I have a form of time–space synesthesia, so the new year arrives for me in a very physical way. I feel myself move around the year, almost like I’m traveling along a structure. December sits low and to my left; January lifts and slides forward. The transition has a weight to it, as though the calendar itself shifts in space.
Synesthesia is a perceptual condition where one sense triggers an experience in another sense. For some people, sounds trigger colors and shapes, or words might have tastes.
For others, like me, sequences such as months of the year or days of the week have precise places in space around our bodies. It is most commonly a developmental condition, which means that “synesthetes” have experienced the world this way for as long as they remember. These synesthetic experiences happen automatically, and are generally consistent over time for the person. Today is in front of me, tomorrow is to my left, and yesterday is to my right. If I ever woke up to find time had moved somewhere else, I would feel confused and lost.
For me, this makes the start of the new year feel like a physical transition, a time for new beginnings, as we move around the bend of time, leaving the old year behind me.
Like most people, between Christmas and New Year’s, I completely lose track of what day it is—the whole week feels like a strange, timeless blur. Because of my time-space synesthesia, this disorientation is amplified for me. The usual mental map I rely on to anchor dates and days seems scrambled, leaving me feeling unmoored.
As a cognitive psychologist, I have spent the last 20 years researching synesthesia. I am fascinated by the way our minds help us experience the world around us, and particularly in the way we all experience the world differently. As well as helping to understand and document the synesthetic experience itself, I am also interested in understanding the impact synesthesia might have on other aspects of our lives.
Time-space synesthesia provides an excellent way to explore how the brain organizes time. For example, one of the benefits of these mental time-space calendars is an association with a better memory for historical events or important life events such as anniversaries or birthdays.
People with time-space synesthesia may have cognitive advantages because their spatial mapping of time can serve as a powerful mnemonic aid. Research shows we learn skills like calendar calculation—such as knowing that December 1 1937 fell on a Wednesday, while December 1 2037 will be a Monday—faster and more accurately than people without synesthesia. So our unique mental representations may help to boost memory and pattern recognition. This helps us understand the benefit of time being represented spatially and visually, rather than simply linearly.
Time-space synesthetes also tend to have enhanced memory and attention for ordered information, such as dates and sequences, which may contribute to our strong performance in tasks involving time organization, such as planning.
These mental timelines are so ingrained that they can override external cues—a phenomenon called the spatial Stroop effect. These automatic mappings can subtly influence decision-making when speed and spatial judgment matter.
It seems that it is not simply the effect of synesthesia that drives these cognitive advantages. Research has highlighted differences between the brains of synesthetes and non-synesthetes. These differences may also give rise to wider cognitive differences unrelated to the sensory experiences. For example, time-space synesthetes not only have good memories for times and dates, but also other aspects of memory too such as word lists, pictures or colors. Additionally, a 2015 study suggested time-space synesthesia may be linked with more vivid mental pictures.
The question that has always fascinated me is, why doesn’t everyone have synesthesia? We now know that synesthesia has a genetic basis, and around 4% of the population experience a form of it. If you experience it, mostly likely a few others in your family will too, although it may be a different combination of senses involved.
Our environment and learning also plays a part in its development. The influence of cultural norms can often be seen in the spatial layout of synesthetes’ mental calendars. For synesthetes with a language that is read from left to right for example, the passage of time will also often move from left to right, or vice versa for those who read right to left. My own shape for the year is a kind of oval shape, with January at one end and August at the other, and I can’t help but feel that my experience of growing up in the UK with the September starting school year influenced it.
All in your brain
Brain imaging research is also helping us understand what is happening in the brain during synesthetic experiences. For example, people with synesthesia have brains that are wired for extra connectivity.
Brain regions that normally handle separate senses (like color, sound and spatial processing) talk to each other more. Imaging studies show pathways in central nervous system tissue linking perception with higher-level thinking, which helps explain why synesthesia feels so seamless. Brain imaging research published in 2020 adds another layer: synesthetes use spatial-processing regions when working with numbers, showing that our brains literally integrate space and sequence.
Time is associated with space within many cultures, with people who grew up in the UK, Europe and US tending to think of the future in front of them and the past behind. Time-space synesthesia helps us to remember that even within different cultures, there will be differences in the way we experience the “movement” of time, as scientists think synesthesia exists in all cultures. The new year is a reminder that time is not only something we measure but also something we inhabit. And our personal journeys through time may have strikingly diverse landscapes.
Key medical concepts
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