Not really sure where to start, it's been a long time since I worked on my blogging skills.
Alas. Here goes.
My husband and I watched a really good TED talks Friday night. Dr. Ramachandran is one of my favorite scientists.
He wrote Phantoms of the Mind which blew me out of the water and really made me realize how much I love science. So all this geekiness, could be attributed to his amazing research.
Anyway. During his speech he brings up synesthesias. John thought they were fascinating. I casually commented, "Yea, didn't you wonder why September is always blue and red?"
Oops. He didn't know I was a grapheme-synestehsia. To be honest I didn't either until my freshman psych class (oh the things we learn about ourselves in college)
I didn't know other people didn't do this matching colors to letters/numbers thing. I also do it with people and days of the week.
So he had be write a list. Of all the numbers, days of the week, letters, and people we know.
I had never really thought about it before so writing it all out was kinda difficult.
The hardest part was I didn't have enough colors in my marker box. Several times I just couldn't FIND the number. I would draw a blank like I couldn't remember the number that came next. The first time it happened was with 5. 5 is a like a pale orange/dark yellow. I only had bright yellow. I figured it out once I darkened the shade a bit. But the HARDEST was 7. I stopped at 6 and couldn't think anymore. It was the strangest thing. I couldn't remember the next number. Sure I knew 789. I was POSITIVE 9 was coming, it's red and almost the exact red I have in my marker box. My mind was SCREAMING,
"Just move on. 9 is right here! Forget about whatever you're looking for. Just draw 9! This orange is close to 8 so you can make it work. 9 is really important. You HAVE to draw 9!"
In another part of my mind I could hear,
"Forget about 7, draw 9 and come back to 7 later. Lie about 7, John won't know anyway and it can get you to 9 faster. It's ok, no one will know. Besides this is your brain chemsitry how will anyone find out. You can't be wrong, just skip it. How do you know 7 even really exists? It's all made up anyway to keep humans happy. Just an arbitrary number, you can get by without it."
It was kinda freaky. I knew this wasn't normal for most people but I'd never really dealt with it. It always just was. I had never had the experience of rationalizing that 7 didn't exist.
Then it hit me.
7 is White.
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