Learn from the mistakes of others

last week i received an invite to a gathering from daydaze. i suddenly realised i hadn't caught up with her or her circle of friends for quite some time. i just had to say yes. and last night i trekked over to their place for the gathering.
and i'm glad i did.

i had a very pleasant evening. caught up with some familiar faces, and met some new people.

on the way home, my synaesthesia came up in conversation with mother_cat.

upon some reflection, i have realised how my synaesthesia is manifest, and how i have confused it with some other perceptual issues of my aspiness. for a while now i have confused the effects of sensory overload on my sensory systems with the effects of my synaesthesia.

the most common forms of synaesthesia involve the perception of colours with sounds, or colours with letters, or sounds with colours. mine is connected with touch.

the reason i confuse them. well, there are four parts to this:

1. when i think about a problem, i have sensations of shapes - physical shapes - about me. the more complex the problem, the more complex the shape. as i come closer to a satisfactory conclusion/answer the shape becomes 'clearer'/'sharper' and the feeling of being enclosed within the shape more apparent. [this is possibly part of synaesthesia]
   
2. sensory overload translates to a feeling of pressure inside my head. can be quite unpleasant.
   
3. as well as visual and auditory hypersensitivites, i also have tactile hypersensitivities [not uncommon amongst aspies].
   
4. my most apparent synaesthesia is visual-tactile. in certain circumstances, i can feel when i see/hear, or see when i touch.
   

seeing shapes and colours when i touch certain things, or more usually, feel certain shapes when i see/hear certain things. it is hard to describe, particularly since most of the sensations are ephemeral (though usually pleasant).