For me, this means several different things. When I see numbers and letters, a color is strongly associated with them. An "A" for example, is a violet red, but with only a hint of the violet. I took a test by bbc and they gave certain colors options, and I couldn't find the color that most of the letters should be, so I was really frustrated. I might make an alphabet with all the right colors, because I get really annoyed with pictures or magnets with the wrong colors.
Some are more acceptable than others. An orange 5 is more acceptable than a blue 5, even though it really is yellow. I get really annoyed at blue As. I'm used to all of them being black, but sometimes I see the colors anyway, even if they are in black.
I also feel tastes. This one is the funnest, but hardest to articulate. How do you explain that cows milk tastes like a log on your molars but soy milk tastes like dipping your toe in a bath on the tip of your tongue? Or that cucumbers taste like a sharp wave on your upper gums but celery tastes like a firework on your tongue?
Most people look at my like I'm crazy but some people get it. To one of my friends, a certain soup tastes green but it should taste brown. Not everything has a strong feel to it. Chocolate, for example, feels like chocolate melting over my whole mouth. Popcorn feels vaguely like a glacier along my inner gums, but mostly I just taste the flavor of popcorn. Not so remarkable. Interestingly, tomatoes feel the same as chocolate but back farther in my mouth.
I taste the flavors too, and I can ignore the feeling just as much as I can ignore the flavor. The feel of vodka, for example, is fairly pleasant even though the taste is awful. Gin feels and tastes awful. It feels like there's a thin rubber layer inside my mouth and it's being pulled out from the back, inverting on itself.
Lastly, I can somewhat feel sounds. Like, I can feel a tingle along my middle back when I hear a violin playing, or a tingle in my upper abdomen when I hear a tuba. Usually it's more the tones and notes I hear than the instrument, but certain instruments I feel more strongly than others. People's voices do it, too. I have a professor whose voice tingles my lower ribs, and another who tingles my collarbone. I am not sure why, and usually my own pre-existing opinions determines if I like the feeling or not. For example, the upper abdomen tuba-induced tingling is usually because when there's tense music playing, I don't really feel happy (during a movie, for example), so that tingling usually makes me feel anxious, even when it's happy polka music.
Anyway, that is how synesthesia works in my body. I'm sure it's different for many people, and it will probably change over my lifetime. I remember when I was a kid, I would see the words that people said aloud, like it was typed in a book, but that doesn't happen anymore. Won't it be fun when the dementia starts when I'm old? Who knows what happens then?
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