Sabar ... lagi loading. colors outside the lines

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

i see colors


Do you see colors in numbers and alphabets? Is it something close to this?



If you do, then you're probably a synesthetic.

No, not a synthetic. Life as an android would have been cool. Also not psychokinetic, even though that would be ultra cool.

If not, well .. that's good too. Carry on to whatever you were doing, unless you need a distraction for the next several ten minutes.

Synesthetic is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. [1]

Which, to make things simple, one might see certain colors when they hear certain sounds, or smell something when thinking about a certain day name. It's basically getting many respons for one stimuliation.

I didn't know this term exists until a few months back while wasting time reading my Twitter timeline. Someone posted a link about this savant, named Daniel Tammet, who is able to remember the phi number up to .. well, lots of digits. He cited the numbers in 5 hours straight with no mistakes. After that, he went to Iceland to learn Icelandic in a week and able to chat with native speakers fluently. FYI, Icelandic is one amazingly hard language to master. I, despite my love to Sigur Rós, can't tell the difference between Vonlenska, their made up language, and Icelandic when they sing their songs. [2]

Also, get this, Daniel is called a savant because he is an Aspergerian, a person with Asperger. That's a person with high functional abilities in the Autism spectrum. And since he shows remarkable ability to do stuff than even us, the 'norms', can't do, he is thus a savant. [2]

Well, I am not a savant. I have never been diagnosed with any spectrum of autism, I'm just not a very social person and sometimes, or most, when I'm angry, .. you don't want to see me angry. And this is not where this is should be going. Move along, people.

According to Daniel, one of the things that makes him able to remember all those digits and info is because he sees things differently. Numbers, and letters, for him, comes with distinctive colors, shapes, and adjectives. This helps him remember the sequences. And that ability is called synesthesia.

This never helps me remember numbers, but I also have synesthesia.

I see numbers in colors. When you say "5", I immediately see number 5 in light blue. Not sky blue, but light blue. Sky blue would be the month of June, but that's a different set of things. And when you say "Three", a number three would appear in yellow, the same kind of yellow in Tuesday.

Do I make this up? Maybe, when I was very little. But I don't remember why I did that or why certain things has certain color, or even evokes certain emotions. For instance, the month of April comes in a variety of colors and I feel light and happy whenever it is mentioned. Just don't do it too much, I might turn into a November which is, to me, is black. No offense to those born in November, I don't know why I associate your holy month to goth.

Apparently a synesthetic brain has some kind of 'cross-wiring' between its regions. This 'cross-wiring' can be seen that the visual part of the brain gone active when exposed to sounds in people with sound-color synesthesia. One hypothesis of how this happens is that infants' brains normally come with excess wiring that will be pruned as the child grows older. Something happened, maybe a gene mutation, that caused people with synesthesia retain the wirings that otherwise would disappear once they're adults. [3]

So it is possible that I made some kind of associations while I was a kid, and they stay with me because my body failed to prune the associations. And since it is probably stemmed from experience, the sensations created is different for each person. Meaning, my light blue-5 sensation will most probably be different than other people with synesthesia. Other person might say that 5 is emerald green.

This synesthesia thing has been long suspected to be connected to autism. But it is way too premature to say that it is. Long tedious researches will be needed. But one fact does already proven, it is genetic. Many people found that they're not alone in their family with synesthesia. [3] Me, au contraire, is apparently so far singular.

So, After all those years, do the colors change? No. They stay the same as far as I can remember. This is what separates synesthetics from pseudo-synesthetics and non synesthetics. The colors stays the same and exactly the same. Sixes have and will always be deep green. The letter R will always be blood red and March will always be the indecisive follower of May (regardless that they're backward). So what do I see if someone says "666"? Yes, a row of green numbers which actually took away all of the 'satanic' theme the numbers should induced.

And to add to the festivity, if you say "August!" I would somehow see it hovering under June, just above September which is next to October. And the letter E is nesting in a valley between mountains of ABCD and FGHIJ. And don't try to mingle M with N, they're keeping a civil distance from each other.

Now, I don't talk about this seeing-colors thing much not because I fear that people might think I'm nuts. It's kinda too late for that. Aside from I didn't know that it has a name, mostly, because usually when I'm underpressure, the colors sort of fade away. And since I'm underpressure most of the times, I don't see much of them too. For those who knows my inability to do math operations or even remember day and dates, they know being a synesthetic doesn't help my life. I'm glad it helped Daniel, and probably many others, but it seems to have done pretty much zit for me.

