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TYPES OF SYNESTHESIA IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER



Find your type here! Each link will take you to a description.


Acupuncture-colour/shape (tactile-visual)
Flashes on hearing sudden or loud sounds when falling asleep (not considered synesthesia)
Flavour (see taste)
Gender as a synesthetic concurrent (concepts, letters, numbers, etc. are masculine or feminine)
General sounds-colour (and/or shape)
Geometric shapes-colour
High-production synesthesia
Ideasthesia (or ideaesthesia) (not a type of synesthesia but an alternative way of defining it)
Mathematical concepts-vision
Mathematical synesthesias
Mirror kinetics (involuntary movements on seeing other people move)
Musical notes-texture
Musical synesthesias (all the different types)
Music-colour
Music-emotion (not considered synesthesia)
Music-images, landscapes or “music videos” (not considered synesthesia)
Person-sound  People-sound
Sight-smell: see smelling images or concept-smell
Sight-taste: see tasting images or concept-taste
Smelling colours (colours trigger smell perceptions)
Smelling images
Smelling music or sound
Smelling numbers
Smells-vision
Smell-taste (not considered synesthesia)
Social synesthesia
Songs-colour  Song-colour
Songs-smell
Songs-taste
Sounds-colour  Sound-colour
Sounds-emotion (not considered synesthesia)  Sound-emotions
Sounds-personification  Sound personification
Sounds-physical sensations
Sounds (sudden or loud) produce visual flashes (not considered synesthesia)
Sounds-shape  Sound-shape
Sounds-involuntary movements  Sound-movement  Sounds-motions
Sounds-kinetics  Sound-kinetics
Taste-memories (not considered synesthesia)
Taste-musical notes  Tastes-musical notes
Taste-shape  Tastes-shapes
Taste-smell (not considered synesthesia)
Taste-sound  Tastes-sounds
Taste-tactile sensations  Tastes-tactile sensations
Taste-vision
Tasting colours (colours trigger taste sensations)
Visual-olfactory synesthesia (vision-smell): see smelling images, concept-smell or colour-smell
Visual-gustatory synesthesia (vision-taste): see tasting images, concept-taste or colour-taste
Words-odd or even
Words and letters-shape/texture/colour/images  Word-shape
Words-smell  Word-smell
Words-taste  Word-taste
Words-temperature
Years-colour  Year-colour
Years-spatial location


This page last updated: 28 September 2023


21 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 12, 2022 at 8:26 AM

    What would seeing colours at people's feet when they walk be?

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    1. PauDecember 12, 2022 at 9:33 AM

      I like this question!

      People’s gait can be a good indicator of personality, and perceiving colours appearing around people is quite typical of “aura” synesthesia or personality-colour, so I think it could be that. I hadn’t heard of it around their feet before, it’s more common around their face, head, upper body… but if they way they walked was intuitively giving you the information about their personality, then that might be the case. Or if you tend to look down towards foot-level rather than maintaining your gaze on people’s faces when you see them in the street, that could be another reason. Here’s the page:
      https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/02/aura-synesthesia-projective-personality.html

      The other possibility would be that it’s the sound of the person’s feet that produces colours for you, although I think that’s less likely as you would have realised it was the sound causing it. But in the page on General sounds-colour/shape, right at the end of the page, there’s a compilation of all the different colours and shapes a lot of different synesthetes associate with the sound of heels on a pavement, so you might like to read that too:
      https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/03/general-sounds-vision-colourshape.html

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  2. AnonymousDecember 18, 2022 at 6:41 PM

    What would you call being able to feel someone’s face as your face when watching them and feeling their expressions as though your face is making them, and feeling their voice in your throat and your mouth making the dialect they use?

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    1. PauDecember 18, 2022 at 7:42 PM

      Feeling people’s voices in your mouth and throat as if you were making the sounds yourself would be mirror speech (https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/02/mirror-speech-synesthesia.html) and I think feeling somebody’s facial expressions as your own might be connected with mirror kinetics, if it depended on the movement of the person’s face (https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/03/mirror-kinetics.html).

