Synesthesia and Si

[Tzuyu]

People with synesthesia typically do the following:

• Involuntarily experience their perceptions.
• Project sensations outside the mind, such as seeing colors floating through the air when they hear sounds.
• Have a perception that is the same each time.
• Have a perception that is generic, such as seeing a shape in response to a certain smell, but not seeing something more complex.
• Remember the secondary synesthetic perception better than the primary perception.
• Have emotional reactions such as pleasurable feelings linked to their perceptions.

I'm not saying that all synesthetes are Si doms or all Si doms are synesthetes, I just see some interesting similarities between the two. Particularly the bolded symptom above. It reminds me of the connection between ADD and Ne. Seems like one could be confused for the other, causing misdiagnosis.

Sometimes, in a very quiet environment, while I'm doing something that takes a lot of visual weightlifting like browsing art, I start seeing colors? And shapes and sometimes sound. Never words or numbers. I think I can consciously make it grow louder but don't see any reason to, so it's quite faded and in the background most of the time. I think it's getting more frequent and I'm getting a better grasp of it as I get older. Possibly going insane. It's like everything has an aura. In normal life doing normal stuff it goes away

Anyway, making a post because it's interesting.

[Rusal]

Real synesthesia involves real shapes crossing you field of vision, for example. So driving can be dangerous.

Si is not that extreme but there can be colors in the 'inner eye' or a strong association. Or an aura, like Cybel said.

For example: a person can have sex and then realize the experience felt 'yellow' or whatever.

[persimmonism]

Not a Si ego but..
I don't experience anything like what Cybel described, but i do experience the bolded with sounds.
For example I usually rely on my memory of how a song "looked like" (colorless shapes and gestures) in order to remember how it sounds like. After I've listened to the song many, many times I can directly remember its sound. How quickly I get to that point is correlated with how unique the song "looks".
I think its origin is linked to learning to read music on a page at a very young age of 4 and the fact that I am a very visual thinker.

It is not real synesthesia, though, according to Rusal's definition. When I'm parking and such I have to turn off music so I can "see" better but I think lots of people experience something like that, and it's not like actual shapes enter my vision.

I do wonder if most people with actual synesthesia are Si egos.
Just thinking aloud but it could also be linked with Vortical-Synergetic thinking, or any other type of cognition, but this one comes to mind, if those are even real.

[Sol]

By Jung weak functions being more unconsciouse are lesser separated, easier mix contents and easier influenced by other functions.

[Tallmo]

I have some kind of synesthesia because I visualize numbers and years. It has always been the same patterns. It resembles the clock and then the pattern repeats itself with some variation for greater numbers. I don't actually see anything concrete, but I visualize it for my inner vision. It happens involuntarily. Since I was a kid. I can zoom in on the pattern and see it from different perspectives.

Months go in a circle with winter up and summer down. Now we are going up towards winter, so when someone talks about "Christmas is soon" I feel where it is in space.

It was only recently I realized that the same clock pattern is pretty common.

But I don't really see any connection with Si. But maybe with weak intuition.

1 to 100:




1 to 20:




Years, from present looking back in time towards middle ages (3D perspective):

[Rusal]

@Tallmo, I think internalized visualizations of numbers and years are commmon to all. Synesthesia is rare, but Si leads can have experiences like "green orgasm" probably because of intensive and extensive focus on the sensation.

*easy question to all here: what do the quadras look like to you? For me they open like a horizontal lane and my inner eye floats on Beta for some reason. I have to 'go back' to hover over Alpha, for example. We all have these personal formations.

[lynn]

Real synesthesia involves real shapes crossing you field of vision, for example. So driving can be dangerous.

I don't think 'real' synesthesia has to be that extreme. Usually it's referred to these (involuntary) subjective impressions and visualizations (in the inner mind's eye) without having to take over your whole perception to the point where you can't separate your subjective perceptions from reality anymore. Though maybe for a very small minority it can get that extreme.

[Tzuyu]

@Tallmo, I think internalized visualizations of numbers and years are commmon to all. Synesthesia is rare, but Si leads can have experiences like "green orgasm" probably because of intensive and extensive focus on the sensation.