Daniel and other savants with synesthesia seems to be able to do calculations or formulas faster with their synesthetic ability. This is something I never learn to do. I see colors. Lots of colors. And emotions. And places. Sounds pretty cool, right? Like on LSD when you're not on LSD. But that's just as far as it goes for me.

So where am I going with this synesthesia thing? Well, I'm not asking you to worship me like some LSD godess. I'm on a 'this-might-be-an-interesting-material-to-waste-your-time' mode. So please, don't be too serious. Synesthesia is not as rare as being a savant. It's as common as one in 100 people has some kind of synesthesia. [4]
Some people are just experiencing it more than others. Some children might show this symptoms early on. They might say that they see colors when they listen to music or read something. A mild form might not be disturbing, but in exegerration can lead to inability to concentrate in school. [3] It's nothing to worry, really. It might be a sign to something, or, like me, a sign of nothing at all.

At least, they're not saying "I see dead people." That's when you should start to worry. Really.



Further readings:
[1] Synesthesia, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
[2] godtammet, Daniel Tammet-The Boy with the Incredible Brain (1-5), February 12, 2007. YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbASOcqc1Ss
[3] Elizabeth Landau, Seeing colors in sounds has genetic link, February 9, 2009. CNN.com: http://articles.cnn.com/2009-02-09/health/synesthesia.genes_1_synesthesia-brain-regions-visual-areas/2?_s=PM:HEALTH
[4] Derek tastes like earwax, September, 2005. BBC.co.uk: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/derek_qa.shtml

Picture:
Synesthesia, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

. at 6:20 PM

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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

the marriage bliss

it's pretty much the same for me. unless for the whole bed-sharing and snoring. both of us snores apparently.


don't get me wrong. i'm happy. just not the flipping happy type. it's more of the kind of happiness knowing that there's this other person who loves you aside from your family and yourself. it's more of the kind of knowing that even though i've lost half of my eyebrows, he would still look at me as if i'm still the girl with complete eyebrows. it is more of knowing that now there's this huggy-sack that'll lie next to you every night, or so. it's more of the kind of laughing at your misfortunes together and get on with life.

do we fight? yes. not as much as i want to. do we despise each other at some degree? yes, of course. we despise ourselves sometimes, can't we despise each other?

exactly.

had i married earlier in life, i'd probably experience the whole flipping happy craze. maybe it is about age. people my age are mostly graduated from their drama queen/king phase, not that being dramatic is horrible.



or maybe it's just me.


. at 10:31 PM

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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

the bomb

let me drop the bomb now.


i'm getting married.


to a man.


Photobucket


stop laughing. it's not a joke.

no, he is not an alien superhero. yes, he is from this dimension. and of course, he is a nut wanting to marry me.

yeah, i know it's kinda weird to hear me talking about marriage. Photobucket anybody i know prolly knew from earlier that i didn't trust this institution. but since i live in a society that thinks it's bloody important, i sort of resign to a decision that i'll marry when i want to. which for me, back then, was equal to 'whatever'.

anyhow, the joke is on me.

one of the reason why i didn't trust this institution is because i've seen people got married, and still live miserably. yes, the fairy tales are for fairies, not human. being the perfectionist weirdo byotch that i am, i found it almost impossible to find a guy that could match my degree of sanity, or insanity of that matter. so, the conclusion taken was let's just hold hands together and create a peaceful world. fuck marriage.


then came along this guy.


i hated him. he said my hips look huge. on facebook. Photobucket

but aside from his incredible slashing ability at anything that walk on earth and beyond, he's a pretty decent guy. he laughs at my off-beat jokes. he sleeps a lot like me. he reads manga and watches anime. we both have some pretty fucked up time growing up. he's afraid of his LEGO relapse addiction, while i try to get him back on it. Photobucket he doesn't mind me having weird taste on granny motifs as much as i tried not to care about his music taste that is .. err .. eclectic.

for short, if marriage is gonna be hard, i'd rather go through it with this guy. i mean, what kind of companion you'd choose if you know the journey is pretty much personally uncharted and has the potential to be full of crazy winding turns? someone you can laugh and enjoy the whole miserability and excitements that comes along with it, of course.


fyi, miserability is not a word.


besides, as it turned out, i fell in love with him.

and what do you know, apparently he's in love with this huge hipped woman too Photobucket






. at 7:24 PM

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