A decade in technicolour: ‘Everything I’ve learnt from having synaesthesia’

Do you see days of the week in colour?

The brain condition has been described as “a fusion of the senses”. Katie Strick shares her experience of discovering she’s one of the 4 per cent who have synaesthesia. 

Aimee and Rebecca might not look at all alike, but their names are both red, so forgive me if I confuse them occasionally. At least I can make up for it by remembering their birthdays. 

Is Harriet’s the 16th or 17th of August? It’s the 17th – obviously – because it’s green: the same colour as Thursday, September and the number three.

If the above makes sense to you, welcome to the synaesthesia club – only four per cent of the world’s population are in it.

If you think I’m spouting complete nonsense, you had better read on. The brain trait I share with Billie Eilish and Vincent Van Gogh may just be the reason your colleague claims she can smell the word January and taste the colour orange – and it’s not a disability or a sign of craziness. Actually, it’s a superpower. 

I was 21 when I discovered the thing I did where I attached colours to numbers and days of the week had a scientific name: synaesthesia.

“It’s this neurological condition in which stimulation of one sense leads to automatic experiences in a second sense, so you might smell words or taste colours,” a friend studying psychology next to me in the library explained, asking if I saw letters and numbers in colour. 'Obviously,' I replied. She smiled and told me I had grapheme-colour synaesthesia, the most common version of the sense-fusing phenomenon, in which one’s brain associates letters and numbers with certain colours.  

Synaesthesia involves stimulation of one sense leading to automatic experiences in a second sense. Image: Pexels

Little did my friend or I know it then, but this brain condition was about to become my greatest obsession – and completely transform how I understand myself and my own brain. Is synaesthesia the reason I have a master memory for dates? Is it the same reason I needed colour to revise growing up? And could it be behind other, non-colour-related traits of mine, like the recurring nightmare that I’m falling into a swirl of textures, my sensitivity to noise, and the way I feel a literal weight on my chest every time I copy a word on my laptop until it’s pasted somewhere safe? 

Almost certainly, it turns out. It’s been a decade since I opened the Pandora's Box that is the world of synaesthesia, and met a whole spectrum of fellow synaesthetes: A man from Manchester who tastes every sound he hears (train sounds taste of rhubarb and his dad’s name tastes of peas). A woman from New Jersey who ‘sees’ her pain in colour (her migraines are muddy-orange and her toothache is rippled-violet). A student from Scotland who can’t go to nightclubs because the visualisations she sees when the music plays can make her feel so dizzy she has to leave.

Research has shown that those with synaesthesia tend to be the more creative types. Image: iStock

As a writer, the condition has opened up a treasure trove of great stories – because that’s the thing about people with this extraordinary brain phenomenon: not all of us see the alphabet in some great kaleidoscope of colours. Some of us have other senses fused, like sound and touch (hearing someone’s name triggers a sensation on your body), or smell and sight (smelling something triggers a shape or colour).

I’ve met sound-colour synaesthetes at my local choir – research has shown that those with the condition tend to be the more creative types – and been lucky enough to meet ticker-tape synaesthetes who see each word they use appear before their eyes like subtitles in a film. 

Studies show synaesthesia is genetic. Image: iStock

My quest to know more about this remarkable condition has taken me from university psychology labs to bars serving up the world’s first synaesthesia-inspired cocktail menus – but much of it has also taken place closer to home. Indeed, half my conversations with synaesthetes have been with members of my own family, because this is the other fascinating thing about this particular brain trait: studies show it’s genetic.

Yes, we have dinnertime conversations about what colour Monday is (four out of five of my family have grapheme-colour synaesthesia) – but no, we don’t all agree. Researchers believe the predisposition is inherited, but the specific colour or sensory associations are shaped by early experiences, which differ from person to person.

Billie Eilish has spoken about her experience of synaesthesia. Image: Instagram/@billieeilish

Being a synaesthete can have its challenges, of course – you try remembering the year Mount Vesuvius erupted when the textbook has it written in the wrong colour. But my form of the condition is mild compared to many, and I’ve learnt to see it as a superpower. People with synaesthesia have greater resilience to memory deterioration, according to psychologists, and studies suggest we have more vivid imaginations. 

It also puts us in an exclusive kind of club. Russian artist Kandinsky used his capacity to see sound and hear colour to create his abstract paintings. Olivia Rodrigo, Lady Gaga, Pharrell Williams and Charli XCX are all reported to have music-related forms of synaesthesia. As does Billie Eilish, who says everything from her music videos to her debut fragrance were inspired by her experience of the condition. 

People with synaesthesia have greater resilience to memory deterioration. Image: iStock

Unlike Eilish, I might not use my synaesthesia directly in my day job, but I’m sure it’s no coincidence I’ve ended up in a creative industry, and I use it for memory purposes almost every day. Was the next train at 9.22 or 9.24? Easy. It’s at 9.22 because I remember the time was definitely blue. 

I’m also one of the lucky ones to have a network around me who get it. My boyfriend once made me a synaesthesia birthday card written in all my bespoke colours, and my best friend likes to joke that she’s a synaesthesia sympathiser. Sometimes, we forget we’re in public and she asks me what colour a particular word is. I laugh, but I find it secretly endearing – like an inside joke that says ‘I see you’. 

Scientists at Sorbonne University in France revealed they are exploring links between ticker-tape synaesthesia and dyslexia. Image: Unsplash

Research into the condition is expanding, slowly. Scientists at Sorbonne University in France recently revealed they are exploring links between ticker-tape synaesthesia and dyslexia, and Australian researchers have just developed a new calculator app for grapheme-colour synesthetes like me – the first time (aside from that birthday card) I’ve ever seen my own bespoke colour scheme laid out in front of me.

“When the outside world matches your inside world, it can be an easier place to navigate,” explains Dr Joshua Berger, whose PhD underpinned the scientific merit of the app.

Berger and his team say they want to help increase accessibility for synaesthetes alongside raising awareness of the condition – not only to help others have their own eureka moment, but because there are real-world impacts if people don’t know about it.

Katie Strick has grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Image: Supplied

Take doctors, who might misdiagnose synaesthesia as an overactive imagination or, in extreme cases, schizophrenia. Or teachers, who might assume a child is being a space cadet or badly behaved when they’re actually just experiencing sensory overload.

Even for non-professionals, it’s an important condition to know about, in case you’re ever in a bar and someone starts describing the music as tasting like rotten eggs. Maybe you’ll be the one to trigger their eureka moment, like my friend in the library did that time. Or maybe they’re aware already – you can be the synaesthesia sympathiser my BFF has spent the last decade being for me. 

The word synaesthesia is green for me, by the way, which just so happens to be the same colour as Wednesday, when Synaesthesia Awareness Day falls this year, which feels nicely fitting. 

Does any of this sound familiar? Take this online synaesthesia test to find out if you have the condition yourself 

Originally published as A decade in technicolour: ‘Everything I’ve learnt from having synaesthesia’