“Can we cut that off, please?” I ask, struggling to make my voice loud enough.
The truck’s radio wasn’t strident, nor was the yellow-orange color of the song anything to be annoyed at, but I was feeling sick, and somehow the colors were making it worse. I realize now that because they were the same color as my pain, it was amplified. That’s correct: I have pain synesthesia as well. From cutting my hand to breaking a bone, every instance of pain is illuminated with color. This is far different from music to color synesthesia for several reasons. One: I project my pain colors, they seem to be on my body, rather than in my head. If I say my arm is glowing red I don’t mean that I have sunburn, but instead that it really is glowing red (for whatever reason). That is not to say that I don’t realize the color really isn’t there for all to see, I know that I’m the only one to see it, and I’ve always known it, even prior to my knowledge of synesthesia. It’s impossible for me to explain. I see the color, but I know that my skin (or inner muscles) hasn’t actually changed color, or become visible.
And the other reason is, it’s not as random as music is. It’s very precise. If I scratch my arm, only along the scratch mark will there be a color. It won’t move, nor will it fade until the pain does. Sure, it's pretty, but it's not enjoyable. It's still pain, after all.
Back to the truck.
Jacob spun the volume dial until the truck was silent.
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah, I just feel a little sick.”
My stomach was yellowish-orange on the inside; I could sense it synesthetically. But just because I see the problem, doesn’t mean I know what caused it. We had been playing tennis for a while and it was a little warm, but I drank plenty of water and I run daily so I didn’t think that was it. I didn’t feel tired or dehydrated in the least. The color came all of a sudden appearing the moment I sat down. This has never happened before, and still I am oblivious as to what caused it. Even the color is strange. Stomachaches are usually red, and with less detail and sharper edges than this.
Jacob turned the air on high, “do you feel hot?”
“Not really. Just a little.”
Nevertheless, the cool air felt good.
As I began to cool off, yet another strange thing happened. And this one scared me. The color spread instantly like a pulse through my entire body. Just for a second, then it went back. This only happens when I get really sick, and I’m talking ‘in bed for a week’ sick.
I shifted on the of air vents to the side, the frabreeze air sent was not helping. (What can I say? I’m a weird kid with chemical sensitivities.)
After just sitting and breathing deeply for a minuet the color began to fade slightly.
“Ok, I think I’m better now.”
He turned the air down a bit, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, it’s still there, but it’s going away.”
The color traveled up my throat in a rounded pulse. I thought I would throw up. I glanced out the window, there was grass; I could if I needed to. Not wanting my youth pastor to have to stop so I could empty the contents of my stomach on the side of the road, I tried breathing again. It helped a little, but the color was still there. In fact, it was still there when Jacob took me home, and it’s still there now, faded in color, but still there. It spread to my head as well, and I’ll blame the slight dizziness on any typos and grammatical errors this entry has.
GodSpeed,
_Nathanael
Monday, May 28, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
The Albino Part One: The Dark Side Of White
White. An amazing color when you think about it. It's not bland or boring, as many people seem to think, but rather it is the result of mixing the seven chromatic colors. In layman's terms, White contains the entire rainbow. White holds the colors hostage. White is a powerful and mysterious color. How can mixing seven colors result in a so called non-color? And isn't it amazing that breaking the power of white (with a prism or rain shower) will result not in disarray, but more even more elegance?
Musicians can also crush White; they can break her down and summon her former slaves.
Not all can see this breaking, this destructive beauty, but all may hear the colors rejoicing; anyone with a functioning temporal lobe can listen to their songs.
White is an amazing color to be sure, but she seems to hold a grudge. Rarely will she sing for me; rarely will she set foot on the synesthestic stage. And when she does, in a sort of vengeance to shattering her hold, she will not play by the rules. She cheats in the game of synesthesia. But to catch her cheating, you have first to find her, and like the rare albino animals we see on National Geographic, that is no easy task.
In my nearly 16 years of synesthestic life, I have heard fewer than 10 white songs. Just to put that in perspective, I've probably seen red or yellow songs somewhere in the thousands.
She is a delicate color, when it comes to synesthesia, and unless you are careful in the way you sing, or the way you play, you will break her and she will bleed colors into my mind. But, if you happen to enchant her, if your song happens to match her own, if you are able to call her into view, you had best hope (for my sake) she is in a good mood.
