I don't "get" this kid...... he "sees colors".... So, explain this to me..

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And, explain it NOT in 8 yr old terms.

I have a drop in daycare boy here today.  He's pretty much had enough of me, because I don't "get him".  And, I don't.

Apparently everything has a color.  Feelings, illness, pain, words, names, and how fast something is, has it's own color.  For instance gray and green are slower than yellow.  The letters in my name each have a different color.  He showed me.  Oddly, the first two are shades of orange, which happens to be my favorite color.

He claims this is how he sees everything.  Even if I wrote the Letter B in blue, it's not blue, it's green.  The number 8 is also green.  

So.... enlighten me on this.  I'm sure there has to be an actual name for this because he's positive he's not just being creative.  It's a very real thing.  

[Magella]

Synesthesia? http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/ 

[Bokonon]

Originally Posted by Magella 

Synesthesia? http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/ 

Sounds like it to me too.

I have this, but not as extreme as the boy in the OP.  I see letters and numbers in colors, and thought everyone did too until about 3 years ago when someone else mentioned that they have this and then I realized it wasn't "normal", LOL.

[CatsCradle]

It does sound like a form of synesthesia where people perceive/hear/see words/numbers as colors.  If you go to sciencedaily.com and search for synesthesia, they have a bunch of articles on it.  I read an article once that it was once linked to autism, but much is understood about it.

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Originally Posted by Magella 

Synesthesia? http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/ 

 "Synesthesia could possibly be as prevalent as 1 in 23 persons across its range of variants"... I have never heard of something like this.  If it's this common, I wonder why I've never met anyone who's told me this?  Or maybe it takes an 8 yr old to be so open about it.  (although he's not that open... he's actually kindof rude about it.  LMBO!  I even got the eye roll)

[CatsCradle]

Originally Posted by nextcommercial 

 "Synesthesia could possibly be as prevalent as 1 in 23 persons across its range of variants"... I have never heard of something like this.  If it's this common, I wonder why I've never met anyone who's told me this?  Or maybe it takes an 8 yr old to be so open about it.  (although he's not that open... he's actually kindof rude about it.  LMBO!  I even got the eye roll)

Well, I didn't know for years that my DH was color blind, until one day I asked him if he had been drafted during the Vietnam War and he said that he didn't pass the medical because of his color blindness.  He'll say stuff like "I want the red one" and it baffles me, 'cause there is no red one. 

Regarding the kid giving you the eyeroll...LOL...I guess his condition is his reality and he can't really understand why anyone else doesn't get it. 
 

[Bokonon]

Originally Posted by CatsCradle 

Well, I didn't know for years that my DH was color blind, until one day I asked him if he had been drafted during the Vietnam War and he said that he didn't pass the medical because of his color blindness.  He'll say stuff like "I want the red one" and it baffles me, 'cause there is no red one. 

Regarding the kid giving you the eyeroll...LOL...I guess his condition is his reality and he can't really understand why anyone else doesn't get it. 
 

Yeah, like I said, I didn't know it unusual until my 30s...until then, I assumed everyone "saw" colors the way I do.

[habitat]

From what you've typed, he almost definitely has synesthesia. It can be really frustrating for a person, particularly a young person, to realize that their senses and receptions of their environments aren't coordinating with that of the people around them.

I have synesthesia. This is going to sound nuts to most of you: For me, numbers and letters (and therefore words) all have colors. Numbers also have (get this) personalities in my mind. I never understood when I was young that when I said someone was YELLOW (because their name translated in my mind as yellow), that my teachers thought I was just making stuff up. I still mix peoples' names up if they are similar colors. Don't get me started on Math. I just never got it because I couldn't look at numbers as simply quantifiable. To me, digits 1-9 were all different characters, which would get in the way of my "adding them up".

My good friend has color -> taste synesthesia. She tastes color. She likes the taste of some colors and others make her nauseous. For example, she can't STAND red and teal together. She played soccer as a child and once was on a red team. When they played against the teal team, she got horrendously sick and vomited until her mother took her home. She didn't figure out she had synesthesia until she saw a 20/20 episode about it.

So yeah, it's common. And it's real. And there's a lot of info on it.

[Alenushka]

Synestesia. To me letter had colors, adn object had personalities. It pretty much was gone after puberyt for me

[meemee]

http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/synesthesia

Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet was a good read. i read it a few years ago. 

i wish you could get that boy again,  because i have read your previous posts and i think while you may not understand i think you will 'get' the boy more than i think anyone else can ever 'get' him. 

[Smokering]

I've always been kinda jealous of people with synesthesia - it sounds highly neat. I heard recently that one of the great composers - Bach? Mozart? viewed every note and key as a different colour. (Just tried to google who it was, and can't find out - but it seems Billy Joel has it too, and Allie Brosh. Cool.)

