What does it mean when a person personifies or associates personalities to letters or numbers?

Question

As far back as I can remember I have associated personality traits to letters and numbers. As when you meet people and develop relationships with them you come to know them to be a certain way, I do the same thing with letters and numbers.

It's like this, when I see the letter "K", I think quiet and feminine. "7" is a cool masculine teenager or tweenager. "13" is a strong and older heavy set man. Capital "G" is a strong older female that smokes and lower case "g" is mean and rude.

I'm not crazy or anything. At least I don't think so. I'm a gifted law student with a relatively high IQ (141). I've always made associations with everything which can probably account for my excellent memory. But personifying characters is something I can't explain. I used to think everyone did this but when I mentioned this to friends and family they didn't get it. I stopped talking about it years ago. Now I want to know if anyone else does this. Any input would put my peculiar mind at ease.

I'm not here to brag about my IQ. It's not a personal opinion of mine that my IQ is high either. I know people with higher IQs (not that I ask) and they are very highly regarded in their respective fields. IQ doesn't say anything about ones success or the lack there of, in my opinion. It simply gives insight regarding ones level of knowledge, how they process information and their ability to gain, retain and recall information and the rate at which they do so. Anyone who would ignore the question and focus on such a minor detail for the purpose of insulting the questioner must not be happy with their own IQ. Just a guess.

Answer 1

It sounds like a kind of synesthesia. (Not sure on the spelling of that...)

I associate textures with words according to how they're spelled. The example I always use is how "grey" has a different texture -- and shade -- than "gray." With an 'e' it is all rough and stone-like and wild, and with an 'a' it is smooth and more like pencil lead or concrete... It seriously p****ed me off when a college professor of mine said that -all- synesthesia or similar things are caused by drug use, 'cause I never have. No one knows the cause, and if it doesn't cause problems, it can be a lot of fun. (Flute music is bright blue! Some blue shades taste like a hint of lemon, and some taste like apples.)

And yes, associating things with other things is known to aid in memory, even for people who don't have high IQs.

(I bet the reason you don't think of your own IQ as high is because so many of the people you're around are also very intelligent. Hate to break it to you, but you're in the top less-than-one-percent, intelligence-wise.)

Answer 2

I'd have to agree with the OCD comment.... Although it doesn't mean you have OCD, it's just an obsessive trait to make strong associations like that.

Everyone makes associations whenever we sense something, but the degree and subject of those associations vary widely and are mostly based on how each person's mind is "wired" to think. The paths that recognize letters in your brain must be closely related to the ones which recognize people.

Like when you try to remember someone you probably try to find their letter first and then build on that, whereas other people come up with a physical attribute or a voice to build on when they try to remember someone because their brains are wired to recall people visually or audibly rather than typographicly.

Most people don't recgnize that they do this and hardly anyone talks about it, but if you ever tried to remember something with someone else and you throw out key clues that you think will help remember and the other person is just totally lost with what you are talking about and vise versa.

When you finally come up with whatever it was, you find it more difficult understand why they connected their clues to the final outcome... their thought process was following a different memory path and may not have helped you at all, but it helped them.

I guess basicly what I'm saying is this associating is totally normal, but realizing you do it and obsessing about it, is unusual so don't let it bother you.... you're perfectly abnormal, just like the rest of us ;)

Answer 3

I personally don't do this, and I do a lot of spontaneous actions almost compulsivley, Like with you, you do this, and it seems to work for your excellent memory, and maybe you knew people like that somehow related to the letter. like a "G"wen, "K"elly, maybe some guy who's lucky number was 13(It's mine, personally, oddly enough, I'm a relativley strong, heavy set male). Also, I do odd acts throughout the day to make people laugh, I can't go one day without being 'goofy', 'silly', or 'childish'. I just need to make people laugh, and I do it quite well. So I wouldn't worry about it.

Answer 4

I think it's not that rare, of course it's not a conversation starter either, unless with someone that shares some similar habit. To me, It is indicative of intelligence, and perhaps some obsessive compulsiveness as well. If it's bothering you, try ignoring it. It may take time but eventually the associations won't matter, it'll just be a momentary irritation.

Answer 5

You have an interesting variant of synesthesia. It's quite common but rarely talked about, because people don't want to sound crazy. It's not crazy, it's perfectly normal and probably helps you with your memory and creativity.

Answer 6

Gee let me brag about my IQ on answers, and 141 doesnt really impress me