oh my god i'm kind of freaking out because i've experienced this my whole life and i never knew it was something that anyone else experienced or that it had a name, any time i've told people i can see time they look at me like i have three heads. my mind is blown right now woah....

I found out that synesthesia was a thing just a year ago. I thought everyone thought of the time like I've done all my life

My timeline goes back to well before my birth. It's like a massive ribbon stretching to the back after a vast room. It starts to my left and has intersections at the years, decades and centuries. If you name a year like 500 AD, I automatically see where it is in my mental timeline.

Volume is way too low, I can't hear anything.

I have this! my mind was blown when you showed the picture. I have a note on my phone from 2017 where I drew what time looks like for me to show my friend. I said "what does yours look like?" and she said "huh?" it's so cool to see that other people see it like this!

Honestly, it's not only fun and games. My time space synesthesia sometimes makes it hard for me to plan a lot of things in the future because it makes some things bigger than they are (think school, work ect) and breaks and relaxation time smaller. Although it does help me remember things that has happened and plans I have :)

TEDx talks is really another platform where we get best information and met quality people

ALL my life i felt like no one else could do this it feels so good to know others are like this. When I see Time i see totally different configurations for Months, Days and Years . For example: Years, they flow horizontally on a 3d permeable number line from left to right categorized by decades....i was born in 1999 and obviously have no relocation of anything prior to my birth but i can literally visualize ever year back until the 1800's and further if necessary. another example is when i visualize the 80's decade. it consists of anything and any ideas related to the 80's.(pop culture, historic events, stories told by family and birthdays) are all attached to its corresponding year. Also i can go thru the 3d time number line. Right now in 2022 im inside the year facing the right which becomes my front pov. i can't see past the current year. it all just flows into your usual regular imagination and future gazing. The past feels documented the future seems like an intangible aspiration.

My concept of time starts in the centre and travels upward in a spiral. My synesthesia is the ability to feel things spatially with my senses. Also, when I hug or get close to certain people, I either hear a pleasant sound or shrill sound.

My husband and I had an argument about this last night because I was curious what his calendar looks like and he didn't have one. I thought he was crazy! After some questioning on his part, we realized I may be unique one in my perceptions. The months of the year, days of the week, school grades, age, numbers, the alphabet, time, and family systems all have very distinct visual-spatial forms. My numbers look very close to the example shown in the video with 7-9 sloping upwards, 10 at the top, 11-15 sloping down, then turning up for 16-19 and peaking back up at 20. Of course, this isn't in 2D. Select numbers and letters have colors assigned as well.

my one son can smell colors and also sees geometric shapes when certain sounds happen....it can actually block his vision so even at 30 years of age he's afraid to get his drivers license......I can identify with some of these things like smelling colors but not to a degree that interrupts daily life......it is a fascinating subject................would LOVE to hear more on this topic!

I have time space synaesthesia - it was really interesting to hear how other people experience their shapes. I also count in shapes too - I believe these are called number lines.

One of the most interesting TED Talks I've heard yet

My weeks are shaped like a capital letter "D" with the weekend on the straight part and M-F is on the round part but it is more swollen than a standard "D" in order to fit all of the days. My 24 hr day winds randomly up but in always the same shape, of course. My year is also in the shape of a "D" but it lies with the straight part North with the "belly" dropping Southward. It has the summer months on the straight part with a slight right-angled soft bend at Dec. 25th where it goes a bit sharper or straighter towards summer. My decades go along with the shape of my centuries which have no actual shape but form a bent and curvy line like an undone but rebent randomly coat hanger, but always bent the same way. I only differ from Ms. Malpas description in that my bends do not occur on 10 year intervals. They bend and curve at a variety of intervals and I doubt they have regular intervals. It would be something to sit down to figure out if they did because I am totally unaware of it if they do... But my jaw dropped when I heard what she was talking about because I had no idea that it, this time/space synaesthesia, was a "thing". I only found out recently though that not everyone sees it. I spent my whole life thinking most people "saw" time in some very solid way like this. Oh, I forgot the other difference. When time runs through me it goes through from west to east (my centuries do anyway) no matter which way I am standing. So it can pass through my back or my stomach or my sides. Mostly my sides though so I can point past to future. But always from West to East, (for the centuries anyway). Ha! It just occurred to me that it brings a whole new meaning to 3D for me! Thank you Ms. Malpas.

