Letters to the Editor
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Sensing this is misunderstood
Judging from these letters, either synesthesia isn't all that rare at all, or there's a misunderstanding of what it is?
I would think pretty much everybody creates associations between things, likely from either powerful childhood imprinting (I would associate January with white, too) or later repetitive hammering. But with the rare exception of that twilight almost-asleep period someone else mentioned (such as when I'm suddenly startled by a noise and see a flash of red before my closed eyes right before I open them), I wouldn't say I literally experience one perception as another. I don't look at a flower and taste paprika in my mouth; I don't hear a song and smell smoke in my nostrils. I thought that kind of overlapping sensory EXPERIENCE (not just mental association) was what distinguished synethesia from more ordinary mental connections, i.e., "I think of this sound as this color," as opposed to "I hear this sound and SEE this color before my eyes." The latter would be true neurological overlap, I would think, while the former would be just our average brains doing average things.
Well, I'm off to google all this.