F and I had a nice phone convo last night, among other things, comparing our synesthesia. She must have gotten it from me but we are backwards from each other.

If I am in a darkened room, if I hear a sharp noise I concurrently perceive a flash of light. When that first started happening I thought that I must have flinched and scrunched my eyelids against my eyes; or that a light bulb had blown somewhere. Eventually I figured out what was happening. The other night I was lying in bed thinking about something and I saw a bright blue rectangle with kind of a grid pattern. What had happened was that the humidifier was sucking air in like it periodically does, with a kind of whap and then a snoring sound.

F says that when the car in front of her signals a turn, she "hears" it before she realizes that she is seeing it.

So she perceives lights as sound, and I perceive sound as lights.

F also strongly associates numbers with colors - numbers that are the "wrong" color make her uncomfortable - and actually with personalities. I remember that one day when she was very small she told me that numbers were people to her; 4 is a little girl and 7 is her mommy, for instance. And one day we were going somewhere in the car and she was looking out the window and she abruptly said, "There are three words that bother me. Spoon. Police. [Third word I can't remember]"

"Those words bother you?"

"Yes." And she went back to looking out the window.

I think these things are on the synesthesia spectrum somehow, but I can't totally figure out how.