Synesthesia?

Question

do you or anyone you know have it? what's it like?

Answer 1

I sort of have it, but as I understand it, it's different for everyone.

Numbers to me have distinct colors and when I perform an operation on them (add, subtract, etc.), in my head, the colors change in a predictable way. It helps me keep track of larger numbers because I see them all as distinct patterns of color.

When I read, words take on a new spatial organization. Instead of just words written flat on a page, sentences take up space in a room with subjects "linked" to verbs and objects and twisted up in a web based on my perception of their level of relationship. This is how I can sometimes remember things I've read of conversations I've had. It's like walking into a room I've been before and seeing all of the bits and pieces.

Answer 2

I love having it.  I thought everyone did until 5 years ago!  My letters and numbers and days of the week and months are all specifically colored, and they always have been.  I didn't choose their colors.  The only color I don't have in my spectrum is purple.  Some of my colors are a strange shade that I can't even explain, like "orange-pink, but not peach."  Some are neon, some are opaque, some are watery.  Some even have a bit of personality like male-female qualities.  Some change hue when they are next to another number or letter.  It really aids my memory a lot, and I still remember phone numbers and friends' birthdates from my youth, because I'm encoding it 2 ways.  

There are other types of synesthesia that I don't have, such as colored hearing, tasting sounds, smelling colors.  But where most people can't imagine what that's like, I somehow can... maybe I used to have that too when I was very young and it dissipated.