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Chemical-Color Synesthesia
With my "Vision From Feeling" I perceive atoms and molecules in colors that are not always the same as the colors we see when we look at chemicals with our eyesight. It bothers me that chemistry molecule sets, that are used to assemble different colored atoms together into three-dimensional models of molecules, are in different colors than what I see! I perceive nitrogen as neon green, phosphorus as deep blue, potassium as light blue, hydrogen as red. Carbon is black, argon is a purple-red, calcium a light blue but a different shade of light blue than potassium. Chlorine is a deep turquoise, sodium a metallic gray yellow.

Hydrogen: H

Chloride ion is always the same turquoise: Cl

The word or concept of Argon produces one of the most interesting color-associations, Argon

When I read the abbreviation of lithium (Li) I experience color association. Lithium has a combination of colors: greens, yellow, and a grey metallic. The feeling and color is very similar to the way I experience sodium, which is nice since these are related chemical elements. Lithium

I still do not perceive a color associated to every chemical element. I only need to see the abbreviated letters of a chemical element in order for it to trigger the perception of the color. It is always the same color for the same chemical element. I am curious about perceiving sodium as yellow, since the actual color of its flame happens to be yellow, as in here and here. Sodium itself is a grey (alkali) metal but is rarely found in its pure metal form since it is highly reactive and occurs as the positively charged sodium ion in combinations with other negatively charged ions as ionic compounds, one of the more well-known being sodium chloride, table salt. In its ionic form the ionic compound tends to have white color, depending on the negative species. So there appears to be nothing yellow about sodium itself. But to me, when I look at or think of chemical elements, each has its distinct color that is not the same as the color we see with our eyes.

The different chemical elements, atoms, are different by the number of protons in their nucleus, which leads to different patterns of electron distribution around the nuclei. Science can distinguish the chemical elements by using spectroscopic techniques. When atoms are exposed to electromagnetic radiation, they can absorb some of the radiation as photons whose wavelengths match what that particular atom or ion can absorb and that is different for each. These absorbed photons are later re-emitted. An instrument can then detect the emitted photons to produce a unique emission spectrum that displays on a graph what frequencies of light were absorbed and re-emitted by the chemical sample. For pure samples (that are not mixtures) these emission spectra produce "fingerprints" of atoms and molecules that help to identify what atoms were in the sample.
Here is the emission spectra that is specific to sodium: yellow sodium emission spectra. Not only is the visible flame of sodium yellow, so is its emission spectra.
Some of the other emission spectra of chemical elements also remind me of the colors I see in them.

Here is hydrogen - it is red!
I perceive nitrogen as green. Its emission spectra has quite a bit of blue-green in it, but also red that I do not perceive.
I perceive oxygen as colorless, perhaps because most of its emission lines are on a high frequency that would be difficult to translate into color? (Because the human eye perceives visible color only up to a certain high frequency.)
Silicon I perceive as a grey-blue, which is consistent with its emission spectra again if you disregard the red lines.
To me sulfur is yellow-orange.
To me argon is purple-red or brown-red, and its emission spectra is with the exception of one strong line, definitely not that.
The potassium emission spectra is very consistent with the light-blue that I see.
To me calcium is a blue and again I do not perceive the red in it at all.
The emission spectra of some chemical elements seem consistent with the color I perceive with them, whereas for others there seems to be no correlation.

Aluminum trichloride
My perception of aluminum trichloride is very beautiful. I perceive each individual type of atom in its own way, but sometimes for molecules the combination of atoms yields a different color and feeling that I perceive of the atoms than if the atoms were on their own. Usually I see the colors in a molecule side by side but sometimes they interact and blend into something new. I see carbon as black and oxygen as transparent or blue, but carbon dioxide I see as black with red. Aluminum trichloride is the most beautiful chemical perception I have had.

It is probably synesthesia since I have never seen aluminum chloride "in person". All I had come across about it was the abbreviated letters written on a page to see it in color and feeling. The aluminum in it is a wonderful soft light-metallic color. Its appearance isn't solid but consists of dense shimmer. It also feels extremely slippery. Next to it are the chlorine atoms, and to my surprise they are yellow! Chlorine on its own is turquoise, but alongside aluminum, chloride was yellow without as much as a hint of turquoise, blue, or even green. It is a soft yellow and slightly darker toward the outer edges where it is further away from the aluminum. In the actual molecular structure of aluminum chloride, the aluminum atom is in the middle and surrounded by chloride ions.

I am quite taken by my experience of aluminum trichloride, it is without question the most pleasant synesthetic chemical experience I've had so far. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that aluminum trichloride is yellow in reality! I did not know its actual color when I had my first perception of it.

