Synesthesia
I watched a fascinating documentary yesterday afternoon called Derek Tastes of Earwax. It was about people with synesthesia, the condition where your senses get mixed up in interesting ways. Most synesthetes perceive numbers and letters as being colored in some way. The title referred to one gentleman who “tasted” nearly every word that he heard. I was pretty sure throughout the film that I don’t have synesthesia, because most of the examples and experiments they showed didn’t describe me at all. Then they started talking about number lines, and people who perceive numbers and dates in three-dimensional space… and I realized that I do do that, to an extent. I have a very clear mental calendar that runs from Janary (to my far right) to December (where I’m standing, no matter what month it actually is). Neat.
Important Note
This site features content going all the way back to 2000. The posts you’ll read reflect my views and writing style at the time. While I have gone back to clean up a few of them, I think it’s important not to sanitise too much. This site is a record of who I am and how I’ve grown. Any blog post written years ago may not reflect who I am today, nor how I would write about the same topic today.
Comments
One response to “Synesthesia”
Ooh, I have synesthesia. All letters and numbers have color and texture. Helps so much with memorizing stuff. And like you, my mental calendar exists in 3D, but naturally, it’s completely different. Weeks are like rolling hills (with weekends at a higher elevation).