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  3. AnonymousJanuary 3, 2023 at 12:59 AM

    Any chance there's a Tactile–Tactile Synesthesia (experiencing tactile sensations from being touched)? It would be the same effects as auditory–tactile synesthesia but evoked from physical touch - I can't find any answers on this, please let me know if you're aware of anything.

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    1. PauJanuary 3, 2023 at 3:03 PM

      Hi! No, that wouldn’t be a kind of synesthesia. I'm not completely sure what you mean, though. Do you mean like a kind of “referred itch” phenomenon, but only when other people touch you, in a different part of the body from where you were touched? And which wouldn’t be accounted for by emotion (e.g. if someone you have a romantic interest in touches your hand and you get a tingle in your spine?)

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    2. AnonymousJanuary 5, 2023 at 10:19 AM

      Hi, thanks for your answer! No, it's not tied to a "referred itch" at all, and it's not mainly emotionally-tied. As a person who experiences similarities to (self-diagnosed) Mirror-Touch and Audio-Tactile Synesthesia's, I can describe it as experiencing Audio-Tactile synesthesia. I'd say it's like feeling pulsation/ripple sensations from the point where you're touched that travel throughout your body (it's also like tactile-visual but more involves feeling that energy movement throughout your body instead of seeing it in patterns/colors). I apologize if this is unclear; I haven't found a great way to explain it yet. Thanks for your questions and time!

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    3. PauJanuary 5, 2023 at 9:45 PM

      Ah, OK! That's very interesting... and I hadn't heard of it before. If you say it isn't really emotionally-tied, what aspect of the touch experience do you think causes it? I can sort of imagine it as I have auditory-tactile too and get those kind of sensations from sound, although it's a bit difficult for me to capture it exactly. Is it always when people touch you or is it also other kinds of touch, like when you brush against something? Is it different depending on which person is doing the touching, I mean if they're someone close to you, a stranger, etc? Does it depend on the kind of touch (caress, grab, hit, accidentally brush, etc.)?

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    4. AnonymousJanuary 11, 2023 at 3:49 AM

      Thanks, again. It's most consistently stimulated by other people's touch but from brushing against soft or smooth textures too. It can be from anyone (but it's the most intense when it's someone close rather than a stranger) and it's from all kinds of touch, just not to a point of pain. I can't find anything that describes it, I've looked into touch sensitivity and just about every synesthesia platform (but it's technically just one sense - so I understand that it wouldn't be synesthesia applicable). Rippling energy is the best way for me to describe it.

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  4. AnonymousJanuary 29, 2023 at 10:18 AM

    I will be very grateful if any Synesthete could let me know if she or he sees colours or different shades of the same when certain letters are pronounced aloud.There is an interesting aspect of chanting alphabets I am trying to investigate.Thanks,

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  5. AnonymousFebruary 11, 2023 at 10:02 AM

    If anyone knows what feeling sight would be(feeling like its distance to yourself like a needle to your eye if its sharp) could you tell me.

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  6. AnonymousApril 19, 2023 at 12:22 PM

    Can you add musical-space synesthesia on there?

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    1. PauApril 22, 2023 at 10:49 AM

      I've answered you over on "Musical synesthesias".

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  7. AnonymousJune 17, 2023 at 12:41 AM

    would imagining being touch in a part of the body and being able to feel it be considered synesthesia?

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    1. PauJune 19, 2023 at 10:06 PM

      No, that wouldn't be considered a type of synesthesia. It would fit in more with hyperphantasia, in this case tactile hyperphantasia, meaning that if this happens to you often or at will, you would have an above average ability to recreate and actually feel tactile sensations just by thinking about them. Some people have this kind of detailed perception on looking at or imagining textures too.

