8 Quirks You Might Have That Are Actually Super Rare

3. Synaesthesia

Quick, what colour is Thursday?

If you just made this face then never mind, but if you were able to answer without even thinking about it, you might be a synaesthete.

Estimates for how many people experience synaesthesia vary wildly , from 1 in 200 to 1 in 2000. This is probably due to the fact that it's difficult to pin down.

Synaesthesia is basically a mix-up of the senses. Most commonly, people will experience things like words, numbers, days of the week and even musical notes as having different colours or shapes. Other variations might mix up sound and taste, smell and touch or any other sensory combinations.

True synaesthetes will actually experience the two sensations at once. For example, when reading the letter 'A', they will literally see the colour red. In empirical tests, some synesthetes have been able to do things like immediately locate the 2s in this group of 5s due to their different colour.

A related form of the condition (some call it Ideasthesia), the stimulus will bring about a perception-like experience. This means that, while you might not be able to locate all the 2s, you will experience a mixture of sensations vividly in your mind's eye (or nose or ear or whatever), much to the bafflement of your non-synesthetic friends.

It's red, incidentally. Thursday is red.