I recall a time when White was angry, a time she broke the rule of safety. It was earlier this year at WinterFest, a mass youth event in Tennessee. High above the stage we waited for the service to start. A promotional video ran its course and the screen went blank; the momentary pause was a welcome break from the blaring speaker system that hung from the ceiling at our approximant altitude.
The next video started; a generic techno song played in the background. Differing shades of red drifted laterally across the synesthestic stage. It was beautiful, as most synesthestic experiences are, but nothing out of the ordinary. But then the song changed, and a new sound was added to the repetitive beat. It was a sound that did not break White, but instead expressed her anger.
At every sounding of this computer-generated noise, white quickened her lightning. It struck out in many directions, stealing my attention away from the video and shooting pain throughout my head. It was different from a headache caused by orange; this was a shooting pain, like looking into a bright light, not a dull one.
At the bidding of the song, the square-edged lightning struck again, it was begging to make me sick. Fast, then slow. Bright, then fading. The pulsating quality and sheer loudness of this sound and color were making me feel nauseous and dizzy.
It flashed again.
I closed my eyes, as if to stop the flashing lights. I had forgotten that this vision was seen through the ears. With 30+ speakers against me, there would be no closing of the third eye.
The song ended soon and the lightning flashed a final time before fading out of existence, but still I had been betrayed. White had crossed a line that colors should not cross; she had broken a barrier that no other color can break. Synesthesia is a pleasant experience; it is not painful or distracting, yet somehow White was able to bend these laws. I wonder how it is even possible. True, orange can give me a headache, but not like this. It's quite Interesting to think about. Perhaps she cheats because this is her own game, because she holds colors like cards in a deck?
The experience wasn't as bad as it sounds, I assure you, but the incident revealed a side of White I hadn't before: The dark side.
She is not evil, as a future entry will tell, but do not forget that she is the master of color. She is easily broken, but as a whole she can be dangerous; she is the albino that will indulge in vengeance. Of course I'm speaking metaphorically, colors aren't living beings; but in light of a song, color does indeed seem to have personality, and I can imagine White would be quite a character to meet.
Out of brokenness comes beauty.
Musicians can also crush White; they can break her down and summon her former slaves.
Not all can see this breaking, this destructive beauty, but all may hear the colors rejoicing; anyone with a functioning temporal lobe can listen to their songs.
White is an amazing color to be sure, but she seems to hold a grudge. Rarely will she sing for me; rarely will she set foot on the synesthestic stage. And when she does, in a sort of vengeance to shattering her hold, she will not play by the rules. She cheats in the game of synesthesia. But to catch her cheating, you have first to find her, and like the rare albino animals we see on National Geographic, that is no easy task.
In my nearly 16 years of synesthestic life, I have heard fewer than 10 white songs. Just to put that in perspective, I've probably seen red or yellow songs somewhere in the thousands.
She is a delicate color, when it comes to synesthesia, and unless you are careful in the way you sing, or the way you play, you will break her and she will bleed colors into my mind. But, if you happen to enchant her, if your song happens to match her own, if you are able to call her into view, you had best hope (for my sake) she is in a good mood.
I recall a time when White was angry, a time she broke the rule of safety. It was earlier this year at WinterFest, a mass youth event in Tennessee. High above the stage we waited for the service to start. A promotional video ran its course and the screen went blank; the momentary pause was a welcome break from the blaring speaker system that hung from the ceiling at our approximant altitude.
The next video started; a generic techno song played in the background. Differing shades of red drifted laterally across the synesthestic stage. It was beautiful, as most synesthestic experiences are, but nothing out of the ordinary. But then the song changed, and a new sound was added to the repetitive beat. It was a sound that did not break White, but instead expressed her anger.
At every sounding of this computer-generated noise, white quickened her lightning. It struck out in many directions, stealing my attention away from the video and shooting pain throughout my head. It was different from a headache caused by orange; this was a shooting pain, like looking into a bright light, not a dull one.
At the bidding of the song, the square-edged lightning struck again, it was begging to make me sick. Fast, then slow. Bright, then fading. The pulsating quality and sheer loudness of this sound and color were making me feel nauseous and dizzy.