Brilliant - always enjoy being apprised and hence, re-situated, on my individual journey though amazing perceptions experienced by others. Once saw a clock whose second hand had the word “future” on its right side and “past” on its left side. Made sense to me, but to other cultures it can be totally incomprehensible. Realizing this is what makes the human experience so cleverly diverse and interesting.

Thank you so much for this upload TEDx! I absolutely love your channel! You have inspired me to go all in on my positivity and health KZfaq channel and media business this year! Keep rocking the YT airwaves and blessings to you from this new KZfaqr!🙏🏼✨😊

Thank you for the lecture, interesting science. All the best for further research!

Fascinating. Thank You Imogen.

AMAZING! Thank you for this!! Much gratitude!

Realizing that I have auditory visual synesthesia legitimately changed my life. I experience music and sound in mental images that are incredibly rich, vivid, and specific. This experience has always made it very difficult for me to express the way that im experiencing things. I never put the pieces together until I was talking to someone about a song and I said "this song sounds how this image looks" and they told me that sounds like synesthesia. I can never turn these sensory experiences off either. I still don't know how to put a lot of my internal experiences into words but even just having a name for the condition that I have has been a huge deal to me

Brilliant, thank you! 👍

Absolutely amazing presentation @Imogen Malpas !!

Great thought, super interesting!

Congrats Imogen! Love your talk. Love from your old old science editor friend!

I have this and it’s like I sense the months around me. To the right of me is always summer. But separately I also feel the months around my house, the direction of the backyard is towards summer always. So it’s interesting it’s a part of the walls around me and also following me

Very interesting concepts

when i was a little kid, waiting for midnight for Christmas to open presents felt like forever. i would be looking at the time and i could feel it stretching further and further from midnight, and it would drive me insane cause i really wanted to open my presents. Now i can stay up for 15 hours straight without a care in the world. Some months if i don't have anything planned, i don't even keep track of time, day or holiday. I just automatically do what i gotta do to survive and depend on the sun's light and the birds singing outside to keep me adjusted. Not keeping track of time is kinda of fun sometimes because i feel like i time skip a lot of major events making me feel like a time traveler.

Love it!

Amazing explanation I must say.much love😘

As a child I always struggled with the illustration of the year in a circle going clockwise because my physical calendar goes counter clockwise, till this day any illustration of the year anything but counter clockwise makes no sense to me, or if January is placed anywhere other than in the top left of the circle. If the illustration has colours it irritates me even more because most of the time the colours are "wrong".

I see numbers and letters as colors. Just got new license plates - new letters and numbers - and they’re a terrible shade of greenish-yellow. Clash with my beautiful new car. In reality, though, they’re blue and grey. Tried staring at them, but can’t erase their green-yellowness.

Wow, I had no idea I have sequence synaeathesia! I always thought it was normal. I see it in the calendar, time, years, weeks and the alphabet. I also associate the calendar and alphabet with colours. My mind is blown!

Wonderful

fantastic

Beautiful Imogen

So interesting! I was adopted at 2 1/2 yrs from Korea so Korean was my first language and even though I wasn’t raised by Koreans or in the culture I still visualized my dob to the right. Wow! I also have this kind of spatial time synesthesia which I discovered wasn’t normal by an old bf when I told him he didn’t understand what I was talking about.

I think I have this but with years and decades. They’re in blocks with the 90s, 00s, 10s, and now being the focus. The font is a sans serif and blue.

