How my time-space synaesthesia affects how I experience and ‘feel’ the new year

By Mary Jane Spiller, Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology, University of East London

I have a form of time–space synaesthesia, so the new year arrives for me in a very physical way. I feel myself move around the year, almost like I’m travelling 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.

Synaesthesia is a perceptual condition where one sense triggers an experience in another sense. For some people,…

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