It flashed again.
I closed my eyes, as if to stop the flashing lights. I had forgotten that this vision was seen through the ears. With 30+ speakers against me, there would be no closing of the third eye.
The song ended soon and the lightning flashed a final time before fading out of existence, but still I had been betrayed. White had crossed a line that colors should not cross; she had broken a barrier that no other color can break. Synesthesia is a pleasant experience; it is not painful or distracting, yet somehow White was able to bend these laws. I wonder how it is even possible. True, orange can give me a headache, but not like this. It's quite Interesting to think about. Perhaps she cheats because this is her own game, because she holds colors like cards in a deck?
The experience wasn't as bad as it sounds, I assure you, but the incident revealed a side of White I hadn't before: The dark side.
She is not evil, as a future entry will tell, but do not forget that she is the master of color. She is easily broken, but as a whole she can be dangerous; she is the albino that will indulge in vengeance. Of course I'm speaking metaphorically, colors aren't living beings; but in light of a song, color does indeed seem to have personality, and I can imagine White would be quite a character to meet.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
The Cannibalistic Quality of Cake
We needed a lot of cake.
Together our group had sold over 400 tickets to the big spaghetti dinner/fundraiser that was to be held later that week at the church. Each meal was comprised of the obvious spaghetti, a dinner role, and an individually wrapped slice
I slung my jacket over a chair and peeled the fingerless gloves from my hands, shoving them in my pocket before taking the newly purchased cake into the kitchen. It would soon be cut into neat slices and stored for future delivery.
I was greeted by four of my friends: Ali, Kimmie, my youth pastor, Jacob, and my synesthete friend, E (the one who knows the gender of objects). I saw they had already been dissecting cakes for some time. Mountains of the disassembled sweets lined the counter top; the literal hundreds of bagged pieces surrounded us.
As I grabbed a knife and cut into the soft, spongy mass of sugared dough, a startling proposition hit me: what if food has gender too? What if, to E, this was this a little boy I was slicing into manageable portions? The thought was sickening.
I glanced up at E. She didn’t seem at all bothered.
My youth pastor placed another decapitated segment into its wax-coated body bag.
Can she see dead things as well? If you destroy a cake, does it die? I shuddered at the realization that the piles of cake could be like bodies to her eyes.
Jacob was still sacking the newly cut chunks as I thought about these things. A bite-sized segment crumbled off and I watched in horror as he popped the morsel into his mouth, savoring the delectable taste.
Sweet strawberry jam! My youth pastor’s a cannibal. I gasped. So was I.
I had to do the equivalent of mentally slapping myself and shouting “get a hold of yourself, man!” to stop the influx of thoughts. ‘After all,’ I reasoned, ‘it’s not like I see these cakes as anything other than a product of eggs and flower. Nor did the meatloaf I had for dinner seem very human before now.’ But still, I wondered what she saw.
I glanced around at the others again. They were busily cutting away and chatting with random outcome. I wasn’t really paying attention to what we were talking about, but my subconscious kept me in conversation. Remember that this happening took place a few months ago, BEFORE many of my friends knew about synesthesia. I contemplated asking E about this later, but as the small group attacked yet another platter of crumbs (a.k.a human intestines) like rabid pigeons I decided to ask right then.
“Hey, E?”
“Yeah?
“Does cake have gender, too?”
She stopped cutting.
“Gender?!” Kimmie burst into the infant conversation.
“Shut up, I’ll explain later.”
E unsuccessfully suppressed a smile. I guess it is humorous that no one else in the room knows what we’re talking about.
“Is this cake a little boy, or an old man?”
She looked uncomfortable.
“It’s best not to think about it. You don’t want to humanize food. Like at that McDonald’s in Tennessee, with the painting of the food that had happy faces and clothes on. It’s creepy.”
She picked up the knife again and began cutting the cake, very slowly, very carefully.
“This one’s a little girl,” she said.
Jacob listened, but did not stop eating the crestfallen crumbles. We had only known each other for about a week at this point in time, and he no doubt thought that ‘old men cakes’ were reference to some kind of weird inside joke. And as I noticed him thinking, trying to process and crack this code we seemed to speak in, I realized that, in a way, synesthesia IS an inside joke. And, (not to sound clichéd) it is the best and worst kind of inside joke, because only the synesthete can ever fully understand it.
