Does synesthesia affect the nervous system?

Answer 1

I am not quite sure what you mean by this. Could you explain more?

If you mean what types of Synesthesia are in existence, then the answer is oh, so many! Think of any two senses (ex. touch and sight), and you can cross them. Here's a short list of major types for an example. Note that there are many sub-categories within these.

• Sight -> sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, emotion, concept
• Sound -> sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, emotion, concept
• Taste -> sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, emotion, concept
• Touch -> sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, emotion, concept
• Smell -> sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, emotion, concept
• Emotion -> sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, emotion, concept
• Concept -> sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, emotion, concept

If you mean how does synesthesia affect the daily lives of synesthetes, then that's another topic altogether, and the answer differs with each synesthete. Most say it doesn't negatively affect them much or at all; in fact, it is a helpful trait to have because it can be used as a memory tool or something.

Others have negative responses to certain things and that can range from a minor annoyance to something that really affects how you live your life. Again, this will depend on the specific person, but an example is Ordinal Linguistic Personification. This is where personalities and genders are attributed to letters, numbers, chairs, trees, and so on. In math, for example, having certain numbers beside one another can cause a problem for a synesthete because the numbers might not get along or might be fighting one another.

Lastly, sometimes the sheer number of synesthetic responses a person gets at one time can be overwhelming. For instance, a person with multiple types of synesthesia might get overwhelmed in a loud, crowded room. Not only would that be overwhelming on a normal level (too loud, too crowded, too much going on) but then the person gets the colors of the voices, the colors of the people's personalities, the taste of the words, the shapes of the smells, and so on. Again, it depends on the individual person.