I Have Synesthesia — Here’s How It Shaped My Perspective

Roses are red. A’s are red, too. To me, the alphabet looks colorful, but maybe not to you.

This is how I see the alphabet — image created by the author in Canva Pro

As far back as I can remember, letters and numbers have had distinct hues. Ones are white, twos red, threes yellow. I never thought much of it and assumed everyone had visual perceptions of numbers and letters. It wasn’t until adulthood that I heard the term synesthesia and realized that most people don’t perceive letters and numbers in color.

“Seeing” colorful letters and numbers, or , is just one form of synesthesia. Synesthesia can involve many sensory crossovers, such as tasting colors or feeling sensations in response to sound. Some musicians, like , have , where sound evokes colors and shapes. The sound of a drum might be orange. A trumpet, blue.

I don’t have chromesthesia, but I have a few other sensory crossovers. One of them is , which involves seeing months, years, and decades — essentially time — as a visual landscape that looks like a cross between a spiral and a series of switchbacks. It’s hard to describe, so here’s a rough illustration below. It’s not nearly as detailed as what’s in my head, but it probably gets the point across better than words.