This is prolly the coolest condition ever. I use to have it as a kid but it was the most common one (graphemes). I remember looking at letters and numbers and think about how it would have a certain color and then I determine it’s gender lol but it faded eventually although from time to time when I think of days of the week I get a certain color in my head that pops up like Tuesday is green and Saturday is brown but sometimes it goes unnoticed. I don’t think I have it tho considering it’s not a big part in my life but I have always been in love with the music to color synesthesia!

Sublime! . . .

I have this. So did Prince and his drummer. Prince sang about it in one of his songs. I believe it was when we are dancing close and slow. He makes mention of it in regards to the very physical love he is singing about. But I can see music in color. I can taste the words. I feel it differently then most as I come to find out.

I have this, a year is curved like a C but a little straighter and its under me. A week is like a D with the straight line a little smaller being the weekend. Years are completely different. Very hard to explain but its more linear and follows the same set up as numbers. The alphabet also has a line. So yeah sequence space synthesia

good idea

Very interesting concept

Synesthesia is very interesting to me, I have always wondered what the world was like for such people, I am colour blind, as a child it was identified, so I have always known I see the world differently from everyone else.

Come with me and you'll be In a world of pure imagination Take a look and you'll see Into your imagination We'll begin with a spin Traveling in the world of my creation What we'll see will defy explanation

Can we say that the act of making gestures while talking is a kind of synesthesia too? Because we're kinda imagining things associated with what we talk, which are not necessarily the literal meaning of the words. ☺️

Great talk. Interesting way to frame perceptions of time to help non synesthetes understand what it’s like to have time-space synesthesia. Still missed the mark for me somehow, I didn’t really get anything from this except for a well thought out and articulate presentation.

For a brief moment I thought I saw Hermione Granger on a Ted talk

So is it just having a visual that maps out time? Like I have the year on like a linear bit of a gameboard with December a little left of center. It doesn’t have a relation to my body though.

My year starts in the west and end in the east. My week starts in the south and ends in the north. My day starts in the east and ends in the west. I guess I never realized how freaky it was until I found out how rare it is...

I have synesthesia and it’s so unusual to feel what other people can’t and will never be able to feel, but very cool at the same time.

For me, time is a straight line, that also has many other lines that connect to different timelines. For me, tommorow is a million year far from today, but it seems so close because the box to the next boxes line connection is short. Also I am Arabic

Time is just nothing....it just continue to move and make memories or work on a vision...its precious so utilise it in ethical works..😊

Positive

I mean, i have a sense of passage of time, and I visualise the year through a circle of seasons that dont have tight margins a calendar does, but ones that "feel" through seasonal environmental stimuli like a different time, and so I can visualise this in my mind. It doesnt follow me as i go through the year, but it helps to refer to it when making plans and setting dates to remember. does that mean i got this thing, i dont think so as its not 'automatic' i have to think about it, or does it?

I think that time is more like a flux of information being affected as it interacts with the conscious in a non linear system.

It would be interesting, Astronomy has a place in this. Visualizing time with the stars and sky

I do see letters and numbers as colors, but I don't think that they are consistent. What color an individual letter or number changes pretty frequently. So... What would I call that?

Yes. Your car is a time machine. On the road ahead, you see the future. In the mirror, you see the past and inside the car is the present.

Time is more important than money.

I see the months of the year in a position like a clock, where January is at 11, Feb at 10, etc. December is at the 12 position. I stand within the Month and move around this "clock". I'm looking ahead at June, July and Aug around the bend of the clock. My weeks are within the months and look like a sidewalk straight out infront of me. I can see the weekend in their boxes at the end of the sidewalk. I can still see the following week ahead of the weekend. I dont really see years past that I'm aware of...maybe more as boxes but not really defined. I thought everyone did this until a few yrs ago.

does anyone else see time as an endless sea? or a shape not described in this video? I'm curious to know what it's like for others

Time is something we can feel when we either lose it or win it. When it passes by we feel it in our feelings, in our body, and on our skin. Most particularly, time is in our memories.

I see time as a two - year ellipse with a left hand and a right hand. I had no idea this was synasthesia!

