Ok, so synaesthesia's a great word to start with: the subjective experience of stimuli from one sensual realm in another. It happens in brain surgery occasionally, when people begin to 'hear' physical touch or 'see' smells. Some people experience one or many forms of syneasthesia routinely or in regular episodes.

My discussion relates to my wife, who has a very definite sense of different words having different colours. For her, it's particularly about the vowel sounds - a's are red, u's are black/brown, etc. I just wondered if anyone else has similar reactions to words.

I can't say I've ever heard of that before and I'm curious as to why it happens. If anyone knows I'd certainly like to know.

Welcome to the group Quickbeam. I'm a new member myself though I have thankfully managed to drop the 'junior'title.

Thanks for the welcome - it looks like a great site. I could easily lose hours in here...

Vladimir Nabokov talks about certain phonological sounds having certain colors in his memoirs, Speak, Memory. It's a good book.

Rimbaud wrote a poem about it.

One of my co-workers has synesthesia. I also saw a TV program about it last year - either on 60 Minutes, or on PBS. I guess it's like a sixth sense.

The Beeb had a fascinating programme on all types of synesthesia and cam to the conclusion that it is not as rare as many people think. Of course, for most it is only slight - so slight that many people don't even recognise they have it.

Welcome Quickbeam! How nice to see a another newbie!

This is an interesting subject, and while I think we've mentioned it before, I couldn't find the discussion.

I can't say that I have a similar reaction to words as your wife does. Does she have this sense when she reads or writes or when she is doing both? How interesting!

Now, Quickbeam, you're going to have to post a lot like Doad did to get rid of the "Junior" label!

quote:

Originally posted by Quickbeam:
I could easily lose hours in here...

Keep in mind John Lennon's saying: "Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted."

I suspect that synaesthesia is so well ingrained in our everyday lives that we don't recognise it when it happens. We have expressions such as, "I see," when we mean that we aurally comprehend something, or "several flavors" of some inedible thing. Then there's Hamlet's "Something's rotten in the state of Denmark," referring not to odor but to decadence of another kind. Might poets aritsts, and musicians have this sense more at their command than we who use language in a prosaic fashion?