Synaesthesia

What are the different types of synaesthesia?

There are many different types of synaesthesia, and manypeople with synaesthesia will experience more than one of these for example, taste, sound and touch may all produce colours.

Colours and patterns

Research suggests that the most common synaesthetic experiences are associating days, months, numbers and the alphabet with:

patterns or shapes (for example, envisaging the months laid out in lines, spirals or circles)
distinctive colours for example, "A" may be red and "B" may be blue

Synaesthesiaaffects people differently. Two people with synaesthesia will often disagree over the colour of letters.

However,there are some trends that appear common to all people with the condition A is generally perceived as red, B is often blue, and C is often yellow.

Taste and smell

For some people with synaesthesia, spoken words trigger a particular taste, as well as a particular texture, place in the mouth and temperature (for example,"runny egg yolk").

Taste can also produce colour sensations, or shapes that can be "felt".

Certain odours may also be perceived as shapes and/or colours, but this form of synaesthesia is thought to be rare.