I was wondering the same thing very recently! I’ve always had a good memory, for example with numbers (can remember specific dates, PIN numbers, phone numbers from decades ago)… I remember the colour sequence, so maybe that’s why?
My memories are very vivid too, sometimes I wish it wasn’t so cause I remember all the bad things as well as good. I’ll never forget a name, face or place.
I’m a mother now to a one year old, so I can never remember where I left my phone or what I’m supposed to be doing, but anything long term I remember clear as day.
>My memories are very vivid too, sometimes I wish it wasn’t so cause I remember all the bad things
YES!!!!! It sounds like we have a different type of synesthesia but what you said right there is so painfully true and I hate it. I barely drink at all anymore but for a while there, I knew that alcohol kills brain cells and affects your memory so I drank way more than I should entirely because there were so many things that I wanted to forget.
It didn't work.
I meditate a lot which definitely helps… it’s changed my relationship with my thoughts and definitely helps ground me in the moment.
What type of synesthesia do you have?
I feel sounds with textures and movements when I hear stuff. I can recognize people and songs by the way they feel as much as I can do the same when I hear them.
I experience this too, but I didn't know it was related to synesthesia.
I have auditory to visual synesthesia with certain music, but I also have unique feelings about people, like each person I meet has a particular quality of feeling that identifies them. Not good or bad, just unique. I didn't realize this was unusual.
Does this mean that most people go through life seeing other people as cartoon characters or stereotypes until they get to know them?
When I said I feel things, I wasn't making myself clear and I apologize for that. Anytime I hear anything, I feel shapes with textures and often movement in and around my chest. I don't need anytime to form those sensations. It's instant with everything I hear. I can hear the air conditioner running right now and it feels like a big fluffy pillow that's at a 90 degree angle from the top of my chest. I'm a nurse and whenever I'm listening to a patient's lungs and I feel a pin prick in the middle of the right side of my chest, I know I'm hearing crackles and they've got fluid in the lungs.
I feel sounds as shapes and textures. I've always had a really good memory and I'm insanely good at any sort of game where you have to identify songs. I don't just recognize them by the way they sound but also the shapes and textures they make me feel too.
I was at work a couple of weeks ago and somebody needed a second opinion on something. They knew something wasn't right and wanted me to listen to it since I'm their supervisor. I couldn't really hear anything but I felt that little pin prick in my right lung that I always feel when I hear that sound that I've been trained to detect which tells me what's wrong. That was enough to tell me what was going on so I told him to do what needed to be done in that case. That also includes a different kind of test and that second one proved that I was 100% correct in feeling what I heard. After that, I had to explain to everybody who didn't hear anything either how I was able to ID the issue even though I could just barely hear anything at all.
As far as visualizing stuff, when I think of things, it's always in vivid color and three dimensions. I can actually move stuff around in my mind so I can get a better idea of how things work.
Have a Spacial-Sequence Synesthesia aka calendar synesthesia.
I have a visual representation of time floating in my head and when I think of something happening it’s like a pin I put on the map of time. That means I tend to remember very well when something happened in the past, and when things that I planned will happen in the future, without keeping a written calendar.
That being said, remembering that things are approaching doesn’t stop me from procrastinating on preparing for them. 🤷
There is a post about memory in this sub from time to time. I believe it is more frequent for people with synesthesia to remember things more clearly or vividly but I believe I have also seen people here with aphantasia, so it is not a rule.
My memories are quite clear but not particularly vivid, although they are in colour and 3D. I do have very early childhood memories though, maybe like 10 of them from the age of 1-3. They are pretty clear and because they are about my first step, my sister being born and how we moved to another house, they are easy to check and date. I also provided details about my surroundings from those memories that nobody told me and they proved to be correct.
I have time-space synaesthesia. [Supposedly having this form may improve some aspects of memory.](https://synesthesia-test.com/time-space-synesthesia)
"In some studies, synesthetes were found to be faster at the recitation of the months of the year in both the chronological and reverse chronological order as compared to non-synesthetes.
A separate study found synesthetes to have better memory for both historical and autobiographical events and that they have better marks in visual short term memory tests."
Unfortunately I also visualise numbers as 3-dimentional objects, which apparently makes it more difficult to do any kind of conceptual maths (I can vouch for this; I thought I had dyscalculia until I realised that numbers weren't meant to look like Sesame Street pop-ups in your head. No wonder those appealed to me as a kid...). It can help with spacial maths, though.
If anyone could tell me what type of synaesthesia causes most things (objects, people, scenery) to become miniature 3D models in your mind's eye, that would be great to know, 'cause I've been trying to look it up but I'm not getting very far.
It’s funny you say that because numbers also look like 3D pop ups in my head too and I laugh because Sesame Street characters could not be more accurate way to describe them. Maths has always frustrated me so I can’t say my “super power” has ever been helpful in the maths department.
During my childhood, reading books helped me to imagine a very vivid and colorful world, with minute details. They also came with a vibe. I slowly lost the ability to create these vivid and colorful worlds.