[meemee]

for you smokering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_synesthesia

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Originally Posted by Smokering 

I've always been kinda jealous of people with synesthesia - it sounds highly neat. I heard recently that one of the great composers - Bach? Mozart? viewed every note and key as a different colour. (Just tried to google who it was, and can't find out - but it seems Billy Joel has it too, and Allie Brosh. Cool.)

I ♥ Billy Joel!

[Wolfcat]

Originally Posted by nextcommercial 

 "Synesthesia could possibly be as prevalent as 1 in 23 persons across its range of variants"... I have never heard of something like this.  If it's this common, I wonder why I've never met anyone who's told me this?  Or maybe it takes an 8 yr old to be so open about it.  (although he's not that open... he's actually kindof rude about it.  LMBO!  I even got the eye roll)

Yeah, it's not only hard for people to understand, but those who have this perceive it as reality (and it is their reality), so talking about it would be like explaining to someone what water is every time you ask for a drink... not necessary.

Originally Posted by habitat 

From what you've typed, he almost definitely has synesthesia. It can be really frustrating for a person, particularly a young person, to realize that their senses and receptions of their environments aren't coordinating with that of the people around them.

I have synesthesia. This is going to sound nuts to most of you: For me, numbers and letters (and therefore words) all have colors. Numbers also have (get this) personalities in my mind. I never understood when I was young that when I said someone was YELLOW (because their name translated in my mind as yellow), that my teachers thought I was just making stuff up. I still mix peoples' names up if they are similar colors. Don't get me started on Math. I just never got it because I couldn't look at numbers as simply quantifiable. To me, digits 1-9 were all different characters, which would get in the way of my "adding them up".

My good friend has color -> taste synesthesia. She tastes color. She likes the taste of some colors and others make her nauseous. For example, she can't STAND red and teal together. She played soccer as a child and once was on a red team. When they played against the teal team, she got horrendously sick and vomited until her mother took her home. She didn't figure out she had synesthesia until she saw a 20/20 episode about it.

So yeah, it's common. And it's real. And there's a lot of info on it.

I cannot get over numbers being genderless... odd numbers are boys and even numbers are girls. 2 is kinda mean and 7 is a kook... lol

I have such a mild case of this. My big one is that many sensory experiences turn into smell or touch... flavors, especially, create a full body tactile feeling. Strangely enough, I have very few physical reactions to smells (ie, nausea for strong "bad" smells - they just don't bother me).

I also "perceive" electricity, either through touch or hearing it, but it doesn't usually register unless there's something wrong.

[Cyllya]

I recall associating numbers with personalities and I think colors when I was a kid. I don't know if that's actually synesthesia though.
 

Originally Posted by nextcommercial 

 "Synesthesia could possibly be as prevalent as 1 in 23 persons across its range of variants"... I have never heard of something like this.  If it's this common, I wonder why I've never met anyone who's told me this?  Or maybe it takes an 8 yr old to be so open about it.  (although he's not that open... he's actually kindof rude about it.  LMBO!  I even got the eye roll)

I think a lot of people don't even know they have it. They're born with this trait and haven't experienced non-synesthesia. Compare color-blindness. Someone actually had to invent a test for people to tell whether they're color-blind or not, because people who are born color-blind wouldn't know they're color-blind.

[Lazurii]

Originally Posted by Cyllya 

I recall associating numbers with personalities and I think colors when I was a kid. I don't know if that's actually synesthesia though.
 

I do this, too, but mostly with multiplication, and the sensation isn't so strong anymore.  7 was mean to 4 because 4 just wanted to be 30, but 7 was all like, "no, you can't, you have to be 28.  Hahaha!"  8 was nice to 4, probably to make up for 7's harsh treatment, and let 4 be 32.  Whenever I would solve the equation 7x4=28, I could feel the longing in 4, it made me very uncomfortable.  I had other such "stories" associated with other numbers and equations.

So, in closing, I don't have much to add to this discussion (Haha!  Add!), but I still wanted to share my experience, since everyone I've told about it thinks I'm really weird.

[DariusMom]

 my sister is like this. every number is associated with a color. a good friend of hers is a musician and every note is associated with a color. she never knew it wasn't the way others viewed the world til she was in her 20s. I think it's cool.

[NiteNicole]

Numbers also have (get this) personalities in my mind.

Same!  Although I think this was just me trying to make math more interesting and telling myself little stories about numbers.  Possibly this is why it always took me forever and a day to get through math worksheets (sort of like vocab words always took forever because I kept getting distracted by all the other new and exciting words in the dictionary that I didn't already know).

[meemee]

here's another perspective. 

a lot of indigenous people have this capabilities. i dont know how common this is. but Wade Davis has written about this. they see more than what we can see. i am not sure if it would be called synesthesia. but they 'see' amongst other things plants in a different light. they see sounds. they see plants. 

[mtiger]

Yes, it would be considered a form of synesthesia. Some people see letters as colors, some hear colors as music (or see music as colors), some taste colors or words as flavors, etc. I kinda wish I did...