Synesthesia is pale yellow

Anyone ever heard of "synesthesia?" I have always had it, but never knew what it was, or, for that matter, even knew I had it. Or what it was. I thought everyone had it. Or no one. What? Curious?

For as long as I can remember, words and letters and numbers have had colours "attached" to them. That is to say, when I say a word (or letter, or number) I see a colour. I thought everyone did. For example, "chair" is sort of peachy-orange. "Dog" is dark black, "rug" is sort of rusty red. It's a little confusing because it depends on how many syllables a word has, "tempermental" is orange-ish and also sort of gun-metal gray. Sometimes a colour that I see doesn't actually exist, it's like a new colour that I can't explain. A "cross-colour" I guess. And the colours never change. "Box" has always been shades of blue, "garage" has always been a gray-red (one of those non-existant colours)

No, I haven't been drinking or going without sleep or sneaking the dogs prescription medicine.

Synesthesia, so I have recently learned, is a neurologically based phenomena. It means "joined perception", basically 2 of your 5 senses are combined. "They" say that us synesthetics are more prone to be artistic and imaginative that others...I guess that's as good as any excuse for my wild flights of fantasy.

I always thought that everyone saw colour when they spoke, and I remember being about 8 or so and saying something to my mother about Christmas being "orange", which struck me as odd because shouldn't it be red and green? I was quite amazed when she said she didn't see these colours, although my Grandmother did.

I didn't really think about it, it was just one of those things, but a few months ago there was a program on TV about people with synesthesia and I was quite happy to know that I'm not totally crazy. Or, any craziness I have has nothing to do with seeing colours. And just to reassure you, I don't hear voices...at least not yet....