*easy question to all here: what do the quadras look like to you? For me they open like a horizontal lane and my inner eye floats on Beta for some reason. I have to 'go back' to hover over Alpha, for example. We all have these personal formations.

Alpha- something bright! and light! like little planets in space little prince style, pixels, computer hooked into a brain

Beta- A sharp blade, rust at the handle, unfurling bandages, blowing on a rose, a carnival!

Gamma- a chasm, void, abyss in the sky shrieking for eternity, Lovecraft, spirals spirals spirals

Delta- a family of cats, tatami mat, Shinto folklore and mythical creatures, hands made of leather

i don’t have synesthesia but i do get color associations
alpha- pastel rainbow
beta- red
gamma- black and white
delta- green

[lynn]

We all have these personal formations.

Yes, because synesthesia is probably much more common than it's usually said. But these visualisation/formations are part of what falls now under the term synesthesia.

[Aria]

@Tallmo, I think internalized visualizations of numbers and years are commmon to all. Synesthesia is rare, but Si leads can have experiences like "green orgasm" probably because of intensive and extensive focus on the sensation.

*easy question to all here: what do the quadras look like to you? For me they open like a horizontal lane and my inner eye floats on Beta for some reason. I have to 'go back' to hover over Alpha, for example. We all have these personal formations.

I see the faces of each quadra superimposed on a thematic background...

Alpha: bright, expectant, open faces. Holding hands. Superimposed on a world without any shadows and lots of distracting lights and sounds, like being in a video arcade.

Beta: changing expressions, sometimes the eyes are slits and other times they're open wide and fierce. For every action there's an opposite reaction, sometimes embracing and sometimes pushing others away. The background shifts and swirls a lot

Gamma: wry faces, they've seen it all and aren't impressed. Sad, often. Kind of a Blade Runner feeling world, dark and industrial, but hard to describe. The Ni worlds are less clear in form than the Si worlds.

Delta: faces turned away or eyes downcast/looking off in the distance. Stoic, lips in a thin straight line. A scene of a little cabin in the mountains in winter with smoke coming from the chimney. Everyone is holding a cup of tea and wearing wool mittens.

To your original question, OP: I don't have Si the way you do, but when I play the piano there are certain sounds that have a "color" to me. I think this is probably different than having such a strong and overwhelming presence of a color flooding your consciousness.

[BrainlessSquid]

I'm not saying that all synesthetes are Si doms or all Si doms are synesthetes, I just see some interesting similarities between the two. Particularly the bolded symptom above. It reminds me of the connection between ADD and Ne. Seems like one could be confused for the other, causing misdiagnosis.

Sometimes, in a very quiet environment, while I'm doing something that takes a lot of visual weightlifting like browsing art, I start seeing colors? And shapes and sometimes sound. Never words or numbers. I think I can consciously make it grow louder but don't see any reason to, so it's quite faded and in the background most of the time. I think it's getting more frequent and I'm getting a better grasp of it as I get older. Possibly going insane. It's like everything has an aura. In normal life doing normal stuff it goes away

Anyway, making a post because it's interesting.

wow, that's amazing
the closest thing I have experience similar to this was that once I felt the smell of someone I liked even though they were not there.

[BrainlessSquid]

I have some kind of synesthesia because I visualize numbers and years. It has always been the same patterns. It resembles the clock and then the pattern repeats itself with some variation for greater numbers. I don't actually see anything concrete, but I visualize it for my inner vision. It happens involuntarily. Since I was a kid. I can zoom in on the pattern and see it from different perspectives.

Months go in a circle with winter up and summer down. Now we are going up towards winter, so when someone talks about "Christmas is soon" I feel where it is in space.

It was only recently I realized that the same clock pattern is pretty common.

But I don't really see any connection with Si. But maybe with weak intuition.