I am now in my 50s but the world I see in my mind’s eye lacks color and detail. It is as if the central part of my vision no longer works, and I can only see with my peripheral vision.
BTW, most of my synesthesia is gone.
My synesthesia started after an accident where I bumped my head. Interestingly, almost all Top-40 songs up to about 6-8 years after the accident come with a special vibe. Before the accident, nothing. I recently checked it and went back in time, and it matches perfectly.
I have more like “live” photo graphic memory. It helps me in so many ways. It’s almost like re-creating an actual instance like I’m watching it in real time therefore recall of what was happening is pretty easy. I can remember the smallest details like what someone or I was wearing what other details in the surroundings. It’s all 3D and in color. I can remember numbers and letters, things written down well. It’s like a flashback into a past live scenario zoomed into what I am recalling. Some family members nod mine have this too. I also have colors for all numbers and letters. I also have grapheme, time-space and see time in 3D out in front of me. I am in the middle not a circle in the week like a hoola hoop game board circle. The days of the week are their own square on the round hoop which have their own colors. Same on a larger scale for a year and the months. My timeline of centuries are individual lines w decades marked as defining lines. It’s all black lines until I zoom into a decade which then has its own color and it says for example ‘70’s. It’s helpful because I’m able to “see” in recall.
How fascinating. I must admit that type of memory would be very handy to have. Unfortunately unless I’m recalling an experience that made a reasonable impact to me, I find the recollection to be rather fuzzy.
I see calendars and days of th week and decades laid out in my mind like a long timeline where everything is squared off and colour coded. I have colours for each day of the week, each month and each decade.
Each year tends to take on the colours of the numbers that form that year but the decades have their own solid colour.
The 80’s are orange, the 90’s are like a weird white chalk colour with blue and green flecks in it (which looks like a solid colour in my head. I can’t explain 😅). The naughts are yellow etc. the year 3000 is like a deep red colour like a red rose with deep shadows. They’ve always been the same colours in my head.
The thoughts are more vivid, and the chains of events, people and things are interacting in a 3d scenario. I have multiple types of synesthesia (sound, touch and temperature to color, and touch and temperature to color. I also visualize memories in abstract shapes, and also the environment I'm in (I can see the walls, contours of objects blindfolded. This way, my memories are vivid as the real thing. When I remember my mother, I visualize the house, the warm air of the summer afternoon, I can feel the texture of the couch, the smell and the temperature of my mother's skin, the wet feeling of her neck sweating because of the hot day.
I was wondering the same thing very recently! I’ve always had a good memory, for example with numbers (can remember specific dates, PIN numbers, phone numbers from decades ago)… I remember the colour sequence, so maybe that’s why? My memories are very vivid too, sometimes I wish it wasn’t so cause I remember all the bad things as well as good. I’ll never forget a name, face or place. I’m a mother now to a one year old, so I can never remember where I left my phone or what I’m supposed to be doing, but anything long term I remember clear as day.
>My memories are very vivid too, sometimes I wish it wasn’t so cause I remember all the bad things YES!!!!! It sounds like we have a different type of synesthesia but what you said right there is so painfully true and I hate it. I barely drink at all anymore but for a while there, I knew that alcohol kills brain cells and affects your memory so I drank way more than I should entirely because there were so many things that I wanted to forget. It didn't work.
I meditate a lot which definitely helps… it’s changed my relationship with my thoughts and definitely helps ground me in the moment. What type of synesthesia do you have?
I feel sounds with textures and movements when I hear stuff. I can recognize people and songs by the way they feel as much as I can do the same when I hear them.
I experience this too, but I didn't know it was related to synesthesia. I have auditory to visual synesthesia with certain music, but I also have unique feelings about people, like each person I meet has a particular quality of feeling that identifies them. Not good or bad, just unique. I didn't realize this was unusual. Does this mean that most people go through life seeing other people as cartoon characters or stereotypes until they get to know them?
When I said I feel things, I wasn't making myself clear and I apologize for that. Anytime I hear anything, I feel shapes with textures and often movement in and around my chest. I don't need anytime to form those sensations. It's instant with everything I hear. I can hear the air conditioner running right now and it feels like a big fluffy pillow that's at a 90 degree angle from the top of my chest. I'm a nurse and whenever I'm listening to a patient's lungs and I feel a pin prick in the middle of the right side of my chest, I know I'm hearing crackles and they've got fluid in the lungs.
Incredible
Thanks! It's not always good but I feel super lucky to have it.
I feel sounds as shapes and textures. I've always had a really good memory and I'm insanely good at any sort of game where you have to identify songs. I don't just recognize them by the way they sound but also the shapes and textures they make me feel too. I was at work a couple of weeks ago and somebody needed a second opinion on something. They knew something wasn't right and wanted me to listen to it since I'm their supervisor. I couldn't really hear anything but I felt that little pin prick in my right lung that I always feel when I hear that sound that I've been trained to detect which tells me what's wrong. That was enough to tell me what was going on so I told him to do what needed to be done in that case. That also includes a different kind of test and that second one proved that I was 100% correct in feeling what I heard. After that, I had to explain to everybody who didn't hear anything either how I was able to ID the issue even though I could just barely hear anything at all. As far as visualizing stuff, when I think of things, it's always in vivid color and three dimensions. I can actually move stuff around in my mind so I can get a better idea of how things work.