The conversation soon left synesthesia (after a quick song visualization), and turned to lighter and more random departments of interest
.
On the way home I caught myself thinking that it would be insanely awkward to see the gender of food. Ah, so that’s how people feel when I tell them about my colors.
I reminded myself that she, like myself, grew up this way, and that this is a perfectly sane sensation to her.
And if you really take the time to think about this for a while, you’ll realize that food has gender anyway, even to non-synesthetes. What?! No! Food doesn’t have gender. Well, yes, it does. MEAT. Ah… yes I forgot that meat comes from animals, (at least REAL meat comes from animals, that odd substance they serve in hospital cafeterias could be anything) and animals have gender, don’t they? So, I guess, technically, meat has gender.
Hark! What’s this I hear? the laughter of vegans? Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you; plants are capable of gender too, but we just don’t think about that when we look at a flower or eat a salad. That said, we eat items of gender daily.
But still, this is quite an interesting form of synesthesia. I mean, come on, the possibilities for pranks are nearly endless.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
(portable colors)
“Portable sounds to lift you up.
Portable sounds to take you higher…”
So sang the operatic voice, a perfectly proportional stream of glowing emerald green. It was the close of a song that blended together both styles as well as colors and shapes to achieve yet another track of brilliant musical fusion.
I’m listening to the new album by Toby Mac titled (portable sounds), and I’m lovin’ every minuet of it.
How I came upon this genius work of art was not spectacular, I was color hunting in the Wal*Mart electronics department when the rainbow colored radio waves caught my eye. I’d heard the popular artist here and there, but never actually stopped to listen to an entire CD before. That, along with the agreeable price tag and Toby Mac’s excellent track record, was enough for me to scan the code and slip $13.94 into the automated checkout line. As I await my change a familiar ad plays in unison across the suspended television screens. I glance up, annoyed. The obnoxious, turquoise piano solo plays again. It’s the third time I’ve heard it in the past forty-four minuets. The slender wave dances as it always does, not missing a single note. *sigh*. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not ugly, the first two, three, ten times I heard it I liked what I saw; but when you see the same twenty-second light blue wave four, five, even six times within an hour every single time you set foot into the store, it gets a little old. It’s like that annoying little cousin twenty-eight times removed that shows up at the family reunion to sing a colorless song or dance a cute jig. Is it funny the first time? Sure. How about when the fame-starved toddler does it sixty-two times throughout the day, making you wish you had sent him away to the cake table? Not so much. This tiny clip of a song is a fame-starved toddler. “That’s why you’re buying this CD,” I tell myself, putting the five dollars change into my wallet. I grab the purchased rainbow and drag my mother from the clothing section. I can hardly wait to see what colors the thin disk holds.
I am pleasantly astonished.
Throughout the series of tracks he summons nearly all of the chromatic colors in varying hues and shades as well as forming amazingly rare shapes. He calls the elusive green like it’s nothing more than yellow, often pairing it with beautiful shades of blue or even red. The colors on this CD are insane. The clarity is stunning, and the richness rivals that of most songs I hear. This is color at it’s purest.
The majority of music is just a colored haze, or a sort of moving blob, which is beautiful, but it’s nice to see something different for a change. (portable sounds) is certainly something different; it takes a special kind of talent to align maroon circles in a semicircle, or make triangles of black static stick to the ceiling of my synesthestic stage. It’s as if most songs are dyed with color, like your shirt or chair upholstery, but these are the natural colors, the originals that inspired others to use them in other ways. It’s so satisfying.
The only colors that didn’t appear were purple and white (which is rarer than an albino red panda; I’ve only seen it three different times in my lifetime).
Color aside, the sound ain’t half bad either and the lyrics are a step above. It’s utterly refreshing to hear something that doesn’t depress, but rather uplifts with sound and libretto.