1 to 100:




1 to 20:




Years, from present looking back in time towards middle ages (3D perspective):

What the hell is this! lol
This doesn't make any sense
I wonder why does the brain create such associations

[BrainlessSquid]

@Tallmo, I think internalized visualizations of numbers and years are commmon to all. Synesthesia is rare, but Si leads can have experiences like "green orgasm" probably because of intensive and extensive focus on the sensation.

*easy question to all here: what do the quadras look like to you? For me they open like a horizontal lane and my inner eye floats on Beta for some reason. I have to 'go back' to hover over Alpha, for example. We all have these personal formations.

I don't associate anything visual with quadras nor anything, but when I think of some quadras clouded and fuzzy images of stereotypical types may pass through my mind, I can't even describe because it's so cloudy that I don't even know if they're actually images, but I can recognize their meaning and I know what they are referring to. It's pretty much like trying to remember a dream

[Mila]

Most of the descriptions above seem weak logic and an intuitive process.

[BrainlessSquid]

Most of the descriptions above seem weak logic and an intuitive process.

could you elaborate on this?

[The Reality Denialist]

I have some kind of synesthesia because I visualize numbers and years. It has always been the same patterns. It resembles the clock and then the pattern repeats itself with some variation for greater numbers. I don't actually see anything concrete, but I visualize it for my inner vision. It happens involuntarily. Since I was a kid. I can zoom in on the pattern and see it from different perspectives.

Months go in a circle with winter up and summer down. Now we are going up towards winter, so when someone talks about "Christmas is soon" I feel where it is in space.

It was only recently I realized that the same clock pattern is pretty common.

But I don't really see any connection with Si. But maybe with weak intuition.

1 to 100:




1 to 20:




Years, from present looking back in time towards middle ages (3D perspective):

Some people just think things funnily.



I just see that stuff as strange. I just start from a very thick fog (it is so easy to be thrown in darkness so to speak and grind a way out) and work out several solutions. This Tammet dude starts from a place that is filled with details. I start from a thick soup that makes no sense. In a way I see these modes as the opposite ends of process oriented thinking. Can they meet in the middle?

[BrainlessSquid]

Some people just think things funnily.



I just see that stuff as strange. I just start from a very thick fog (it is so easy to be thrown in darkness so to speak and grind a way out) and work out several solutions. This Tammet dude starts from a place that is filled with details. I start from a thick soup that makes no sense. In a way I see these modes as the opposite ends of process oriented thinking. Can they meet in the middle?

I am skeptical of this guy, he seems to use mnemonic techniques to remember stuff.

[The Reality Denialist]

I am skeptical of this guy, he seems to use mnemonic techniques to remember stuff.

Eh? He has been like that from his childhood. Besides a technique does not guarantee a result and he has documented (supervised by neuroscientists) his shapes in clay to prove that consistency remains.

[BrainlessSquid]

Eh? He has been like that from his childhood. Besides a technique does not guarantee a result and he has documented (supervised by neuroscientists) his shapes in clay to prove that consistency remains.

it's strange that he's the only "savant" that is capable of explaining how he can perform his tricks.
He's just a high IQ guy fooling around with everyone LOL

[The Reality Denialist]

it's strange that he's the only "savant" that is capable of explaining how he can perform his tricks.
He's just a high IQ guy fooling around with everyone LOL

And IQ is a black box mounted in your brain? Are you saying that our cognition is just the same with different bandwidths? If that is so socionics is not certainly for you.

[Mila]

Sometimes, in a very quiet environment, while I'm doing something that takes a lot of visual weightlifting like browsing art, I start seeing colors? And shapes and sometimes sound. Never words or numbers. I think I can consciously make it grow louder but don't see any reason to, so it's quite faded and in the background most of the time. I think it's getting more frequent and I'm getting a better grasp of it as I get older. Possibly going insane. It's like everything has an aura. In normal life doing normal stuff it goes away

Anyway, making a post because it's interesting.

Mb its related to some visual illusions or visual effects? When you look at for example a red square for 20 seconds and then you look a white wall you are going to see the same square in purple floating in your visual field. If its a complex picture you could start "seeing" shapes outside the picture for some minutes or seconds.

For example if you look at the white dot in the nose of the woman for 15 seconds and then change your sight to the white space you will see her picture in color.