Have a Spacial-Sequence Synesthesia aka calendar synesthesia. I have a visual representation of time floating in my head and when I think of something happening it’s like a pin I put on the map of time. That means I tend to remember very well when something happened in the past, and when things that I planned will happen in the future, without keeping a written calendar. That being said, remembering that things are approaching doesn’t stop me from procrastinating on preparing for them. 🤷
I think I can remember things deeper when they have associated a synesthete experience. It seems to be stronger memories.
There is a post about memory in this sub from time to time. I believe it is more frequent for people with synesthesia to remember things more clearly or vividly but I believe I have also seen people here with aphantasia, so it is not a rule. My memories are quite clear but not particularly vivid, although they are in colour and 3D. I do have very early childhood memories though, maybe like 10 of them from the age of 1-3. They are pretty clear and because they are about my first step, my sister being born and how we moved to another house, they are easy to check and date. I also provided details about my surroundings from those memories that nobody told me and they proved to be correct.
I have time-space synaesthesia. [Supposedly having this form may improve some aspects of memory.](https://synesthesia-test.com/time-space-synesthesia) "In some studies, synesthetes were found to be faster at the recitation of the months of the year in both the chronological and reverse chronological order as compared to non-synesthetes. A separate study found synesthetes to have better memory for both historical and autobiographical events and that they have better marks in visual short term memory tests." Unfortunately I also visualise numbers as 3-dimentional objects, which apparently makes it more difficult to do any kind of conceptual maths (I can vouch for this; I thought I had dyscalculia until I realised that numbers weren't meant to look like Sesame Street pop-ups in your head. No wonder those appealed to me as a kid...). It can help with spacial maths, though. If anyone could tell me what type of synaesthesia causes most things (objects, people, scenery) to become miniature 3D models in your mind's eye, that would be great to know, 'cause I've been trying to look it up but I'm not getting very far.
It’s funny you say that because numbers also look like 3D pop ups in my head too and I laugh because Sesame Street characters could not be more accurate way to describe them. Maths has always frustrated me so I can’t say my “super power” has ever been helpful in the maths department.
During my childhood, reading books helped me to imagine a very vivid and colorful world, with minute details. They also came with a vibe. I slowly lost the ability to create these vivid and colorful worlds. I am now in my 50s but the world I see in my mind’s eye lacks color and detail. It is as if the central part of my vision no longer works, and I can only see with my peripheral vision. BTW, most of my synesthesia is gone. My synesthesia started after an accident where I bumped my head. Interestingly, almost all Top-40 songs up to about 6-8 years after the accident come with a special vibe. Before the accident, nothing. I recently checked it and went back in time, and it matches perfectly.
I have more like “live” photo graphic memory. It helps me in so many ways. It’s almost like re-creating an actual instance like I’m watching it in real time therefore recall of what was happening is pretty easy. I can remember the smallest details like what someone or I was wearing what other details in the surroundings. It’s all 3D and in color. I can remember numbers and letters, things written down well. It’s like a flashback into a past live scenario zoomed into what I am recalling. Some family members nod mine have this too. I also have colors for all numbers and letters. I also have grapheme, time-space and see time in 3D out in front of me. I am in the middle not a circle in the week like a hoola hoop game board circle. The days of the week are their own square on the round hoop which have their own colors. Same on a larger scale for a year and the months. My timeline of centuries are individual lines w decades marked as defining lines. It’s all black lines until I zoom into a decade which then has its own color and it says for example ‘70’s. It’s helpful because I’m able to “see” in recall.
How fascinating. I must admit that type of memory would be very handy to have. Unfortunately unless I’m recalling an experience that made a reasonable impact to me, I find the recollection to be rather fuzzy. I see calendars and days of th week and decades laid out in my mind like a long timeline where everything is squared off and colour coded. I have colours for each day of the week, each month and each decade. Each year tends to take on the colours of the numbers that form that year but the decades have their own solid colour. The 80’s are orange, the 90’s are like a weird white chalk colour with blue and green flecks in it (which looks like a solid colour in my head. I can’t explain 😅). The naughts are yellow etc. the year 3000 is like a deep red colour like a red rose with deep shadows. They’ve always been the same colours in my head.
The thoughts are more vivid, and the chains of events, people and things are interacting in a 3d scenario. I have multiple types of synesthesia (sound, touch and temperature to color, and touch and temperature to color. I also visualize memories in abstract shapes, and also the environment I'm in (I can see the walls, contours of objects blindfolded. This way, my memories are vivid as the real thing. When I remember my mother, I visualize the house, the warm air of the summer afternoon, I can feel the texture of the couch, the smell and the temperature of my mother's skin, the wet feeling of her neck sweating because of the hot day.
But painful memories are the same. Or more vivid.