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  8. AnonymousJune 24, 2023 at 8:50 AM

    What would it be if in my Minds Eye, I know what shape someone's singing voice is? I don't see the colour or shape, but I KNOW what the shape and colour of the song is in my head. Sometimes I hate the shape, so I hate the song. Another one: When I'm writing, where my infomation/writing has been hangs off of the paper/my fingers like loose hairs growing everywhere. For example, if I put my writing through an online paraphraser, the mess of... idk what I'll call them, but tendrils becomes more and more chaotic. If I have loads of different excerpts from websites on a PowerPoint, the same thing happens. They only go away when I stop and leave for a good 24 hours, but even when I come back I KNOW they are there, like the strings in Sherlock Holmes' corkboard tying the words allover the world/internet/idk

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  9. PauJune 24, 2023 at 10:23 AM

    The singing voices one would be voice-colour/shape, and it's just as valid if it's associative (=you don't see it, you just know or perceive it in your mind's eye) and not projective.
    https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/03/voice-colour-and-voice-shape.html
    The second one, this sounds like it would belong to the concept-shape type, in fact on the page on this there are several examples of synesthetes having perceptions of shape and movement specifically when they are writing or doing things connected with texts, even if they don't usually notice these perceptions for other areas of activity or thought, so that might be your case too:
    https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/02/concept-shape-synesthesia.html

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  10. AnonymousJuly 22, 2023 at 8:04 AM

    I was wondering if there is a category for visual-tactile (or motion-tactile) synaesthesia, other than mirror touch. When I see objects I have a sense of their textures kind of within me or on me, almost as if I'm feeling it just by looking at it. I also feel the motion of objects kind of like sensations on my body, especially when people are gesturing at me. Their hands sometimes feel like vague slashing movements across my skin. I think of it sort of like having an invisible extension of my body that feels the world without actually touching it. What are your thoughts on this?

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    1. PauJuly 27, 2023 at 9:41 PM

      Hi, those are interesting comments! The looking-at-objects-and-feeling-their-texture-physically I think is more connected with hyperphantasia (hyperphantasia tactile), even perhaps if it's automatic. I've heard several people mention this, but I don't think it has a specific name and I don't think it's ever been considered synesthesia by any scientists. Feeling sensations on your body from gestures of other people I really don't know, in a way it sounds kind of related to mirror-touch, somewhere between mirror-touch and mirror-kinetics but... different! In a category of its own perhaps. Then again, if it's not strictly either of those then it wouldn't be considered syn. As far as I know this kind of sensitivity doesn't even have a specific name (yet)... although I must say I haven't studied the subject enough to be able to say much else. If I come across anything of interest about this I will try and post it here in response to your comment. Sorry I can't be of much help!

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  11. AnonymousAugust 11, 2023 at 1:40 AM

    What if you had mirror pain that controls you. What if big rooms feel like marshmallows pushing on you and the air is thick to breath. Where does one seek help if their synesthesia is more neg than positive?

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    1. PauSeptember 19, 2023 at 3:16 PM

      Hi, sorry about the delay in replying, I'm just getting around to the August comments now!

      Here are a handful of ideas, some might help:

      - Sharing your experience and talking about it in real life with another sensitive person or synesthete who understands it, if possible, or if not, just someone close to you or who is a good listener
      - Anticipating situations that will have a negative effect on you and avoiding the worst ones where possible, even if you have to adapt your social life slightly or make different choices about what kind of TV programmes you watch, sports you play, types of transport you use, etc. That doesn’t mean stopping doing things you enjoy or cutting yourself off from society, of course, just taking your sensitivity into account as a priority when you have a choice of what you do and where you go, and not being coerced into going to places that are not right for you by people who don’t understand or give any importance to your problem
      - If sensory overloads or other sensory problems are giving you anxiety in your day-to-day life, then your doctor can point you in the right direction to get help with that specifically
      - There are groups online to chat to people with the same problems as you and read about their experiences. It can help you feel supported, and you can share tips and help other people too. Facebook groups are often very good. There is a relatively new Facebook group for Mirror Pain Synesthesia (sorry haven't actually seen it yet myself but I know it exists so you could join and see what's going on):
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/620026273282445
      And the group Synesthesia World has an associated chat group where people ask for and receive help for the kind of things you’re describing, it’s called the Synesthesia Support Network, you can find it on the sidebar here:
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/146487665902317
      - There are also online resources for help with this kind of thing on sites about the autism spectrum or about highly sensitive people, a google search could probably bring up a few to get started
      - The Sensory Processing Disorder subReddit is also good for this kind of thing, you could ask a question there or just search for similar issues to yours and read people’s experiences and the answers they received.
      https://www.reddit.com/r/SPD/

      I'm sure there are more but some of those might be useful to explore as a start-off.

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