Anyway, you see shapes and sometimes sound? How is seeing sound?

[Mila]

could you elaborate on this?

I mostly think with words in a monologue which could be extroverted logic. There's no images, there's nothing, just my voice in a monotone dialogue. I've talked with other ISTP and say the same. Visualizing abstract things like what Tallmo shared, could be a way to process logic information for non T or maybe is related to N. The clock or time pattern mb is Ni. Ni types especially NF, seem to make more strange associations and create weird patterns (Chocolatte and Emily for example) as mind constructions that are no based in logic. They also enjoy creating and recreating in such content. It can escalate in complexity too.

[Mila]

Involuntarily experience their perceptions.
Project sensations outside the mind, such as seeing colors floating through the air when they hear sounds.
Have a perception that is the same each time.
Have a perception that is generic, such as seeing a shape in response to a certain smell, but not seeing something more complex.
Remember the secondary synesthetic perception better than the primary perception.
Have emotional reactions such as pleasurable feelings linked to their perceptions.

What does it means with "perception"?

[persimmonism]

@Tallmo I visualize summer as being on top and winter as being on the bottom!
It surprised me how you visualize time as a line that seems to curve arbitrarily.
For me there is some weird perspective involved, but in the end it's linear and goes left --> right, unlike you.

*easy question to all here: what do the quadras look like to you? For me they open like a horizontal lane and my inner eye floats on Beta for some reason. I have to 'go back' to hover over Alpha, for example. We all have these personal formations.

I see it similarly. It's interesting how your eye floats on Beta. Mine does too, except I belong to Beta. When I bring my eye to Delta I feel very far away and like I'm near the edge of the reel. Even though though technically Alpha is after Delta. But for some reason my mind doesn't repeat it like how it repeats Monday after Sunday and January after December. I don't feel on the edge with Alpha because of the direction Alpha->Beta->Gamma->Delta.

Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
But it's really because those are the colors I see A, B, C, and D as.

[Tzuyu]

Mb its related to some visual illusions or visual effects? When you look at for example a red square for 20 seconds and then you look a white wall you are going to see the same square in purple floating in your visual field. If its a complex picture you could start "seeing" shapes outside the picture for some minutes or seconds.

For example if you look at the white dot in the nose of the woman for 15 seconds and then change your sight to the white space you will see her picture in color.



Anyway, you see shapes and sometimes sound? How is seeing sound?

It is very faint. Just barely enough so I can notice it. Also in a very very quiet environment. But things produce an aura. It can sometimes happen with people too, which is easier to describe. They look like plants! Very dependent on their personality. If I listen to a very good playlist with a theme I can imagine it as a fantasy landscape, sometimes a world full of dandelions and sometimes filled with pink soap. It is mostly just imagination of how something that has a strong impression might “feel” tbh, nothing more. The imagination might be so strong I can really see it, feel it, hear it though. But still faint. It only lasts for a bit and I never lose touch with reality.

[Tzuyu]

I mostly think with words in a dialogue which could be extroverted logic. There's no images, there's nothing, just my voice in a monotone dialogue. I've talked with other ISTP and say the same. Visualizing abstract things like what Tallmo shared, could be a way to process logic information for non T or maybe is related to N. The clock or time pattern mb is Ni. Ni types especially NF, seem to make more strange associations and create weird patterns (Chocolatte and Emily for example) as mind constructions that are no based in logic. They also enjoy creating and recreating in such content. It can escalate in complexity too.

Ni is so weird. Their brain must be like Picasso’s painting. My main inner voice barely exists, I can’t pinpoint it. Just words and their meaning into the brain. Sometimes it gets really harsh and insane like there’s demons in there telling me negative and cruel things. Sometimes when I’m calming myself down it gets female and motherly like it’s talking to a little kid, I imagine it’s a benevolent princess. Those two voices seem separate beings from myself, although I know that is not the case. Overall pretty standard. A monotone inner voice is hilarious, I wonder what people who think in two languages feel like.

