A website about the different types of synesthesia
WELCOME TO THE SYNESTHESIA TREE ! This is an encyclopedic website of types of synesthesia and synesthesia knowledge in general. It has lists, tables and browsing tools to help you find the type you're looking for, more than 100 information pages on specific types, manifestations etc. with real examples and descriptions, and other pages with information on all aspects of the subject, useful links,…
There are numerous types and subtypes of synesthesia, which can manifest in different ways. This page provides an alphabetical list to help you find the type, subtype or manifestation you are looking for. The links lead to just over a hundred different pages on the Synesthesia Tree with more detailed information on each type and real-life descriptions by people who experience it. Some phenomena…
This page contains a large table of types of synesthesia organised by combinations of the different senses (plus some additional inducers and concurrents that are related with concepts rather than senses). Click on any link to go to the page on each type, where you will find a full description and examples provided by people who have this type. Note: the table does not list all the existing types…
This page contains a table of the different types of synesthesia grouped by the types that are the most common, less common, more infrequent and rare. All the types in the table are linked to the respective pages on this website with more detailed information and specific descriptions. The percentages are very approximate and are based on the existing studies and on personal intuition in the cases…
This is a list of all the pages in The Synesthesia Tree Home page Alphabetical list of types of synesthesia Synesthesias by sense combinations Synesthesias by prevalence The Synesthesia Finder There follows a list of the 103 pages on types/subtypes of synesthesia and some other related phenomena. After this the other types of pages on the site are listed (brief definitions; information pages). The…
Synesthesia is a neurological trait possessed by approximately 4% of the general population. For these people, perceiving a certain stimulus (sensory or conceptual) involuntarily and consistently triggers a second perceptual experience, typically via a different sense. There are many different types, and people who have synesthesia (called synesthetes ) usually have several at once. The most…
These are the most common types of synesthesia: Grapheme-colour / Coloured sequences The most common type of all is coloured sequence synesthesia, which includes grapheme-colour (letters/words/numbers-colour) and time units-colour (days/months-colour). Most synesthetes have at least one of these types. Chromesthesia / Auditory-visual The next commonest type of synesthesia is auditory-visual , more…
There’s no answer to that question! It’s impossible to say which type it is, for several reasons. But it is certainly NOT lexical-gustatory, as some websites erroneously state (see footnote 1 about the reasons for this). In brief... In general, the types of synesthesia with a non-visual concurrent (olfactory, gustatory, tactile, etc.) are much less common than those with a concurrent of colour .…
If you experience something you think is synesthesia but you’re not sure or you can't find what type it is, tell us about it in the comments on this page. I’ll reply as soon as I can. Here are the Do I Have Synesthesia FAQs: Where do I write my question (comment)? Scroll down right to the end of this page and click on Load more (there are a lot of comments so you'll need to click Load more twice).…
1. Types, subtypes, variants, manifestations, expressions… how should they be broken down? Is a “type of synesthesia” something very general like “auditory-visual”, or should more specific manifestations like “timbre-colour” also be included? “Time unit-colour” is considered a type (although it is really just a subtype of “coloured sequences”), but what about month-colour? Is that a type? And…
Hi! I’m Pau 365. I live in Seville, Spain. In December 2016 I found out I had synesthesia and since then I’ve spent a lot of my time researching and studying this fascinating subject. In 2018, after studying it in depth, meeting synesthetes and researchers at the International Congress of Synesthesia, Science & Art held here in Andalusia that year and creating and running a workshop on the subject…
The following models have been proposed as a neurological basis for synesthesia. Research is ongoing, as none of them have yet been conclusively proven as the definitive explanation. 1. The cross-activation (or neural pruning) theory (Ramachandran and Hubbard, 2001) suggests that all individuals are born with an excess of working connections between brain areas (they are "born synesthetes", as it…
Here’s a list of some recommendable books on synesthesia. IN ENGLISH (in chronological order of publication): The Man who Tasted Shapes (Richard E. Cytowic). The MIT Press. 1993 Bright Colors Falsely Seen. Synaesthesia and the Search for Transcendental Knowledge (Kevin T. Dann). Yale University Press. 1998 Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens. How Synesthetes Colour their Worlds (Patricia Lynne…
Here are some synesthetes who represent (or represented, as some are not contemporary) their synesthesia via the visual arts. The links are to their websites or somewhere you can see their syn-related works and/or read about their synesthesia and their embodiment of it through art. Most of these artists are contemporary, some are not. Some are world-famous, others well-known in the synesthesia…
Synesthesia UK Synaesthesia Association IASAS (The International Association of Synaesthetes, Artists, and Scientists) Synesthesia World I have Synesthesia: I'm not a freak, I'm a synesthete INCA - International Neurodiverse Connections Association (this group, formerly International Synesthesia Connections Association, started out as a synesthesia-related group but is now about all types of…
I can be contacted at pau365 @hotmail.com For queries about whether you have synesthesia, please use the Do I Have Synesthesia page, not my email address. Other types of queries are welcome. Thank you!
