I hope this doesn't officially annoy everyone, but I read A Mango-Shaped Space this week and one part of the book in particular has got me simply infatuated.

When the girl gets acupuncture done, she is suddenly able to see colors around the people. The book explains it as her seeing pheramones, but it seems more like she's seeing their auras to me. Is this possible?

I haven't read A Mango-Shaped Space, but I know that some synaesthetes see coloured auras around other people, based on the personality and/or mood of the person in question.

Firstly, welcome ot the site, sakura_and_ayame!

I'm not sure what kind of auras you mean - we call the colours some people project as a response to personality 'auras' (i.e. in or syn), but there is also the spiritual concept as well. Just a reminder, if you're referring to the latter type - supernatural and pseudoscientific topics are disallowed on the nexus (you can see the rules ).

If you meant synesthetic auras, then that's fine and feel free to carry on discussing them. But we'd prefer it if discussions of the spiritual kind could be avoided.

Thanks for understanding.

Oh no! I wasn't meaning the spiritual type (which was why I was a little anxious about asking about this) ^_^;

But thanks for clearing that up for me! ^_^

Oh no! I wasn't meaning the spiritual type (which was why I was a little anxious about asking about this) ^_^;

But thanks for clearing that up for me! ^_^

That's alright!

It's certainly possible to have personality-sight syn, and for some people this is projected as colours around the person. I'm not sure if it can really be triggered by acupuncture though. I think people are also a bit unsure of whether it's possible to have colours for pheromones if its not something you're generally aware of, since syn can't provide a person with any new information (though it can sometimes provide you with conscious access to subconscious or unconscious information, according to some experiments).

Ultimately, though, a mango shaped space is a work of fiction, so what's described may not perfectly match up to what real synesthesia is actually like.