[Mila]

Ni is so weird. Their brain must be like Picasso’s painting. My main inner voice barely exists, I can’t pinpoint it. Just words and their meaning into the brain. Sometimes it gets really harsh and insane like there’s demons in there telling me negative and cruel things. Sometimes when I’m calming myself down it gets female and motherly like it’s talking to a little kid, I imagine it’s a benevolent princess. Those two voices seem separate beings from myself, although I know that is not the case. Overall pretty standard. A monotone inner voice is hilarious, I wonder what people who think in two languages feel like.

Is my normal voice and is kinda monotone as usual. Having an emotional internal voice would be too uncomfortable probably. I think in two languages and it feels the same as thinking in one. The two voices thing sounds creepy. I wonder if some other ppl in here has similar experiences.

It is very faint. Just barely enough so I can notice it. Also in a very very quiet environment. But things produce an aura. It can sometimes happen with people too, which is easier to describe. They look like plants! Very dependent on their personality. If I listen to a very good playlist with a theme I can imagine it as a fantasy landscape, sometimes a world full of dandelions and sometimes filled with pink soap. It is mostly just imagination of how something that has a strong impression might “feel” tbh, nothing more. The imagination might be so strong I can really see it, feel it, hear it though. But still faint. It only lasts for a bit and I never lose touch with reality.

Imagining things with music happens to me too. Probably it happens to most ppl or at least those who enjoy music.

[Tzuyu]

Imagining things with music happens to me too. Probably it happens to most ppl or at least those who enjoy music.

That’s really cool! What’s your musical inner world like? For me it is almost always a landscape, a world of mirrors or glass or grass or neon. Listening is different from creating. When I make a playlist I focus on a specific aura I am trying to create, a mix of emotions and sensations, a couple images very focused on concentrating. It is less cool than it seems, just extremely picky when it comes to music. I am currently into more ethereal inhuman sounding stuff like electronica or ambience or breakcore, not sure why. Also tried making playlists for fictional characters before to capture their essence, not as good as it..

[Tzuyu]

Is my normal voice and is kinda monotone as usual. Having an emotional internal voice would be too uncomfortable probably. I think in two languages and it feels the same as thinking in one. The two voices thing sounds creepy. I wonder if some other ppl in here has similar experiences.

You’re religious right? I know no two people have the same spiritual experiences but personally I genuinely believe that demons exist. When you abuse and inflict trauma you pass on your demons onto others, sometimes a whole family or nation can be caught in one’s grasp. My experience with mental illness has caused actual physical pain sometimes, or like I’m being choked and something’s sitting on my lungs, what else could cause it? I have researched extensively into self-help stuff, the normal stuff helps a lot but it doesn’t get to the heart of the neuroses... so that taunting inner critic, I cannot help but personify it. It is just a way of seeing the world.

[Tallmo]

@Tallmo I visualize summer as being on top and winter as being on the bottom!

yes, some people have told me they see it that way. I just realized that I almost always have the feeling "where we are" on the circle of the year. Now in November, I have a "spatial feel" of the current month. Not just when talking about time, but it seems to be almost permanent. It's 50% an inner visualization and 50% a spatial feel.

It surprised me how you visualize time as a line that seems to curve arbitrarily.
For me there is some weird perspective involved, but in the end it's linear and goes left --> right, unlike you.

The curve is based on the clock. But "the clock" is seen from above, so it seems flatten. The millennium 1000 to 2000 goes from 1 to 10 on the clock. Now we are standing at 10 (close to year 2000) looking down on the past millennium. The decades and centuries that are closer seem bigger (they also have individual clock patterns). In the distance we see the first millennium (0 to 1000, another clock pattern, here flatten).

So there are macro and micro clock patterns into each other, like a fractal or something. And then everything is twisted by the perspective.

The picture is supposed to have a lot of spatial depth, but it is hard to draw. I emphasized the clock pattern of the past millennium with pink.

