[JanetMorris]

For as long as I can remember, counting always involved visualizing this:



A starry background, and pink balls with each number on them... I can scan left and right, the series of balls reaches to positive and negative infinity.

Whenever I have to represent a number in my mind, "milestone" numbers will be represented with bigger balls (i.e. multiples of 100 or 1000). When calculating, multiples of 5 will be bigger than regular numbers, and multiples of 10 will be even bigger.

I'm not sure why I see a starry background, why the numbers are in balls, why they are pink and not blue, yellow, green or any other color...

What do you guys see when you count in your head?

[+++Poguru+++]

A staircase. My dad used to hypnotize me by giving me the suggestion to visualize going down stairs and counting down (from 10 to 1). So if I count down, I see stairs in my head. The scenery varies.

[MasTaBlau]

Isn't that called synesthesia?

Let's see.... I see my thumb, then my index finger, then my middle finger, then my ring finger, then my little finger and then I switch hands. And when I've taken care of all my fingers I pull my left ear and start over.

[+++Poguru+++]

Isn't that called synesthesia? Only if it has no cause other than the hookups in your brain. In my case it's just plain association.

I do have to say that the pink number balls remind me of the lotto balls in the commercials.

[MasTaBlau]

Seriously though. While I don't 'see' numbers I have a 'feel' for them and remembering long numbers is second nature. As a musician it is obvious that an 'A' is not a 'C', but the same is true for me with numbers. A '1' is not a '3'. They have entirely different characters, and long numbers become associations of blocks of three, so 415 has a feel to it much different than 985.
My dad had this little 'gift' and so does my daughter.
I asked a friend last summer for his library card # while at the coffee house so I could put a reserve for a book on his account. A few weeks ago I thought of it and reserved him a silly book. He saw it on his account and got good laugh out of it.