Can we see time? Welcome to the world of synesthesia | Imogen Malpas | TEDxOxford 

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....

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.

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

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

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!

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!

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

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

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 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.

I lived with it for so many years not knowing what is it. Now I know. And I've learned that this is connected with my hypermnesia.

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

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.

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.

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 :)

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!

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 RU-vid channel and media business this year! Keep rocking the YT airwaves and blessings to you from this new RU-vidr!🙏🏼✨😊

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 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

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.

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

Very interesting concepts

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!

Brilliant, thank you! 👍

Great thought, super interesting!

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.

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

AMAZING! Thank you for this!! Much gratitude!

Beautiful Imogen

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

Absolutely amazing presentation @Imogen Malpas !!

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..😊

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.

Fascinating. Thank You Imogen.

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. ☺️

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.

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...

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.

Love it!

I will forever be a meatball to my wife. She actually tastes words. Names seem to be mostly associated to different foods. Some names can be the same food but a different variation of the food like peanut butter for Fred and Ted is creamy peanut butter. It is only one direction in that meatball doesn't equal my name. It is only the name equal to the food. We never knew there was a name for this.

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.

Can we see time? We do Its called sunrise (east) and sunset (west) as the earth rotates counterclockwise around it axes and then counterclockwise around the sun and then the sun also runs counterclockwise around Milky Way galaxy so I think individuals with time-space synesthesia are probably sensing these planetary orbits more than most.

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

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 more important than money.

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

Amazing explanation I must say.much love😘

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

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.

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

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

Sublime! . . .

fantastic

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

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.

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

Volume!

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

Wonderful

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

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

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?

good idea

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

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

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

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.

F = light green 💚

Very interesting concept

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

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?

Audio is way too low. Even cranked all the way up I can barely hear it

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.

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

I can see the colors of days, months, and years.. Also.. they have gender and personalities too.. I feel like I'm living in psychedelic world...

Positive

Ha!!! I said F was green... well, cos it is. All the months are different colors too. Is this really not a thing everyone does? Huh.

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.

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

Time will only tell, but Time can’t even speak.

Where is Brian Rose speech from LONDON Real?

This is just imagining something and giving it characteristics in your mind. Everyone does this

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

2:25 + 2:28

F is green

Oh my God I just realised I have time space synthesizer

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

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

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

Video very soft...

When F was yellow since the beginning

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

I can't hear anything the sound is to low

Remember what Sadhguru said Kali=color

Video is low .

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

Is this why Einstein gave the explanation of space time for what it is. Be saúde it’s biologically wired into us?