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TABLE OF SYNESTHESIA TYPES (by combinations of senses)


The links will take you to the page on each type, with a description and examples.

The table does not list all the existing types of synesthesia (and it isn't a complete list of all the pages on this website), it is just a route for finding information on this site.

Why is it impossible to list all the types of synesthesia that exist?  

Concurrents
                 →

↓ Inducers

Sight

Hearing

Touch

Taste

Smell

Other 
sensations   

Personification
Spatial 
position

Parity

 

Sight

(Note: for more

visual inducers,

see “sequences

of concepts”

below)

Colour-sound

 

Colour-tactile

Mirror touch

Machine empathy 

Colour-taste

 

Colour-smell

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

Hearing

(Sight)

Auditory-visual

Including:

Chromesthesia

Tone-colour

Chord-colour

Song/musical genre-colour

Timbre-colour/shape

Key signature-colour

Musical modes-colour

General sounds-vision

Voice-colour/shape

Ticker tape

Phoneme-colour

 

(Touch)

Auditory-tactile

Mirror speech

Sound-texture

(Taste)

Auditory-gustatory

Including, among others:

Tone-taste

Chord-taste

Song/musical genre-taste

Voice-taste

(Smell)

Auditory-olfactory

The types included are described on the page on auditory-olfactory synesthesia

(Other)

Auditory-motor

Music-temperature

Sound-texture

Musical note-texture

(Personification)

Personification of musical sequences

 

 

 

  

Touch

(Sight)

Tactile-visual

(Hearing)

Tactile-auditory

 

(Taste)

Tactile-gustatory 

(Smell)

Tactile-olfactory

 

(Other)

Tactile-emotion

 

 

 

 

  

Taste

(Sight)

Gustatory-visual

 

(Hearing)

Gustatory-auditory

 

(Touch)

Gustatory-tactile

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Smell

(Sight)

Olfactory-visual

 

(Hearing)

Olfactory-auditory

 

(Touch)

Olfactory-tactile

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other

sensations

(Sight)

Pain-colour/shape

Emotion-colour/shape

Perceived emotion-to-colour/shape

Sexual (and romantic) synesthesia

Kinetics-colour

(Hearing)

Pain-sound

Motion-to-sound

Kinetics-sound

Perceived emotion-sound

 

(Touch)

Emotion-tactile

Perceived emotion-tactile

 

(Taste)

Pain-taste

Emotion-taste

Perceived emotion-taste

 

(Smell)

Pain-smell

Emotion-smell

Perceived emotion-smell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sequences

of

concepts

(Sight)

Time units-colour

Coloured sequences

Concept-shape

Mathematical concepts-vision

Grapheme-colour

Lexeme/ morpheme-colour

Person-colour

Personality-colour

(Hearing)

Grapheme-sound

Concept-sound


 

 

 

(Taste)

Lexical-gustatory

Grapheme-taste

Personality- taste

Concept-taste

 

 

(Smell)

Lexical-olfactory

Grapheme-smell

Personality-smell

Concept-smell

 

(Other)

Lexical-motor

Grapheme-temperature


 

(Personification)

Ordinal linguistic personification

Personification of days or months

Colour personification

Personification of sequences of objects

 

(Spatial)

Spatial sequence

Its subtypes are:

Calendar synesthesia

Number form

Alphabet form

Spatial sequences of other concepts

(Parity)

Stimulus-parity

Duality

 

Concurrents
                →

Sight

Hearing

Touch

Taste

Smell

Other
sensations

Personification

Spatial 
position

Parity


This page last updated: 04 December 2022


17 comments:

  1. Wow, I've never realized just how many things I experience are a part of my synesthesia, which my therapist and I had only identified within the last few years. For the longest time I thought that everybody saw movie-like scenes overlayed with reality whenever they listened to instrumental music, or were able to taste the colors of what they saw, so you can imagine my surprise when I learned that most people don't experience that 😅

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  2. I keep having smell-taste synesthesia with other combinations for some reason. I'm not sure why. I always had a particular strong taste and smell, not just in pure strength, but with a specific type of nuance between seeing differences between similar tastes and smell. The weirdest one is personality-taste/smell, where for some reason, people who end up being good people tend to give off a perfume like scent, while more toxic people, even if not obvious at first, smell literally like garbage sometimes. Perhaps this is my unconscious gut feeling manifesting in taste/smell then?

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    Replies
    1. Yes, absolutely. When you have the type of synesthesia where different people you see, or meet, or know, have a consistent particular colour, taste, or smell, like in your case, it corresponds to what your intuition tells you about them, your "unconscious gut feeling manifesting" as you say. So you don't even have to think about it consciously - it just appears as soon as you see (or think about) the person. And in general I think it can often be a very good guide to what that person is really like - it seems to tap into observation skills that are better than the ones we have when we're distracted, reasoning too much or perhaps listening to what that same person or other people are saying about them :D

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  3. My name is Stephanie Burko. I have lived in a box of pure frustration and confusion feeling like I have a clear concept of the world, but it betrays and misunderstands me at every avenue. I have had a slammer of a life that is so hot yellow all I have done is run to the next event and hope for the cool blue to swim in for a minute. I have felt the pain and energy of those around me and it has affected me in such a visceral and physiologically debilitating way I have been a recluse in solitude just to cope with the intensity. I have questions about the coping mechanisms of others like me. What do they see? How do they feel? Do you taste metal when a pan hits something in a porcelain sink? How do you sleep when someone emotionally stimulates you so hard you vomit and cannot rest because of the light show and ear ringing? I have questions and I want to have a simple conversation. Please help me

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    Replies
    1. Hi, I'd like to discuss with you... My name is Edris Kibalama... You can Google me and contact me on LinkedIn and Facebook..
      As a synaesthestic Savant I'd like to ke toيshare experiences and as an Author, Writer and independent researcher I'd like to write a book on savant ism and synaesthestia... My WhatsApp is +447766045928 state clearly why you are contacting

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  4. Is associating people with certain colours a type of synaesthesia? Someone I know told me they see people as specific colours (for example me as purple and themselves as orange)- but couldn't see anything here about it (although I haven't looked that hard lol). This person is neurodivergant in other ways- I'm pretty sure they're autistic, and maybe other things too (I don't actually know them that well, I'm just curious lol).

