Zombie thread!
I didn’t want to start a new thread on synesthesia when this one is just four months old, but something new came up. Today, the BBC had a very interesting documentary on synesthesia.
Not only does it provide the latest theories and findings about synesthesia, the site also offers a cool ten-minute online ínteractive test that tests if you are a synesthete, and if so, what kind.
Highly recommended.
I tried the first two tests, and to be honest, the one with sounds and colors didn’t really work for me. The sounds started one color, and went to another as they changed pitch. Also they had a shape, which was totally ignored.
I got fed up with both tests and quit.
I just skimmed over this thread, and just thought I’d throw this into the pot, if anyone’s taking count or polls or whatnot, that I also have “synethesia” (sic?) and I had no idea it had a name until last week, when someone on another message board I frequent posted something about it. I skipped the thread for days, oddly enough, because I didn’t recognise the word or what it related to. When I finally opened it and read it, I thought “Ohhh. Okay.” I’ve known for years I saw things a little “differently”, but kept my mouth shut about it because some people don’t react well. When I first mentioned it to other people, as a child, I thought everyone in the world saw things the way I did, or felt them, or tasted them. Between being called a “hippy” or a “devil”, I just learned to shut my trap and lived my life.
I do get a kick out of people who do find out for whatever reason, and then they ask me if I feel blessed. Truthfully? No more than anyone else. Why should I? I’ve never seen the world any other way. They ask me what I would do if suddenly the “gift” was taken away from me. How the heck should I know what I’d do? Be confused? Get my eyes checked? Take up smoking? What would you do if your world was suddenly black and white? I’d do what anyone else would do. Ponder it for a while, get a full physical, and be happy I can still see something, I suppose. It’s like having DSL all your life and then having to put up with dialup. Sure, it might suck, but you’ll get by.
As I reread my own post, I feel I might be coming across as a little bitchy - apologies if I am! I just wanted to relate my experiences with it here. It’s nice to see it actually has a name. It’s always made me wonder if we’re all sat down in elementary school, and the teacher points to a colour and says “Blue”, and we repeat “Blue”. But what you call blue is another classmate’s red, or yellow, or green. And we all call the sky blue because we were taught that that is blue, but if you could see through the next person’s eyes, the colours were all bass ackwards. head explodes
I’ve had this very same thought. And my head exploded too.
I think everybody has had that same thought, and had their heads explode.
Hmm… next time I’m walking down the road and I see someone else with their exploded head, I’ll think: “Ah. They know.”