Yeah, I think it is common in some regards.
The current prevailing theory on how synesthesia happens in the human brain says that everyone is born with these connections but in early development the synaptic connections are sheared or closed off. Like how your brain will close off bad memories or certain emotions for trauma victims. It is believed to be a similar mechanism. The connection is still there but it is shut down and inaccessible. When people take hallucinogens and see colors or geometric shapes in their vision that is the drug reopening those closed synaptic connections temporarily.
The degree in which synaptic shearing happens or which synaptic connections get sheared are different for every person. So there could be, like, a bell curve, where some people have more connections throughout their life than others but the majority tend to group towards the middle of the curve. For mirror touch, and several other types of synesthesia, it tends to be a bit of a spectrum of those who don’t experience it to those who experience it acutely. Even then there are those who may experience it internally, like intellectually know there is a sensation and those who have some sort of physical reaction. Synesthesia presents itself in wildly different ways among those with the condition. There are many triggers and many different kinds of responses. If you have one type you are 50% likely to have 2 or 3 different types of synesthesia.
There are two main tranches that people with synesthesia fall into in regards to the affects of synesthesia; people either think everyone has the same thing and so they don’t talk about it or, once they do talk about it, discover not everyone experiences the same thing they do, or not to the degree in which they do. If the synesthetic response is strong, hard to ignore and not something people are used to hearing about then the synesthete (a person with synesthesia) tends to not talk about their condition due to fear of being ostracized or sent to a psychiatrist and etc.
I have Emotion>Color Synesthesia, along with several other types (including mirror touch). So my emotions present as colors projected into my vision. When talking about it as a kid I was sent to a psychiatrist as my parents thought I was making it up or crazy. I was put on anti-depressants which, surprise surprise, dulled my emotions and made the emotional>color synesthesia less pronounced but still there. Emotion wasn’t considered as a “sense” in the traditional meaning so it took a long time for me to figure out that it was synesthesia and how mine worked. Only in the later years of the 2000s did synesthesia start to come back into scientific research circles and with the internet it made it possible for edge cases, like myself, to start making contact with each other.
If you want to learn more about it then the book from 2009 called “Wednesday is Indigo Blue” is a great starting point and kinda spearheaded synesthesia coming back into public discourses. It is not a long book, gives a good overview of the condition and its many variations but is also approachable and not too heady.
Yeah, it makes sense in retrospect that emotion would be considered a sense. I have never met, still to this day, anyone else who has emotion>color but I have met other synesthetes.
I cried tears of joy once I discovered some other people writing about their experience with emotion>color for the first time. Emotion being the trigger is somewhat rare in synesthesia but color as the response is the most common of responses. My understanding and exposure to synesthesia was that it worked in conjunction with the traditional 5 senses of touch, taste, sound, sight and
soundsmell but that is not the case. There are spacial, emotional, personality, temperature and several others beyond that that are also considered to be a part of synesthesia now.It is hard to classify because the responses are subjective to the individual. My color to emotion pairings are unique to me as well as how it presents in my vision though some of the color pairings are somewhat universal at a basic level.
Thanks for the sympathy but I see it as a gift. Early life sucked as it was very isolating. With my pattern recognition autistic brain that tracked body movements and emotions of others to try and mask better it made it very easy to figure out when adults or others were lying to me or just acting out of character. I had a HUD that would discolor them. I am fantastic at poker but never play with friends or family, while I can’t see their cards I know a bluff without much effort and can run the numbers in my head to make a pretty accurate guess of the probability of their hand, especially with Texas Hold’m.
The benefit, now that I don’t mask any of this as an adult is immense. I gravitate towards honest and open people. I make friends easily as I can cut through the BS but the majority of my friends I’ve had for several decades. I am very lucky to have such deep and long lasting friendships. Narcissists are a problem for me though, I take others at face value and they tend to mask their intentions well, like the antithesis of me. It is kinda weird. I have to be morally balanced in my daily life; kind, honest and fair or else my worldview gets colored in a depressing/angry/resentful or other negative tint. I can get overwhelmed during extremely distressing events and depending on how long those events last for, like a parent in decline or dying, then I can be overwhelmed by it for months or years. It’s better now that I have a more clear understanding and various coping mechanisms.
It all takes balance, like with anyone, I just feel the highs and lows more acutely because so much of my attention has to be focused on it. Once I was able to accept it, figured out how it functioned, worked on coping mechanism and sought therapy for emotional regulation then life became pretty great. Happiest I’ve ever been. Wouldn’t give any of it up for any price but it was a tough road.
It’s genetic too, part of what drove me to figure it all out and use it to my advantage was when I decided to have kids. If they got it then I needed to be able to not alienate them like I was but to help guide them in whatever way it presented in them so they could skip past the several decades I went through to get to the good parts.
Some people still think it is weird and treat me as such but that’s ok, can’t be friends with everyone.
Apologies for the info dump, it’s been one of those morning where I am avoiding doing the things I should be doing today but I figured someone might want to hear more about it in case they have similar sensory stuff going on or know someone who does. It was a comment like this in a random thread on a random forum from a random person where I discovered Emotion>Color synesthesia was a thing. Figured I’d try to pay it forward on here in case someone needs it.
*fixed a word