One of my favorite lines,
“I refuse to believe we’re a dying breed/ Children of peace hope and harmony/ Ordinary folks extraordinary love”
And another one of my favorites,
“I don’t want to gain the whole world and lose my soul/ Don’t wanna walk away let me hear the people say/ But they don’t know that who you are is not what you do”
The mix of rock, hip hop, pop, rap and other styles (even opera on one track) makes this CD quite an interesting encounter. As a Christian, music lover, and synesthete, this album is by far the most enjoyable I’ve experienced in a long time. But even if you’re not any of these, I highly recommend (portable sounds).
This is the type of music you don’t have to be in the mood for, when you turn it on the mood comes to you.
"I got portable sounds to lift me up
So don't even try to get in my head."
Sunday, March 4, 2007
The Color of Insanity
Music, like a fruit, is capable of color.
It is often “a clockwork orange – meaning that it has the appearance of an organism lovely with color… but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil.”
The task at hand was simple, uncomplicated and hardly time consuming: straighten my room and make the bed. It would take under 70 seconds, but I figured it would be more fun if I could coax out a synesthestic color. So I walk over to my radio, which is never turned off. Ever. When I tire of music or news I simple turn the volume down all the way. This came about because the on/off switch on my alarm clock/radio is in a difficult position to reach, while the volume turn wheel is quite excisable. It is set to FM88.9, NPR, my source of news, classical music, and radio entertainment. I never change the station either. I have no reason to, the only other stations I can receive are the country music and rap stations. Country is loathsome and almost always some shade of yellow or orange, besides that, even if my synesthesia is pleased, my ears refuse to listen to such horrid sounds of human vocalization. And rap, well, let’s just say it doesn’t really get a color. My synesthesia refuses to accept that as music, and frankly so do I.
It is often “a clockwork orange – meaning that it has the appearance of an organism lovely with color… but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil.”
The task at hand was simple, uncomplicated and hardly time consuming: straighten my room and make the bed. It would take under 70 seconds, but I figured it would be more fun if I could coax out a synesthestic color. So I walk over to my radio, which is never turned off. Ever. When I tire of music or news I simple turn the volume down all the way. This came about because the on/off switch on my alarm clock/radio is in a difficult position to reach, while the volume turn wheel is quite excisable. It is set to FM88.9, NPR, my source of news, classical music, and radio entertainment. I never change the station either. I have no reason to, the only other stations I can receive are the country music and rap stations. Country is loathsome and almost always some shade of yellow or orange, besides that, even if my synesthesia is pleased, my ears refuse to listen to such horrid sounds of human vocalization. And rap, well, let’s just say it doesn’t really get a color. My synesthesia refuses to accept that as music, and frankly so do I.
I turn the sound wheel and watch as the sound appears inside of me. Wow. This color is beautiful. It’s a thin stream of light blue, almost like the sky, only more liquid, and deeper. It travels vertically across a black background, waving slightly as if by water or wind. It’s the perfect color for this chore. Not overly stimulating, but still enticing. It does not scream its existence, yet relies on its own beauty for attention instead. I turn my thoughts to this show of fantastic color while my hands busy themselves crisping the hospital corners of the sheets and quilt.
I am nearly finished when the song comes to an end. The strip of blue snakes its way to the right and makes its exit. The synesthestic auditorium is empty; the stage is dark.
But then… something unexpected happens: the color of insanity attacks.
The song wasn’t over all, in fact it was just beginning; and where I expected to hear the voice of Greg Waxberg telling me the title of heaven’s blue was something very different. All the instruments played at once and without unison in a horrid display of musical prowess. The orange color exploded in my head like an atom bomb, filling every nook of my mind within a fragment of time. It spread from the center of the synesthestic stage as if someone had piled dynamite in a bucket of paint.
I instinctively raise a protective hand to my temple. It’s not every day a color bomb goes off in your head, at least not one this intense. I stride over the other side of the room and slam the sound wheel to a safe position. The orange intruder fades within a few seconds, and my thoughts again belong to me.
“There’s on for the blog,” I laugh as I exit the room, notebook in hand, ready to record the event.
Understand that it’s not that I despise the color orange, really, I don’t mind it on men’s athletic wear, or the walls of a trendy Chinese restaurant, I just don’t want it in my head, that’s all. Think of orange as a cougar. Now I love cougars as much as the next guy, but do I want one roaming freely in my house? No, please.
