I feel kind of like my brain gave me a present this week. On Tuesday, I learned that I’m a synesthete.

One of my friends shared this article, “Your name tastes like purple” on Facebook. “Uck,” I thought. “I really hope my name doesn’t taste like purple.” That should have been a sign.

Synesthesia, I learned, by reading the article, is a harmless perceptual condition in which one sense is directly related to another. Some people see colors when they hear sounds. Some people associate tastes with colors. The synesthete who penned the piece wrote about her ability to see letters in color and visualize the year. As I read, I thought “So? Who doesn’t do that? Everyone associates the letter A with red, right?” By the end of the article, I realized that everyone does not. Read more