gggggggggglllllllllll

I'll agree with that.

85? Huh?

That's true for me, too. And I can USUALLY do math without colors interfering, too...but sometimes it just kinda happens.

So do your calcs have color screens? And for me pink+light green=tourmaline. Numbers annoy me sometimes because the last two digits always flip around in my brain. It's only the last two digits, never any others. For instance, give me a bit, and I'll forget whether it's twenty-one or twelve I'm supposed to be remembering.

Lol. That would be nice, wouldn't it? You don't actually SEE the colors, you understand the colors. Synesthesia occurs when your brain makes unnecessary connections between different senses. The thing that classifies it as synesthesia is that the connections always produce the same result.

If you've ever had a dream in which there was a sign or a banner or anything that had words on it, I guarantee you that the letters on it were not actually symbols, and were instead just random meaningless blobs (It's true, believe me. I can explain why this happens later). Even so, you still knew what they said, because you UNDERSTOOD what they said. You didn't see the words, you just understood the concept. It's the same idea here where you don't see the colors, you just understand that the number and color are connected.

Now to directly address your questions (in order):
-Closer to the unshakable feeling.
-Personally, no. 4/four/IV all trigger the same color, but for some people that is not true. It depends if your brain triggers based solely on symbol recognition, or if it's based on symbols and number concepts. I have the latter, so they all trigger the same color, but 4 triggers it more often than the other ones, because that's the main symbol that holds the connection.
-The current color of the symbol doesn't affect the color that your brain makes a connection with, so a red 4 would still trigger a connection to 'green'.
-Sure, anyone can force themselves to make a connection between a color and a number. You just can't force your immediate subconscious connection to be different.

Actually, the trick to reading the names of colors printed in another color is to focus on only one letter in each color name instead of the whole word, so no it doesn't really mess me up that much When I hear the word "four" I make a connection only if I make the conceptual connection with the number 4. If I just hear "for" or "fore" somewhere and contextually my brain doesn't make the connection with the number, then the connection with the color won't be made either.

As long as it's clear to me that you are referencing the number four, I'll make the connection. But something like saying "What is the color for this?" would probably not trigger it.