It’s not unreasonable. I’m not scared of orange, it’s perfectly acceptable in its natural environment, or when it’s trapped by a canvas’s clutch, but when it uses my limbic system as a scratching post, then we have a problem.
I instinctively raise a protective hand to my temple. It’s not every day a color bomb goes off in your head, at least not one this intense. I stride over the other side of the room and slam the sound wheel to a safe position. The orange intruder fades within a few seconds, and my thoughts again belong to me.
“There’s on for the blog,” I laugh as I exit the room, notebook in hand, ready to record the event.
Understand that it’s not that I despise the color orange, really, I don’t mind it on men’s athletic wear, or the walls of a trendy Chinese restaurant, I just don’t want it in my head, that’s all. Think of orange as a cougar. Now I love cougars as much as the next guy, but do I want one roaming freely in my house? No, please.
It’s not unreasonable. I’m not scared of orange, it’s perfectly acceptable in its natural environment, or when it’s trapped by a canvas’s clutch, but when it uses my limbic system as a scratching post, then we have a problem.
GodSpeed,
_Nathanael
Thursday, March 1, 2007
A Mutant-Like Trait
Chances are you’ve never heard of synesthesia, an odd neurological “phenomenon” in which sensory perception will trigger another sensory perception, forming a sort of sixth sense (or seventh or eighth, if you have more than one form).
To tell you the truth I was unaware that this ability, this thing I did, had a name until earlier this year (thank you Discovery Health Channel). I was massively excited that it had a appellation, and a cool one at that! Synesthesia. It sounds like a character from X-Men or something. I can easily picture that in my head,
“I can’t hold them off! Synesthesia! Use your powers to distract them, Jean and Wolverine will attack them from behind!”
Eh hem…
Perhaps I’d better try and explain synesthesia before continuing. For one, it isn’t a mutant gene, and it isn’t an evolutionary step (forwards or backwards). It doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t interfere with brain function in any way. Synesthetes are just like everyone else, except they see things a little differently. Ok, a lot differently, but I promise you cannot look into a crowd of people and say “Ah ha! There’s a synesthete!” unless of course you happen to know the person you’ve just pointed to.
For me, music is color. Whenever I pop in a CD or lay witness to a concert performance each song has it’s own unique color, shape, movement, depth and sometimes texture. The colored constancies are almost always pleasant, and also entertaining to watch. It’s a colorful recital that only I can attend.
The show ends the moment the song dies, but I can always hit the replay button and watch the exact same thing again. That’s how synesthesia works. Whatever you see, you will see for the rest of your life.
This gift (I shun the doctor’s terminology of calling it a “condition”) is fairly rare, though it’s hard to accurately say how many people have it, since many don’t know the name and keep it secret. The stat 1 in 7,000 is in my head for some reason, but don’t hold me to that number. I myself only know two others who have it, each with different forms. My sister Richelle tells me that numbers and letters have gender. 1 and 2 are male, 6 and 8 are female, and so on. And my friend from church, we’ll call her E for now (until I ask her if I can use her name on here) can tell you the age and gender of any object in the room. When we first told each other about our abilities I asked her to tell me the gender of things around the church youth room.
She points to a saltshaker, “that’s a girl.”
We walk towards the chairs, “this one’s a woman, and that one’s a man.”
“What about my phone?” I ask, pulling it from my pocket.
“It’s an old man.”
I laugh at the realization that I’ve been carrying an old man around in my pocket all day.
Then it was my turn. She whipped out her cell phone and played various music ring tones. I call em’ as I see em’, “This one’s Red. That one’s dark blue. Pink on a white background, like a haze. Light blue wave. Yellow.”
Someone in the background is playing Guitar Hero to the song of Free Bird. “Uggh, it’s orange.” I don’t like orange. It fills up my head and makes it hard to think, and it will give me a headache if I listen to it for very long.
E also associates letters with numbers. She rapidly points to words, calling out the numbers they add up to, “43. This one and that one make 26” and so on. We got quite a few ‘what have they been smoking?’ looks from people as we went about, playing with our mutant-like abilities, but it’s way too much fun to stop.
