Does anyone else have synesthesia?

This is when you hear shapes or see sounds or any other sense mixing like that. Even things like abstract concepts have a sensory component. For me numbers come in specific fonts. For example zero is always in black-letter Gothic and sounds like a hammer on an anvil, whereas the number two is in white-on-black Helvetica and sounds like quiet sizzling.

I'm wondering if it's related to bipo or is just coincidental. Can anyone relate?

I have this too - and example being that smells have colours and sounds have textures. I have come across other ppl with BP who have this but I dont know if it is more common in BP or just that there are ppl with BP who happen to have it

Cracked

I don't have it, but have met people who do. None of them suffered from any type of MI, though. But naturally this isn't representative, it was just a couple of people! I think it's really cool!

One of the people I met who had this saw numbers as things. For example, she saw the number 5 as a swan, number 3 as purple, stuff like that. That meant it was really easy for her to memorise long strings of digits, a lot more than the average person.

invicta wrote:That meant it was really easy for her to memorise long strings of digits, a lot more than the average person.

Funny you should mention that. I can still remember my student ID numbers from all of my schools and universities, and all of my old telephone numbers and the numbers of my school friends from thirty years ago. They don't look like a string of digits to me, but kind of like a single coherent whole.

I find that music brings on very intense visual imagery and smells, and people don't understand why I spend hours listening to the same piece again and again, because I want to see the pink seashells again (they're so pretty).

Conversely, I can be sitting on the train, gazing out the window and listening to the music coming from the stuff going by.

I too can remember long strings of numbers even many years after I have no need for them. They do seem like whole entities

Cracked

I experienced a short bout of Synaesthesia during my first Manic episode. I was walking back home the next morning from a party, travelling from local town through into the countryside. During my journey (as I moved into the countryside) I was able to smell colours. This experience was one of the more pleasant aspects of the whole episode. Regrettably it hasn't happened since which I find a bit confusing.
I had some other unusual sensory phenomena occur in the early part of this breakdown, such as being able to hear conversations through doors. I shouldn't have been able to hear these but heard them very clearly and then spoke to the people about what they had said about me (was two doormen at a nightclub I had been working part-time) I also experienced a type of zoom vision, not meaning to seem grandiose but it was something akin to how I imagine a superhero's vision would be, or like a camera with a zoom lense. Not sure if these phenomena are associated to synaesthesia or what they are really. Was enjoyable aspects of the mania

Semi-Interesting wrote:I experienced a short bout of Synaesthesia during my first Manic episode. I was walking back home the next morning from a party, travelling from local town through into the countryside. During my journey (as I moved into the countryside) I was able to smell colours. This experience was one of the more pleasant aspects of the whole episode. Regrettably it hasn't happened since which I find a bit confusing.
I had some other unusual sensory phenomena occur in the early part of this breakdown, such as being able to hear conversations through doors. I shouldn't have been able to hear these but heard them very clearly and then spoke to the people about what they had said about me (was two doormen at a nightclub I had been working part-time) I also experienced a type of zoom vision, not meaning to seem grandiose but it was something akin to how I imagine a superhero's vision would be, or like a camera with a zoom lense. Not sure if these phenomena are associated to synaesthesia or what they are really. Was enjoyable aspects of the mania

I don't know if it's similar to what you experience, but when I'm hypo my senses are heightened. I wouldn't describe it as synesthesia, but like being hyper-sensitive to stimuli. It's like colours are brighter, contours more defined, things are more beautiful. Sounds feel warm, but sometimes if it's too loud it will really bother me. Even touch and taste seem somehow more in tune with what's going on in the environment around me. This heightened perception, along with the bursting-out-joyful-feeling, makes for a very pleasant experience.

But again, for me this is more related to the highs of bipolar. Different senses haven't crossed paths, but it does sound like a cool thing! And the added bonus of never forgetting your ID number.

invicta wrote:I don't know if it's similar to what you experience, but when I'm hypo my senses are heightened. I wouldn't describe it as synesthesia, but like being hyper-sensitive to stimuli. It's like colours are brighter, contours more defined, things are more beautiful. Sounds feel warm, but sometimes if it's too loud it will really bother me. Even touch and taste seem somehow more in tune with what's going on in the environment around me. This heightened perception, along with the bursting-out-joyful-feeling, makes for a very pleasant experience.

But again, for me this is more related to the highs of bipolar. Different senses haven't crossed paths, but it does sound like a cool thing! And the added bonus of never forgetting your ID number.

I have those highs too, when the sky is golden pink and the trees quiver with latent electric excitement and all the animals in the world love you. It has the same effect on the synesthesia, which goes wild. That's when the music-sex happens, and there doesn't need to be any music playing.