday is pizza day at school...the one day I don't pack my lunch!
**An interesting fact: Tuesday was my favorite day of the week even before it was Pizza Day and also before I knew it was the day of the week I was born on. Tuesday has always been a glowing day in my mind.
Here is my (not PacMan but Clock-styled) hours of the day calendar. I think it starts at 6:00 because that's when I usually wake up on weekdays for school.
**An interesting fact: Tuesday was my favorite day of the week even before it was Pizza Day and also before I knew it was the day of the week I was born on. Tuesday has always been a glowing day in my mind.
Here is my (not PacMan but Clock-styled) hours of the day calendar. I think it starts at 6:00 because that's when I usually wake up on weekdays for school.
I think 12:00 is really big because that is the middle of the day (and on weekends my lunch time). 10:00 is important because at school, that's my lunch hour. This calendar is the same in my head whether it's AM or PM. Besides the fact that during the night, the little ones at the top (1:00-5:00) are more squished together.
Now here is just plain old numbers how I imagine them in my good old synesthetic map:
Now here is just plain old numbers how I imagine them in my good old synesthetic map:
This continues up to 100, and then it starts zig-zagging to the left. When it reaches 1,000, it starts zig-zagging towards the right. It's quite a complicated map, but it makes 100% sense to me!
I'm not going to boggle your mind with any more confusing maps of random numbers and time units. I think 4 is enough. I should probably let you know that I also see years, minutes, and seconds. But I'm tired of failing to make Paint mirror my synesthetic mind. Now I'm going to tell you a few facts about myself that may or may not have something to do with my synesthesia:
-I am ambidextrous (I can write equally with my right and left hand)
-I hate foods with mushy textures like mashed potatoes and applesauce. I learned from the test I took online that this is most likely because of my synesthesia.
-I am unusually talented at reading music (I am an Alto Clarinetist in my band at school)
-I am good at Math (even though I hate it)
-I have never needed to use a calendar in my life (most likely because of synesthesia). This goes to show why I got an 'Emily the Strange' calendar for Christmas once and after using it for 1 week, I ripped all the pages out and used them as posters on my wall. I have done this for two years.
-If someone tells me a number to remember, I will remember it for about a month, and will blurt it out to them every time I see them.
OLP: I also have this type of synesthesia. I associate different genders and personalities with the numbers 0-9.
1: Shy - Boy
2: Cheerful - Girl
3: Young wannabe - Boy
4: Arrogant - Boy
5: Gentle - Girl
6: Timid - Boy
7: Small but aggressive - Boy
8: Dramatic - Girl
9: Annoying - Boy
Any number beginning with these numbers has the same gender. (18 is still a boy becasue of the 1, etc.)
I'm not going to boggle your mind with any more confusing maps of random numbers and time units. I think 4 is enough. I should probably let you know that I also see years, minutes, and seconds. But I'm tired of failing to make Paint mirror my synesthetic mind. Now I'm going to tell you a few facts about myself that may or may not have something to do with my synesthesia:
-I am ambidextrous (I can write equally with my right and left hand)
-I hate foods with mushy textures like mashed potatoes and applesauce. I learned from the test I took online that this is most likely because of my synesthesia.
-I am unusually talented at reading music (I am an Alto Clarinetist in my band at school)
-I am good at Math (even though I hate it)
-I have never needed to use a calendar in my life (most likely because of synesthesia). This goes to show why I got an 'Emily the Strange' calendar for Christmas once and after using it for 1 week, I ripped all the pages out and used them as posters on my wall. I have done this for two years.
-If someone tells me a number to remember, I will remember it for about a month, and will blurt it out to them every time I see them.
OLP: I also have this type of synesthesia. I associate different genders and personalities with the numbers 0-9.
1: Shy - Boy
2: Cheerful - Girl
3: Young wannabe - Boy
4: Arrogant - Boy
5: Gentle - Girl
6: Timid - Boy
7: Small but aggressive - Boy
8: Dramatic - Girl
9: Annoying - Boy
Any number beginning with these numbers has the same gender. (18 is still a boy becasue of the 1, etc.)