[The Reality Denialist]

I don't think this is synesthesia at all but to me summer is first a plate.. then that plate cracks and another crack forms. We have summer and winter now. Now it begins to diffuse and we see mb seasons represented completely "senseless" way. I can't capture it really as it morphs itself. So my mind didn't even answer to the question of summer, lol. It just draws parallels. I think every object I try to define is completely a senseless representation of it's real life counter part but it also morphs easily. This actually reminds me of one EII who had troubles at labelling things as she formed a mental representation of an object bit like I do (I can also forget words as washing powder because I represent it bit like detached from reality sort of way).

[Tallmo]

What the hell is this! lol
This doesn't make any sense
I wonder why does the brain create such associations

Numbers are abstract so in order to make sense of them they are connected to something visual. The clock was the first visual connection to numbers I experienced as a child, so the mind took it as a theme and expanded on it.

[Tallmo]

@Tallmo I don't entirely get it lol
you feel like numbers are inherently located somewhere in space? 'inherently' as in synesthetically.

Just the same way as you imagine anything involuntarily, like when talking about a person or a place. You "see" it in your inner vision. So numbers are located spatially according to this pattern. It's like an imagination that is being activated every time when a number is mentioned.

[Tallmo]

right, but what is the reasoning for the spatial-numerical connection? or it 'just is'?

maybe it's because my brain is not wired to see that, so it feels quite 'alien' to me.

It just is. It is involuntary. I can only speculate about the reasons (see my post above). I am so used to it that I almost never reflect about it. One can say it's like a permanent day dream.

[Tallmo]

maybe it's because my brain is not wired to see that, so it feels quite 'alien' to me.

Do you have any other kind of mental activation when thinking about a number or a year, if it is not a visual imagination? Like how do you relate to them?

[Tallmo]

I mostly think with words in a monologue which could be extroverted logic. There's no images, there's nothing, just my voice in a monotone dialogue. I've talked with other ISTP and say the same. Visualizing abstract things like what Tallmo shared, could be a way to process logic information for non T or maybe is related to N. The clock or time pattern mb is Ni. Ni types especially NF, seem to make more strange associations and create weird patterns (Chocolatte and Emily for example) as mind constructions that are no based in logic. They also enjoy creating and recreating in such content. It can escalate in complexity too.

Numbers are abstract. These visualizations are a way to make them concrete. So I see it as weak, not strong N. They are related to ability to grasp things spatially though.

I remember an IEE telling me that she never sees anything visual with numbers, she only has a feel of its matemathical properties, like what it can be divided with etc.

[sbbds]

@Tallmo by numbers visualized spatially, do you mean that in your internal screen display you see something like “one” as a dot in top left corner, and “two” as another dot or two dots beside it or something?

Or are they also in a clock shape? Does it vary, are they similar variations?

[Tallmo]

@Tallmo by numbers visualized spatially, do you mean that in your internal screen display you see something like “one” as a dot in top left corner, and “two” as another dot or two dots beside it or something?

It's like in the pictures I shared. But it is actually more fuzzy. I don't imagine any sharp dots or lines, and the perspective and zooming can change drastically. So I can "sit" on different parts of the pattern and look in different directions.

[BrainlessSquid]

yes, some people have told me they see it that way. I just realized that I almost always have the feeling "where we are" on the circle of the year. Now in November, I have a "spatial feel" of the current month. Not just when talking about time, but it seems to be almost permanent. It's 50% an inner visualization and 50% a spatial feel.



The curve is based on the clock. But "the clock" is seen from above, so it seems flatten. The millennium 1000 to 2000 goes from 1 to 10 on the clock. Now we are standing at 10 (close to year 2000) looking down on the past millennium. The decades and centuries that are closer seem bigger (they also have individual clock patterns). In the distance we see the first millennium (0 to 1000, another clock pattern, here flatten).

It's interesting that you say "circle of the year". I had never imagined a year like a circle. I would probably imagine part of the year being a certain position in a straight line leading to the target or something like that.

[BrainlessSquid]

For me numbers have no special visual representation. It's just a normal character. Like 10 for me is just "10", nothing else. If I count from 1 to 100, my mind will just have a distorted blurry image of each number appearing one after the other in space, since I can't see anything with my mind I can only have a basic sketch that reminds me of the real objects.