do you have synesthesia? are you a synesthete?

wasn't there some thread where like everyone on ilm was claiming they had more synesthesia than everyone else

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Monday, May 3, 2010 5:16 PM (Yesterday)

probably. synesthesia is the perfect subject for bizarre art school chest-beating, like...

synesthete A: "the number 73 is salmon-colored, octagonal and gender-neutral."
synesthete B: "no you are wrong, the number 73 smells like early Merzbow, tastes like hunger, and feels like warm cherry Faygo splashing against a freshly-painted clown face."
synesthete A: "wow, your brain, it is so quirky and unconventional."

this is the type of argument where everybody loses.

Would you say this is an automatic thing, e.g. when you see/hear these things does a "feeling" of male/female encroach upon you, or is it more that if you were asked whether xyz was male/female you'd be able to answer?
With synaesthesia it's a sensory thing that's always there, you can't turn it off. But I find the gender thing interesting.

It's kind of an instinctive, subconscious thing, and it's subtle - I don't look at a letter and immediately think "man" or "woman" the way I would when seeing an actual person, presumably because of the lack of any emotional investment in the matter. But the perception is definitely there, and it's more elaborate than a simple matter of male-female: it's a sliding scale, a ranking from "most masculine" to "most feminine". Other non-organic concepts that assume a similar ranking are numbers, weekdays, months, geometric shapes, and colours.

is there some thread abt musicians who love saying they have synaeshesia or did i make that up

PRobably happened in the blood orange thread

^ never saw this reply, but it looks like you were correct. reminded of it because of -

"Lorde has a neurological condition known as sound-to-color synesthesia — when she hears certain notes and sounds, corresponding colors appear — and she describes making music in intensely visual terms. "

lol from avey tare's wikipedia -

In an interview with Brightest Young Things, he implied that he has synesthesia and associates sound with visuals.[12] He later clarified that although he has talked about it a lot in interviews he in fact does not have synesthesia. [13]