What Life as a Synesthete Looks Like: Colourful!

Until I was around 13 years old, I didn’t know that the way I see was extraordinary. I have never questioned whether this is normal or not. Because for me there was never another way to see. I couldn’t question it because I never had a comparison. Until — I still don’t know how I came up with it — I came online to a research site on synesthesia that offered a Germany-wide test to find out how many people perceive the world synaesthetically and if yes, in what intensity.

I immediately took this test. First, I had to answer basic questions about everyday phenomena. Whether and if so, which everyday phenomenon I even perceive. Because synesthesia is an innate characteristic of the perception of sensory stimuli. In addition to normal perception, people with synesthesia experience additional sensations when a sensory stimulus is triggered.

Because the term synesthesia comes from ancient Greek and means syn (=together) and aisthesis (=feeling), so synesthesia is the co-excitation of one sense organ when another is stimulated. This happens on an additional channel of perception. As a result, some synesthetes can also feel letters or taste words…