Synesthesia helps me find four-leaf clovers (2023)

2025-11-025:477155matthewjamestaylor.com

I explain how my synesthesia condition helps me to find four-leaf clovers

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Left is how a normal person sees the shapes. Right is how synesthetes may see the shapes, notice how the reversed shapes are obvious due to their different color.

For me, four-leaf clovers are a different shape so they stand out in a clover patch very much like this. Unlike letters and numbers, however, I don't get a sense of color, it's more like a sense of movement.

So they do jump out at me!

It's common for synesthetes with grapheme-color synesthesia to find 4-leaf clovers more easily. The cross-wiring of senses in a synesthete brain causes 4-leaf shapes to appear a different color to the 3-leaf variety, so they stand out. Ordinary people only see a patch of homogeneous green leaves.

Amber, aka The Woodland Elf is another artist with synesthesia who finds four-leaf clovers.

Do you have synesthesia? Do you find four-leaf clovers? Let me know.

Can you spot 4 leaf clovers?

Let's play a little synesthesia game! ;)

I started taking pictures of four-leaf clovers before I picked them (or instead of picking them) just to see if other people could spot them as easily as I.

Give it a try.

How many four-leaf clovers can you see in the following photos?

Let's start out easy.

Did you find any?

Hint: There are a few five-leaf clovers in some of the pictures too. =)

Got ya!

I keep a lot of my clovers in a flower press I built that is shaped like a flower.

So do four-leaf clovers make you lucky?

I don't know... ;)

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Comments

By susam 2025-11-0320:482 reply

I am not a synaesthete and I wonder how other non-synaesthetes perceived the '5 vs 2' diagram. Even though I see all the digits in plain black, the triangle of 2s immediately stood out to me. The author writes:

'For me, four-leaf clovers are a different shape so they stand out in a clover patch very much like this. Unlike letters and numbers, however, I don't get a sense of color, it's more like a sense of movement.'

But even as a non-synesthete, I felt a sense of movement in the 2s, as if they were little swans swimming against the bevy of 5s. But I felt no such movement when looking at the photographs of clovers. I could only spot a few four-leaf clovers at a quick glance because the pale markings on them form a rough quadrilateral, so I was essentially spotting those shapes rather than the four leaflets themselves.

If this sort of topic interests you, I wrote an article earlier this year about number–colour–phoneme associations: https://susam.net/assoc.html

As I mentioned, I do not have synaesthesia, yet the associations between numbers, colours and phonemes are quite strong in my mind due to early exposure to CGA colours and mnemonic systems. For instance, I find it hard to think of the number 1 without thinking of blue or the phonemes /t/ and /d/, or to think of 4 without thinking of red or /r/. I have written more about it in the article linked above.

By Atlas667 2025-11-1021:272 reply

Yes, I am also inclined to believe this is just natural human psyche phenomenon.

This very specific topic about clovers is one that I relate to, I've always found 4 leaf clovers faster. But I wouldnt say I have synesthesia.

This has developed/manifested itself into looking for things on a computer screen, which I essentially do for a living. I can hold a piece of text in my head and scroll by quickly to search for it much faster than many of my peers.

And as a child colors would also have numbers related to them in my mind, and vice versa. Which I attributed to number-coded coloring books.

By p1anecrazy 2025-11-116:041 reply

Scrolling quickly and having typos jump at me (when I was editing text in the past) and required code fragments (now) is exactly how I experience it.

How strong is your visual imagination?

By Atlas667 2025-11-1114:17

I'd say my visual imagination is pretty strong.

I bet we're just good at scanning. Eyes are made for looking and we can use a semi-subconscious level of looking that attracts our eyes to what we want to find.

Though I'm sure most everyone is, really.

I bet I just wanted to find 4 leaf clovers more than my peers and would focus more.

By RandomBacon 2025-11-1114:44

I used to read a ton as a kid, and now I can easily spot typos, extra spaces, etc when I glance at a page. If only I proofread my own writing *sigh*.

By efilife 2025-11-119:211 reply

I don't have synesthesia as well. The 2s didn't stand out at all to me. I knew they were here and I could find them upon inspection but their locations were totally unknown to me at a glance. I would never have spotted that they form a triangle. Ask me anything

By oniony 2025-11-1110:061 reply

Do you have a pent up anger towards triangular things?

By efilife 2025-11-131:31

I'd like to be a part of one someday so probably no

By JeremyHerrman 2025-11-1022:21

I've been able to find four-leaf clovers easily since I was a kid. Like the OP they seem to just "pop out" at me as I quickly scan the ground, but I do not have the same background with synesthesia.

Since four and five leaf clovers tend to grow in patches, I transplanted a patch I found and have kept it in a planter on my deck so that anyone who has never found a four leaf clover can find one!

I wrote about my lucky clover patch here: https://jherrman.com/four-leaf-clover-patch.html

By hamdingers 2025-11-1021:054 reply

How strange. I introduced clover to my lawn a few years ago for its nitrogen fixing properties, and since then have spent many idle minutes (probably adding up to hours) searching for four-leaf clovers.

I have never found a single one, but easily picked out at least one in each of the pictures in the article in just a few seconds. Thinking this might be a breakthrough I went and snapped a few pictures of clover patches, but alas can't spot any. I suspect I'm getting subconscious hints from the author's framing of the photos.

By grvbck 2025-11-1021:431 reply

The distribution of four-leaf clovers is not uniform; they tend to cluster in certain areas. Many moons ago when I was a small kid, on my walk to school I had to walk a bit under high voltage power lines. Found tons of four-leaf clovers under there. I have no idea if the magnetic field did anything to help the mutation, or if it was just a coincidence, but I've never found a spot like that again.

By hansonkd 2025-11-1021:54

I used to find a four leaf clover at least once a week during the summer when i was in the midwest. During the peak of summer, I could find 1-3 every time I took a walk.

Since moving to california, I did find some up around the mountains of the bay area (including a 7 leaf clover), but not many elsewhere in town.

In southern california I haven't found one yet.

By zeristor 2025-11-1021:14

I keep thinking to make a start on a phone app to do this, there’s probably a couple already.

Highlighting clove type things that don’t have 120°.

By dylan604 2025-11-1022:06

> I'm getting subconscious hints from the author's framing of the photos.

This is what I attributed my finding them so quickly as well. Unless the author was taking pictures intently to not prominently frame them for use in such an article, the nature of photography will make this a likely result.

By phyzome 2025-11-1022:23

You might just not have any.

It really varies by area, probably a mix of genes and environment. Some areas I can't find any, some areas are rich with them.

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