The most recent conversation on the synaesthesia mailing list has been to do with hiding synaesthesia. A lot of people have reported how they have felt like they had to hide their synaesthesia from everyone including sometimes their families, for fear of ridicule, bullying or reactions from others like ‘you’re lying’.

I didn’t know that my coloured words were different, let alone had a name, until I was 19, so before that I didn’t really talk about it (thinking it was normal) so never felt like I had to hide it.

Until this conversation came up this week I thought that for the last few years I had been open about my synaesthesia. I was lucky enough to find a couple of people like me at university so it was fun to compare colours, so spoke about it occasionally then.

Now I tell people I know and trust, just because sometimes I have to explain why I get their name wrong or why I get certain words and things mixed up, but generally I keep it to myself. I suppose people assume that synaesthetes are just attention-seeking which is why I don’t mention it much.

It’s quite frustrating having to keep quiet though. If something is the ‘wrong’ colour, like for example if a graphic on a webpage doesn’t match the colour I see for the word on it, it bothers me constantly like a mosquito that just won’t fuck off. Or if a person’s name doesn’t match the colour I feel for them that can be really irritating too. And then I have to keep all this stupid annoyance to myself and it’s really distracting!

It’s a shame that some people really have to hide it because I think it’s really interesting, but I understand why. No-one wants to be laughed at (apart from comedians). I guess it’s such a difficult thing to explain that it’s easier to stay quiet.

Although there are a lot of variations between synaesthetes, there are often similarities in certain things like letters of the alphabet – there are trends like ‘a’ is often red (mine’s black), ‘y’ is often yellow (mine’s yellow) and ‘z’ is often black (mine’s black).

I’d like to know if other synaesthetes see certain words the same too. Now with most words, it’s not the meaning of the the word that produces colour (e.g. the colour for ‘wall’ is grey for me but I’ve never seen a wall painted grey – it’s the letters in the word that are producing the colour).

But for certain words, words with very strong and vivid meanings and connotations, I’d like to know whether other synaesthetes see the colour of the meaning rather than the colour of the letters. Words I am thinking of specifically are things like this:

DEATH – SUNSHINE – FIRE – GRASS – BLOOD (blood is also shiny and rounded like a blob of hot red wax before it has set)

And what about non-synaesthetes? Do they see colours when they think of these words?

I think that most synaesthetes would see what they have as a good thing, and I’d agree. Up until now though I’d thought it was pretty useless, because although I see things differently to a lot of people, it doesn’t really help or aid me in any way.

Studies have found that in general, synaesthetes have good memories because they are able to use the colour perception to jog their memory. As I have mentioned before, the colours usually either confuse me or I just remember the colour of the word and not the word itself.

In fact, quite often when I am speaking, I can’t get my words out, I can’t seem to locate the word I’m looking for even if it’s a fairly common word. I think it’s partly down to the fact that the colours and sensory information in the outside world are interfering and distracting me from what’s going on in my head.

I’ve always been good at spelling though and that could possible be due to synaesthesia. Have I just got a good eye for spotting mistakes, or have I always been seeing the colours as well, and noticing when the colours look wrong? I’m not sure really. It’s hard to say when I don’t actually see the colours, I just kind of know they’re there in my mind’s eye.

But ever since I realised I had something different to a lot of people, I’ve started to notice it more and more. This makes me think that maybe I can try and use it to improve my memory. If I’m noticing the colours more then surely I can focus more on them when it comes to remembering things? I wish that was the case but I’m dubious.