Seeing in Colour

Its funny how sometimes things in your life all come together. On Saturday I was watching The Murdoch Mysteries which is a series set in the late 1800's. Detective Murdoch is a police detective who uses science to solve crimes. In this particular episode he met one of his mentors Nikola Tessla. That name was already familiar to me because of the Movie "The Prestige"--I knew that Nikola Tessla was a real person and I had looked up information on him after I'd seen the movie but quickly forgot most of it. When this character popped up again in the Canadian show I wondered if Tessla had actually been in Toronto so decided that I would look him up on Wickipedia.

As I was reading it said that he was a "synesthetes". Not being familiar with that term I looked it up. Synesthesia encompasses many things including not only tasting but seeing letters and words in various colours. Then today I got an email from the leader of our writing group about this same condition called "People may be able to taste Words". There were a number of other articles about this which discussed people who see words in colors or see certain things & hear sounds.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8070210.stm

This is particularly interesting to me because while reading these stories I began to realize that there have been times where I have written about this kind of phenomenon that occurs within my own "minds eye". When I'm focusing on writing I see words that swirl around in a vortex and then when I decide what I'm going to write those specific words appear in a ticker-tape procession in the order that I write-this is very similar to a woman described in one of the articles. Most of the time the swirling mass of words also contain images--its like watching a hurricane; the majority of time the images & characters are ghostly, not fully formed and then if I concentrate and put the thoughts & words into order they become solid, dark and they then appear on a ribbon before me.

I've also written about the fact that there is inside of me, at my core, a fountain in a lovely garden. It is in that place that my emotions come out of the spouts as colours. Red is anger, depression is navy blue to black (depending on the level), grief is black, grass green is contentment, yellow green is envy & greed; sky blue with white wisps (like a summer sky) is happiness, hot pink fuchsia is love & burgundy is passion. They have always been those colours for as long as I can remember--that is just the way it is. When I'm experiencing intense emotion there are times when I feel my chest is being crushed or squeezed by the "ribbon" of colour. Kind of weird but that is how I've perceived it--I've never questioned it and its normal for me.

The other thing I've suddenly realized as I'm thinking about this is that whenever I pray, I see the words. They start in a central place & move towards heaven. It is most clear when I am praying myself whether in my head or out loud. When someone else is praying and I'm listening it still happens but the words are not as clear. They are in the same black & grey as the other words in my "hurricane" appear-I've never noticed if they are in colour or not. What is interesting is that eight years ago when I started learning sign language I started praying more in images than words--those images like the words would start in that central space and move towards heaven.

Two of my blogs in the past month discuss the colorful way that I see the world. My "Inspired by Blue" blog on May 23 was all about the way that I see the world--I was feeling blue and I equated that to my emotions and to my eye colour. The colour of the blue umbrella is the exact colour of the "blue" melancholy emotion that was coming out of my "fountain" that day. I used a photo program to get the exact shade-it was important for me to capture that. On Thursday in "Music as Muse", I referred to the connection between past events and the future as colourful ribbons. That is how I see them in my minds eye...its not just pretty or pictorial wording. I "see" a timeline and depending on how I view the event-if its a happy event it is a light blue, green, pink or yellow ribbon, if its an event that caused me pain the line or ribbon is red, black or blue. I have considered it my rainbow of experiences that connect past & present. I've thought a lot lately about how I see the world and this new information and research really dovetails with those personal explorations surrounding my "creativity". So...does all of this mean I'm a synesthetes? I don't know and I don't really care. I do have to admit that it actually surprises me to think that not everyone has experiences in their head like mine & it is shocking to think that perhaps I might have a "condition" or that I might be considered a person with a learning disability. Then again, what is normal? What is a disability? Who's way of thinking or way of experiencing life is the right way? I prefer to think that I have a vivid imagination and that my "colourful" way of looking at the world, my creativity, is something that I thought could be cultivated and it was something that I hoped I would pass on to my children. So far it seems that my daughter has the gift of visualization, she seems to have a photographic memory but I'll have to ask her more about the way she perceives things.

Regardless of whatever this way of seeing life, words, emotions and thought is, it is one of the greatest most wonderful gifts I possess. To me it is a treasured gift that makes my life rich and unbelievably interesting and it is something that I hope I will never lose or have fade away.

Salynne ©2009