Colors,feelings

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Question...my son who has autism hates coloring things with many colors. For a time it bothered me. All his art was done in one or two colors. Now that he can talk more he tells me that every color has a deep feeling attached to it. But not happy, sad, the normal emotions. Pink stands for the feeling of New. The smell of a new object, such as a car, a new baby, packing material. The rush one gets when they get that new something that they have been waiting for. He tells me that it can be combined with the color green which is his color for Love, but to put it together with blue (which to him symbolizes cold) well, it is just not correct. He says too many colors just represent a loud, crowded room. They all conflict and shout at him. Does anyone have similar thoughts like my son? Can anyone go into more detail about colors, feelings and autism? My son is four and we are just really beginning to connect, and your answers can help me.

Hi. That sounds like synaesthesia.

That sure does sound like synaesthesia.

I have a strange thing for colours and feelings, as well. Green stands for peace, blue stands for sorrow, red stands for happiness, and grey stands for rebellion

I have that.... but not quite as bad. For me it was numbers (that represented shapes for me) that was the worse. i've mostly grown out of it and now it is just a deep down feeling I have that doesn't interfere with my life. I still do have strong emotions with colors. my dad was an interior designer so growing up i had a way to channel some of my feelings around color and feel legitimized.

As I've grown older i have found that fortunately(?) for me, my color associations tend to match up pretty close to the ones in many healing arts such as ayurvedic medicine, which lets me channel the conflicting feelings and overwhelming sensations of the colors more productively and lessens the stress the colors have on me. It has also made me very talented in holistic health fields and given me an edge in the field.

good luck! hope that helps!

Yeah, synaesthesia.

I like your description of pink. To me it's very similar to what your son described - like a quick feeling of delight. For me red is usually the first of things, like the letter A or the number one. I have noticed that a lot things synaesthetes perceive seem to coincide or compliment one another. To me, it's a superpower.

Most of my own impressions are with images (often texture) that come in flashes as a response to something like hearing a sound or being touched. Numbers are where I pick up most feelings in the way your son describes. It's why I find pi relaxing.

Grey is a mixture of the positive energy and the negative, male and female, and as such stands for wisdom

thats how I feel about purple!

This frightens me, because I have a very similar thing. Colors, for me, stand for personalities and stuff like that. I have strong emotions, and I act them out in my head with my favorite manga character because people don't really get what I feel. I don't think this is bad, either. He sound profoundly gifted, in my opinion.

I hear music in my head with certain patterns and shapes and colors

abstract paintings are like an orchistra to me

Purple is red and blue - fire (male) and water (female). I can see the similarity.

That is very interesting. My brother and my husband are at odds as to what causes this phenomenon. My brother thinks that it is a lost skill that early man had. He said that colors stood for things in nature. Black and yellow were to be felt as danger. Red was a sign for ripeness. He said those colors must have been created for man because most animals are color blind. He thinks that we use expressions such as I feel blue (sad)or I see red (angry) as remnants of this. My brother regards this as an amazing lost art re-found.

My husband claims that it is some genetic flaw or soft wiring issue. He hopes that it goes away, seeing no potential. Any thoughts about the foundation as to why this exists?

I think there is somewhat of a socio-evolutionary consensus among scientists that colors were once an important part of being able to navigate through our world. Many species still depend on this (ie: snakes, frogs & birds with certain bands/colors that are mimicking poisonous ones). To some degree, colors still influence our world. Black= darkness/death, white = redemption, red/yellow stimulates hunger, red = danger (still does, that is why we use it for stop signs), etc

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In grammar school, I simply did not doodle or draw. When I was forced to draw a picture using a pencil, I drew a human face based on a picture on the wall. The teacher asked me why I didn't color the face or hair at all. Well, to me it was difficult to easily select the right color and apply the color.

In high school, I tended toward black ink on white paper. That was it and there was very little of that. I did not doodle. I did not voluntarily draw.

Literally decades later I figured out that I could do ok with a very short color list of: black, red, yellow, green, and blue colors. I could draw very basic outlines with black and then add in the colors.

Today I am aware that there is a shade of pink which I cannot tolerate and on rare occasions a shade of red.

Also, I am aware that colors are theatrical and skilled artists can create amazing drawings/characters where costumes use colors to code emotions or symbolism. characters can have eyes of different colors, weather changes are used to emote, and so on. Examples - Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a musical like Cats, and so on.

The majority of my understanding, for me, came from a surprising and unexpected positive response to a medicine for ADHD Inattentive which, for me, allowed me to draw the same subject matter with five percent (5%) or more detail (not a cure). I began to understand colors a little and how they are used a little. For me, it has been a big thing - finding an effective medicine for ADHD Inattentive (not a cure).

Words

Black
Black ink on white paper
Colors
Feelings
Inattention
Constructional apraxia
Parts vs the whole
and so on

Synaesthesia is generally less rational than that. It's an automatic involuntary association, rather than a symbolic one.

I study eastern medicine, meditation etc. so working with colors is important for me. But it is not on subconsciousness level, but already rational.
But I have similar problem with tastes and flavours of food. It is difficult for me often to feel them, and I don't like when they are mixed. I prefer to eat differeте foods separately to feel the flavour of each.