Synaesthesia

doi:10.1136/bmj.b3191

Published 4 September 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3191
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3191

Practice

A Patient’s Journey

Synaesthesia

Anonymous, patient , Steve Logsdail, consultant psychiatrist¹

¹ Chiltern Hospital, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire HP16 0EN

Correspondence to: S Logsdail sjlogs@yahoo.co.uk

This patient has lived with synaesthesia since childhood, butthe condition was diagnosed only when she sought help for depression

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Fractions were the crunch. Up until then I got on fine. Thenwe started on decimal points and the more and less signs. Howdo you have more orangey red or less bottle green? They arewhat they are, surely? It was about then that I reckoned I wasn’tany good at maths. We moved into algebra, which turned intoa greyish slur on the whiteboard, and literally, to me, drippedoff in a sort of slimy haze. Yet geometry was fabulous. I couldconjure up the shapes and work out the answers in my head inmilliseconds; just don’t ask me to write anything down.I do things in tens; they array in front of my face in sets,and I count them out. But I don’t fathom dozens, pounds,pints, or anything else imperial. Thank goodness for Americancookbooks.