Emotions triggering sound as a synesthetic concurrent is a rare type of synesthesia. It can occur with two categories of emotions: with one’s own emotions, or when other people’s are observed or intuitively perceived. The same emotion gives rise to the same sound perception, and the sounds are usually reported as being fairly simple in nature. It’s difficult to find reports of this uncommon type…
Lexical-tactile synesthesia involves consistent tactile sensations being perceived in the body, head, hands, etc. when reading, looking at, hearing or thinking about certain words . Rather being just a one-off occurrence, these sensations would be felt on a regular basis, corresponding to the same words each time and not just to reading or speech in general. It is an uncommon type of synesthesia,…
It could also be called grapheme-touch synesthesia This is an uncommon type of synesthesia, with very few cases reported. It consists of tactile sensations being perceived in the body, head, hands, etc. when looking at or thinking about specific letters of the alphabet or numbers. These tactile sensations would occur regularly, rather than being just a one-off occurrence or happening very…
Different musical scales – in this case the seven modes, which are seven types of scales that each have distinct melodic characteristics – are an example of a music-related sequence that can induce synesthesia, giving rise to perceptions of different colours for each mode. These seven scales or modes are called Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian. This appears to be a…
These terms have been used been used to refer to the following types of synesthesia: Auditory-visual synesthesia and chromesthesia Algesic-visual synesthesia (pain-colour/pain-shape) Tactile-visual and touch-colour synesthesia Gustatory-visual and taste-colour synesthesia Olfactory-visual and smell-colour synesthesia Novich, Cheng and Eagleman used the term “colored sensations” in their research…
Some synesthetes find it difficult to specify what their concurrent is, as it seems to be made up of multiple perceptions and sensations at the same time. The concurrent sometimes even just consists of a powerful “feeling” or “vibe”, which is automatic and consistent but practically impossible to describe. Here are some descriptions written by people who have this kind of experience: "My syn is a…
In the past, sequences of cultural symbols such as numbers, letters or time units used to be considered a valid inducer of synesthesia but not a synesthetic concurrent (except in the case of types like spatial sequences or ticker tape). This meant that expressions such as number-colour or number-sound would be seen as types of synesthesia, while colour-number or sound-number would not. However, in…
Consistent images seen in creative trance when playing a musical instrument I have recently come across several cases of an interesting phenomenon which I think is a firm candidate for being considered a type of synesthesia. It consists of the visualisation of pictorial images, random but usually very consistent, by people in a state of heightened concentration when playing a musical instrument –…
It could also be called conceptual-auditory synesthesia This type of synesthesia is interesting but uncommon. It consists of a concurrent sound perception – frequencies, timbres or even chords or melodies – triggered by the different concepts or items that form part of a series, category or sequence. Some already known examples are grapheme-sound (evoked by letters and/or numbers) and colour-sound…