What type of synesthesia does she have?
Primarily, Johanna sees letters and digits represented in color form. This is the most common type of synesthesia, grapheme synesthesia. As she is a musician, Johanna often associates colors with music as well, mostly when she is aware of the note she is singing or playing. She will then associate that note with the same color as she associates with that letter. Johanna also associates the color of the first letter of a person’s name with the individual.
How did she find out that she had synesthesia?
When Johanna was a young child, she was playing with a puzzle that all of the letters of the alphabet in a variety of colors. She made a comment to her mother about how all of the colors were “wrong.” This is a common way for parents to find out about their child having synesthesia at a young age.
Did her parents have previous knowledge about synesthesia?
After Johanna’s comment, her mother did some research and found out about synesthesia. She had heard the term, but had never known exactly what it meant. Her research helped her to understand synesthesia and the fact that the type of synesthesia that Johanna had was not going to be harmful to her.
How does it affect her everyday life?
Johanna doesn’t see synesthesia as affecting her life, because it is just the way that it has always been. She thinks that if anything, it has enriched her life by adding to textual, mathematical and musical experiences. Sometimes, when she is reading, a certain word will pop out because of its color and it makes the reading more interesting. Having synesthesia makes Johanna more aware of color association in general. She is quick to associate different quality tones with colors. For example, stringed instruments are earthy tones, the cello a dark gold and the violin a yellow-greenish brown. Often Johanna associates colors with physical sensations as well. Prickly things are associated with silver, while pain is a wash of red, black, and orange. While experiencing the pain, Johanna also experiences color.
Can it be distracting?
Johanna said that it could be distracting if one paid attention to it all the time, but she has learned when she can focus on it and when she needs to direct her attention to other things, so it has never been an issue.
Does it help her to make associations and remember things?
Colors of digits help Johanna to remember series of numbers, like a telephone number, especially if they are similar to one another. She doesn’t really think about the digits, but remembers the colors and is then able to recall the phone number. It also helps with any kind of rote memorization task, such as learning new vocabulary in a foreign language.