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    Replies
    1. (*Synesthesia, neurodivergent. sorry I spelt those wrong lol)

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    2. Lol I literally just found it (https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/03/person-colour-synesthesia.html)

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    3. Yes, that's exactly it! And both synesthetes on the autism spectrum and not on the spectrum can have it.

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  5. I was wondering if giving certain number personality’s was a form of synesthesia. For example the number nine I always felt was kinda rude and always felt like it was the best but everyone hated it, and sometimes I’m one hundred percent sure if its a boy or a girl like I’m positive three is a girl and other times it just feels like they don’t have a gender like with ten, but it’s not with every number and it’s mostly one digits but sometimes it can be bigger but not usually and most of the time I develop a personality for it if I use it or see it a lot or I just automatically know it’s personality if I see it once, and I make up scenarios of what it would be like if they talk to each other. I don’t think this is a kind of synesthesia but whenever I’m naming something I feel like it has to have the perfect name or it doesn’t fit and I have to change it again and I’ll stare at this one object for a really long time trying to figure out a good name for it and I can tell if it doesn’t fit or not I just get this annoying feeling that the name isn’t right and when I pick out the right name that feeling goes away and I always associate certain names with specific types of faces so whenever someone has a name that doesn’t match there face it makes me kind of angry and confused again this probably isn’t synesthesia and I’m probably just weird but I still wanted to ask to see.

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    Replies
    1. Hi!
      Yes, what you say about your number personalities is synesthesia. It doesn’t matter if not every number has a personality or gender, as long as you have more than just one or two and they’re consistent and don’t change (they can develop as a person, but not change into someone different!) then that’s enough. People usually have them with single-digit numbers and not usually past that. It’s called ordinal linguistic personification:
      https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/03/ordinal-linguistic-personification-and.html
      The thing about the names and the faces, no, that isn’t a type of synesthesia. But it doesn’t mean you’re weird!

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    2. Thank you so much!

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  6. i have like, some weird thing where i’ll feel a word? example spoon is like, cold on my left hip?

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  7. Hello, I am Aman from India. I am working as a Writer and a Director. Currently I am working on a story which is about Synesthesia and Synesthete. I am looking for someone who can help me in research and share his/her experience of being a synesthete and their world view. My aim is to spread awareness and make the people aware about this subject as many of the people haven’t even heard about this yet. So, if anyone is interested then please reach at my mail id imbansalaman2004@gmail.com

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  8. I don’t know if this is a type of synesthesia or something else. I associate days of the week to light. For example, Sunday is bright white lighting, like laundry room lighting. Tuesday is the amount of light from the beginning of a sunrise. Saturday is bright gold/yellow light. I couldn’t find this on the tree and want to know is this is considered synesthesia.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I'd certainly consider that to be coloured sequence synesthesia for days of the week, even if the days just have different amounts of light (or lighting conditions) and not actual colours. Very interesting!

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  9. Hi. I'm not really sure where to start with this because there's so much. I'll just start with the fact that I know I have synesthesia because I've seen it. It's this little purple triangle at this particular spot on my forehead, on the left side. I was hesitant to touch it because the sensation that came from it was akin to the sensation that occurs when you put a pencil too close to your nose, except it didn't hurt, it was just a pressure. The first time I touched it was while writing this, and I saw a kind of floral pattern, pink and purple, then again a few minutes later it was yellow, and it came off on my finger for a second before fading. (edit: I touched it while listening to my favourite song just now and I saw more than I usually do (it amplified it almost?) The synesthesia moved out of me for just a second, it was reddish-green streak directly in front of the spot on my forehead. edit 2: It has completely changed my synesthesia, people are now colours, I am seeing more in colour than I ever have while sober) When I don't look at it directly it's this misshapen blob that looks like an oil slick, all shiny and beautiful. While stoned, I've become more aware of it. Last time I got high I looked at it and saw music ebbing from it, orangey-brown in colour. It looked and felt amazing. I know this is synesthesia because anything I feel while stoned is true. I stop masking so cannot force myself to feel or act a certain way, it's physically impossible, this also one of man, many reasons why I believe myself to be autistic. I've always had a connection to sounds/music like nothing or nobody I know. When I was younger, I would listen to songs that would make me cry and I had no idea why. They weren't even 'typically' sad songs, they just spoke to me and showed me places I had never been nor could ever go. I get visions of places that 'feel' right or draw me in, I get this feeling of pure longing. Right now, I listen to this one song every single day, always repeating the same 30 seconds because I absolutely love how it sounds. This has happened to me multiple times, I find a song I love because of what I see when I listen to it. Weed only has unlocked this further. I can tell when I can 'see' a song because my fingers and toes start to twitch, and the music moves through my whole body. It will usually pause my sense of time for just a second, almost like taking a picture, commonly when the beat drops in a song. This is a whole other weird thing that happens. I associate people with music. I have a very specific image of people in my head, and the most obscure sound or music will 'move through' them in a 4-d sense, usually from top to bottom, and it just makes sense to me. I perceive my synesthesia as being 'correct'. What I see is what is. If I think of anything else I'll probably add a comment if I can.

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