2:24 - 2:28 ---+ I've always done this since a kid and just always thought I was weird.

Months of the year sit round my body like a hoop.

My time is on a grid and I can feel it ;)

Can you believe that it’s almost June? Time flies with this quarantine! 👀

F is light brown... And the year is a ferris wheel. Can't describe how I see days...

Is it possible animals too could have synesthesia or forms of it and how would we be able to tell?

I taste in shapes that is my favorite one, I know the colors of numbers and know if they have a good intention or not. I often say that somebody has the face of a lemon but no one understands 🤣 My weeks is from left to right and numbers start from from below and go up and there is a rainbow background.

13:43 - 13:55 ---+ or even if you grow up in a different religious/spiritual system than the mainstream.

Volume!

I have this but it’s not external, it’s just in my minds eye.

9:05 - 9:27 --- I tried this but my sense of directions and even left/right is so messed up. I was thought to be a bit of an underachiever because even in middle school the teacher would say left or right arm and I'd pick the wrong arm and he'd say "no you're other left." Lol

Amazing narrating voice. Were I to be given a voice to narrate my thoughts, I would like the voice to be Imogen's.

Hmm... Sounds pretty interesting 🤔 seems like I got a new topic to look for.😁

Where is Brian Rose speech from LONDON Real?

interesting bc while i do have time synesthesia, it doesnt manifest this way and in fact its the opposite? i see shapes in pure time? they have a fixed position relative to my line of sight and r constantly moving within and outside of itself (idk how to describe that but imagine an animation of a hypercube but with no physical lines attributed to the shape bc it isnt in the other 3 dimensions of space time) in that manner im seeing shapes given time? whereas she's seeing time given shape! fascinating! i think theres something to be said about how in which the connected pathways of the brain are ~particularly~ connected, and how this affects which sense is redefining the other. i.e i would call mine timed-sight or "shape's time" synesthesia whereas I would call hers seen-time or "time's shape" synesthesia. i guess they can all do that :D edit: typo lol

My experience differs from the 'forever' notion that is made throughout all talks I've watched thus far. To me, standalone letters and numbers will have congruent colours, but the colours vary in relation to how they're paired with other symbols, or how they sound in this combination, or what the rhythmic structure of the string of words is like. An entire word will have a distinct colour, also. The word 'word' is a pale bright blue to me. And some things, like the number zero, won't have a dense colour, but rather a ... noisy... spacial.. bright depth, like a half-empty off-white neon light that could potentially omit the sound of a buzzing house fly. The future is somewhere off to the right, while most of the past encircles me clockwise in chunks, except the 'future' corridor. I would have put my birth-date at the bottom center of that sheet, with no idea why.

Sometimes I use music and TV shows to measure time. Or the concepts from them.

F = light green 💚

I give months/times colors, but for some reason June and July don't have them they just leave me blank.

Adam Neely has entered the chat

I understand what she's talking because I relate but not with colour it's more like numbers which infinitely grow and does not move in a loop. Hard to explain but no one else has explained white I see in regard to how I see numbers

for me i have an automatic reaction to certain numbers and associating them with a correpesdong letter. Like for example g is eight and f is 5 etc. I don't know if this is considered synesthesia bc I'm not associating with another sense technically (unless visual could explain this) but just more so symbols. Someone helpppp pls lol

Nice interesting

Welp that explains a lot for me lol!

Would have turned paper long way up, birth at bottom, life going up. Interesting talk

if time is one's own perception.. is time truly relative. math is indisputable...but not infallible

I can't hear anything the sound is to low

Video very soft...

Her: F is yellow Me: No it's light green Anybody else:

audio level is crazy low

I have some form of synesthesia according to the battery from Ramachandran... didn't even know. life is weird

I just noticed I am among those 10 %

Oh my God I just realised I have time space synthesizer

When math is easy because the numbers have a place in space. So no need to add, minus, multiply or divide, just need to figure out where the numbers are and what the space between them is.

2:25 + 2:28