Aluminum trichloride is very beautiful: AlCl₃

Atoms are distinguished from one another based on a color aspect when they interact with light and spectroscopic instruments do this every day. But is it possible for a human being to somehow feel vibrational information in atoms and to translate this into an understanding of what is felt? My paranormal claim will investigate the medical perceptions, but the medical perceptions of tissue build on a perception of chemicals. I have experienced thinking that I've accurately perceived clues about the identity of unknown chemical samples by feeling into them and perceiving color and structural information, without knowing what the compounds were. In one of my chemistry lab courses each student was assigned four unknown chemical compounds to use instrumental and chemical methods to identify the structure and identity of the compound. Each student had different compounds and I assure you I did not know what they were when I received them. One of mine turned out to be biphenyl (which smells like roses), and before I had identified it I felt into it and perceived the shape of two connected phenyl groups. Two of my four were nitrogen compounds, and I strongly perceived the bright neon green nitrogen in each of them before I had them identified by ordinary means. Simple tests could determine whether my chemical perceptions access actual chemical information or whether it is just the case of synesthesia, however I focus on testing the medical perceptions for now.

Vibrational Patterns in Science

I need to mention that my color and feeling vibration association or synesthesia toward chemical elements does not interfere with the way I work with chemistry (I am a Chemistry major at college). It is in fact the opposite, many students strongly dislike Chemistry and many who I've spoken with say that it is because they can't really see what they are working with and everything is on such a small scale and out of reach. I on the other hand have a rich experience and find the work enjoyable, and I am sure this can only be of benefit. I do not assume any form of correlation or basis in reality for my subjective association of color and vibrational information from chemicals and my performance in a chemistry laboratory is solely based on conventional knowledge from classes and textbooks. The only time and place where I can express my experience of association or perception is as a source of inspiration for new ideas for my own future research projects which then of course will go through the conventional scientific method of assessment. *Image of AlCl₃ borrowed from www.biztrademarket.com I am sure they won't mind.

An interesting illustration of one person's synesthesia: colors from tastes and colors from sounds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvwTSEwVBfc
Linked to without particular permission

Vibrational Algebra
I can do something I call Vibrational algebra with the vibrations that I perceive. In everything I perceive a vibrational aspect, which is like a sense of structured feeling associated to things, that to me somehow captures the essence of things. And by relating to that felt vibrational aspect I can translate it to understand many other aspects of things as well such as color and properties. But I can also process the perceived vibrational aspects further to make predictions that are not occurring at that time. I can combine distinct perceived vibrational aspects in my mind to obtain resulting vibrational aspects, in a process that is similar to calculations or algebra, by superimposing the individual components and having them merge on their own in the ways that vibrational information does. If I add two vibrational aspects I can observe how they combine to see the resulting effect that it predicted to occur if the objects they describe were to be combined in real life. For instance if I combine my perception of the vibrational aspect of a human being with my perception of the vibrational aspect of a medicine, I perceive the vibrational aspect of the medicinal effects that I then translate back into corresponding physical significance. That would be addition of vibrational information.

I can also do subtraction of vibrational information to find an unknown. If I superimpose the vibrational aspect of a disease with the vibrational aspect of the healthy state, I can do a subtraction to obtain the vibrational aspect of the cure. I can combine vibrational aspects in my mind to see how they interact. Everything from physical things like people, foods, or chemicals, to radiation, temperature, pressure, everything has a vibrational aspect and can be included in my calculations. This is how I relate to things. This is not part of what my sense of reality or information processing is otherwise, and the only thing I express from my perception that is in terms of vibrations into the real world, are interesting scientific research hypotheses, which then of course will go through the very same conventional screening process as any scientific ideas regardless of what inside a scientist's head it was that inspired them. From my vibrational calculations I have lots of research ideas, most of them deal with using light structures in medicine.

Daniel Tammet calculates with shapes and color
Here is a video about Daniel Tammet who has an amazing talent in performing complex numerical calculations in his mind by being able to relate to numbers in terms of color and shapes, that then interact in his mind as colors and shape to produce the answers, as colors and shapes, that he can translate back into numbers. It reminds me of how I perceive things in terms of vibrations, color and feeling, and what I call Vibrational algebra in which I combine the vibrational aspect of things to produce a resulting vibration that I then translate back into physical significance. This is how I can predict the effects that combining physical things would have, or come up with the hypothesis of what would cure or change a certain health problem for example. This video gives an idea of what it is almost like when I perceive in vibration. It is very interesting.
Begin watching 5 minutes and 20 seconds into the video. Daniel Tammet - The Boy With The Incredible Brain [4/5]
(I provide this link on my website without having specific permission to do so if permission is needed.)

I am however not a savant, like Daniel Tammet is, that is, I do not have an exceptional skill in remembering information. To memorize, I sit and study and repeat just like most of us do.
My apologies to Daniel by the way, since in an e-mail to him I told him that to me, he is the number 37, because in it, 3 is yellow and 7 is green, and 7 is a tall number and 37 has the same shape as what I perceive about him, and in another interview with him I found later Daniel says that to him... 37 is lumpy. Like oatmeal. Sorry! Maybe synesthetes shouldn't talk to each other!