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A few nights ago I was clicking on random links on various websites as I usually do (one way I find random stuff that I learn about), and I came across an interesting...condition. Synesthesia isn't really a disease or disorder, since most people have it. Granted, some have it much worse than others, but for the most part, almost everyone has had at least one synesthetic experience.

So what is this synesthesia, you ask? It is the involuntary joining of real information in one sense with perception of another sense. As examples, I'll give you some rhetorical questions to ponder:
Does your favorite song smell like vanilla?
Do you dislike yellow because it's snobby?
Do you see white when you stub your toe?
Have you ever told someone to "make a blue at the first stoplight"?
Does your favorite TV show look like green pyramids?
Do you dislike lemons because, though they're clearly yellow, they taste like hot pink?

Though you may have never had any of these experiences, I can almost guarantee you've heard, if not said something like, "those mashed potatoes tase like spray paint." Obviously you, nor the person who said it have ever tasted spray paint, but that is a synesthetic experience nonetheless. Just a few weeks ago, I caught myself saying, "the crust of this cheesecake tastes like parafin wax and cement." After some weird looks from the people I was eating with, and a lot of, "it tastes like graham crackers, dumbass," I gave up on trying to convince them.

But now: the reason I bring this up. If you don't read any of the thread, at least read this.
All of this made me think of auras. I've tried repeatedly to see auras, and have always failed miserably. But if stubbing your toe makes you see white, why couldn't the appearance or personality of someone evoke a color? So I did some searching to find theories relating synesthesia and auras. There were quite a few. I'm not going to type much about it here, but if you're interested in reading some, just type "synesthesia and auras" into a Google search.

Another thing I thought of is if psychics claim to have some sort of "sixth sense," why couldn't being able to sense other's energies evoke a color in the brain? Sorry to say I didn't find much, if any information on that.

So yeah, at the end I kind of deviated from the whole "skeptics" thing, but the main idea I wanted to put out there was "what if aura seeing was nothing more than synesthesia?" I'd like to hear some opinions on it, and if anyone here actually has more notable synesthesia.

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Synesthesia, facinating! As a replacement for seeing auras, I don't know if it works so well, but I think it does happen when the mind interprets data it doesn't normally how to handle. On occasions I have empathetic experiences, sensing emotions, and the easiest way to describe them is that I ... "taste" them. It's almost a flavor in the mouth, even though it doesnt match any real flavor, the flavors of feelings or people are distinct.

Hah, that's awesome. And rings a bell with me, because when I feel emotions, I don't just taste them, I feel them as though they are mine, and sometimes I have to try quite hard to convince myself I don't have a reason to feel happy, or sad, or loving quite the way I do. The only time it made me feel sick was the first time I felt emotion, when all the seperate ones around me were felt as though they were one, and the confusion and incompatibility hurt like a stomachache. But enough off-topicing.

I tend to think of seeing auras as just one of the ways visually-oriented people express what they experience. In other words, it's not really much different from a very empathetic person (not empathic, I'm going with conventionally accepted senses, although empathy does touch on the fuzzy side) who can pick up on other people's emotions and basic character. Or, for another example, an aurally-oriented person (hearing/sound, btw) who tends to assign sounds or chords to the different people they meet. I know a guy (very well in fact, Laren) who used to smell auras on people. He always put it in color terms, but he had to sniff to get it. Very synesthetic, that.

But yeah. Of all my senses, I'm least in tune with my vision, so I don't think I'd ever be able to see auras. But I am capable of being almost pathologically empathetic, so I frequently annoy people by calling them on their hidden motivations (or, more these days, keeping it to myself and using that information to make my own informed decisions). Since my other main sense is hearing, I do get the occasional, for lack of a better phrase, sound hallucination. In particular, since I'm rabidly afraid of spiders, I have a particular sound that I hear to alert me to the presence of a spider nearby, in most cases before I see it. Does that count as synesthetic? To skeptics, I'd imagine so. But myself I cannot think what sense the sound would be replacing.

Never seen K-Pax, sorry. But as far as I'm concerned, I'd call it perfectly normal to think that disagreeable people smell bad. Smell is an underappreciated sense these days, and I know for a fact that what someone smells like *is* an indicator of biological compatibility (ie good mates smell good to you), so I think of it as not much of a stretch to apply that to friendships as well. Me thinking of stuff like that as perfectly normal is probably why nothing strange and unusual ever seems to happen to me - it does, I just keep thinking it's normal anyway... confused

I find my spider phobia a bit sad and amusing as well, but it's something I've never yet been able to get over, so...meh. As long as they're outside, I leave them alone. Inside, I scream, look for someone else to kill it, and failing that kill it myself. *Then* I get to stand rooted to the spot, shiver, and drywash my hands. Whatever. I could be a worse case.

Eheh...yes...yes...I...um...never do that. sweatdrop

i see energy fields all the time, and auraic colors only sometimes. it isn't seen physically, though it is percieved by some as a physical thing. what it's seen with is the third eye or inner eye. also, not all can train their inner eye to see the aura, but many can. if nothing you can think of or have researched has worked, it could simply be that you are unable to see auras.