For the rest of the night I try not to sit on female chairs, or use male napkins to wipe my face, thinking it a bit perverted. I’m wondering if I’m sitting on an old man right now, as I type this. What about the keyboard? or the computer? I have to get up and kick an old shoe, slam a file cabinet shut and slap the couch to remind myself that these things are not human, that they aren’t watching me and that they don’t feel anything when I hit them. I also have to remind myself (and you) that while this sounds completely and utterly bazaar, she has grown up with this, just as I have with my colors. It would be like saying, “wouldn’t it be weird if you had to hear things? Like, instead of reading people’s lips, you would hear a voice! That would be so creepy.”
Well, I think I’ve written enough this time around, I’m going to go watch DCTalk (and no, that’s not a movie, in case you were wondering).
_Nathanael
To tell you the truth I was unaware that this ability, this thing I did, had a name until earlier this year (thank you Discovery Health Channel). I was massively excited that it had a appellation, and a cool one at that! Synesthesia. It sounds like a character from X-Men or something. I can easily picture that in my head,
“I can’t hold them off! Synesthesia! Use your powers to distract them, Jean and Wolverine will attack them from behind!”
Eh hem…
Perhaps I’d better try and explain synesthesia before continuing. For one, it isn’t a mutant gene, and it isn’t an evolutionary step (forwards or backwards). It doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t interfere with brain function in any way. Synesthetes are just like everyone else, except they see things a little differently. Ok, a lot differently, but I promise you cannot look into a crowd of people and say “Ah ha! There’s a synesthete!” unless of course you happen to know the person you’ve just pointed to.
For me, music is color. Whenever I pop in a CD or lay witness to a concert performance each song has it’s own unique color, shape, movement, depth and sometimes texture. The colored constancies are almost always pleasant, and also entertaining to watch. It’s a colorful recital that only I can attend.
The show ends the moment the song dies, but I can always hit the replay button and watch the exact same thing again. That’s how synesthesia works. Whatever you see, you will see for the rest of your life.
This gift (I shun the doctor’s terminology of calling it a “condition”) is fairly rare, though it’s hard to accurately say how many people have it, since many don’t know the name and keep it secret. The stat 1 in 7,000 is in my head for some reason, but don’t hold me to that number. I myself only know two others who have it, each with different forms. My sister Richelle tells me that numbers and letters have gender. 1 and 2 are male, 6 and 8 are female, and so on. And my friend from church, we’ll call her E for now (until I ask her if I can use her name on here) can tell you the age and gender of any object in the room. When we first told each other about our abilities I asked her to tell me the gender of things around the church youth room.
She points to a saltshaker, “that’s a girl.”
We walk towards the chairs, “this one’s a woman, and that one’s a man.”
“What about my phone?” I ask, pulling it from my pocket.
“It’s an old man.”
I laugh at the realization that I’ve been carrying an old man around in my pocket all day.
Then it was my turn. She whipped out her cell phone and played various music ring tones. I call em’ as I see em’, “This one’s Red. That one’s dark blue. Pink on a white background, like a haze. Light blue wave. Yellow.”
Someone in the background is playing Guitar Hero to the song of Free Bird. “Uggh, it’s orange.” I don’t like orange. It fills up my head and makes it hard to think, and it will give me a headache if I listen to it for very long.
E also associates letters with numbers. She rapidly points to words, calling out the numbers they add up to, “43. This one and that one make 26” and so on. We got quite a few ‘what have they been smoking?’ looks from people as we went about, playing with our mutant-like abilities, but it’s way too much fun to stop.
For the rest of the night I try not to sit on female chairs, or use male napkins to wipe my face, thinking it a bit perverted. I’m wondering if I’m sitting on an old man right now, as I type this. What about the keyboard? or the computer? I have to get up and kick an old shoe, slam a file cabinet shut and slap the couch to remind myself that these things are not human, that they aren’t watching me and that they don’t feel anything when I hit them. I also have to remind myself (and you) that while this sounds completely and utterly bazaar, she has grown up with this, just as I have with my colors. It would be like saying, “wouldn’t it be weird if you had to hear things? Like, instead of reading people’s lips, you would hear a voice! That would be so creepy.”
Well, I think I’ve written enough this time around, I’m going to go watch DCTalk (and no, that’s not a movie, in case you were wondering).
_Nathanael
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