If anyone’s interested I put up a new thread about synaesthesia so that we don’t keep derailing this one. 
I’ll second that, (I go 140+mph on a motorcycle on a regular basis, I race them) and add:
What’s it like to crash a motorcycle at 100 mph?
There is a millisecond “oh shit” moment when you realize that you won’t be able to salvage your mistake this time, and you are on the ground by time your brain processes that information. Then if you are lucky enough to merely slide along the ground the “aw shit” moment comes. If you are unlucky you are tumbling; groundskygroundskygroundskyground. At the same time everything is eerily quiet, colors are very bright, and you can see extreme details - every blade of grass, speck of dust, sparks from the hard parts of your bike grinding along the pavement.
When you come to a stop, the sound comes rushing back, you jump up (if you managed to escape injury, which is the case more often than not), wave to the corner workers so they know that you are OK (and not stop the race in order to get the ambulance out) and run over to your bike (or what’s left of your bike) to pick up the pieces.
I was nearly swept out to sea when I was about 4 years old.
I grew up in Oregon, and my mom and I were playing on the beach. She noticed I was getting a bit close to the water, and walked over and took me by the hand to pull me back over to where she was sitting. Right as a gigantic wave broke over both of us.
She held on to my hand for dear life, and I was completely submerged as the water tried to pull me out. The only part I remember is opening my eyes underwater, in the ocean. Seeing my mom’s arm holding my one hand, and my little toy truck clutched in the other. The sun was shining brightly and the water was bright blue-green, and there was sand swirling around me.
Being on a TV gameshow (Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) (daytime version) means a lot of waiting around and being babysat by very young, very bored production assistants who are there to ensure no one’s cheating.
The best part was hanging out in the green room, watching everyone else do their bit and yelling out answers. We watched their first $1,000,000 winner (Kevin, a truck driver), that was REALLY neat.
My actual “playing” only took, maybe, 10 minutes (I won $16k). I tried to have fun, but really I was just scared half to death. And no stranger has ever said to me “gee, I saw you on TV!” (I always wondered if that happens to people).
Wow, I never knew that about you! I watch that show every day and think about trying to get on. I’d be very happy with $16,000. Have you participated in any “ask the game-show contestant” threads?
Nah – I mention it now & then here, and no one’s ever terribly impressed. I have posted tips on auditioning before. The thing I noticed about us contestants (probably met 30 of them over 2.5 days of taping) is we were pretty much ALL very easy-going and outgoing, the kind of people who feel at ease striking up a conversation with a stranger. I don’t know if that means we were “charismatic” on television – it could just as easily have meant we wouldn’t drive the production staff totally bonkers.
Didn’t mean to sound like a downer re: my winnings, I was truly delighted to win $16k, it led to some life-changing events (pregnancy, changing jobs, moving, buying our first house).
Good luck to you, I hope you try out sometime!
I see numbers as having personalities. Inanimate objects can be turned into puppets with lives and backstories. If anyone has seen those faces carved into fruit, the creator once said that the fruit “came with their own personalities.” That’s what I feel about objects.
My brother has the worst luck with cats; first three killed by dogs in as many years, one hit by a car, lost one in a housefire (smoke inhalation though) after nursing her back to health after a battle with the flu. Now, his cat has been ‘rehoused’ to live with the dog so he has mine to bother him. He loved and devoted himself to those beautiful creatures only to have them torn away from him. Somehow, he hasn’t been hardened by it and is still as loving as ever. I’ve had the same gorgeous girl cat since I was 8 and I would lose my mind if anything untoward ever happened to her.
Its funny you say that because I associate each Beethoven symphony by colour.
I’ve run for office three times and managed another person’s campaign once.
Every campaign has been different (our resources and my experience keep increasing, for one thing, and the riding boundaries changed after the first two times) but I think the main description is: hectic. You don’t stop moving for thirty-five days.
Last time, we had a lot more resources than before, so we were able to run a much more intense campaign with more central support from the Quebec section. I appeared on more media and was able to organize more meetings with community groups. I won’t go into too much detail, but here are some highlights:
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Appearing on national TV at 7:00 in the morning to make a 90-second vote-for-me speech. I was in touch with the federal office for most of the preceding evening getting drilled on how to structure my argument. As a result, I was the best of all the candidates who were present (including the incumbent MP), and I’m not just saying that.
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Getting up at 6:00 to get the flyers down to the post office. Because it was in the middle of winter, we decided to do most of our flyering by postal walk – costly but very convenient and less volunteer-abusing.
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Volunteer-wrangling. Always fun (no sarcasm), especially dealing with the fact that being crunchy-granola urbanites, none of us have cars – not always the most convenient thing when there are signs that need to be put up and pamphlets to be taken to the post office. Or a candidate with a broken ankle to be taken places.
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Getting a Christmas break in the middle of the campaign. The winter campaign was ass, but the break in the middle is highly recommended.
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The aforementioned ankle fracture.
Wow! Some fascinating (and gruesome!) experiences. Well, leme see. I’ve had a few weird ones, one of which I really can’t explain.
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Like usbunch I’ve drowned and been revived. No fun at all and no NDE, either. The last thing I remember is seeing everything fade to purple, quickly getting darker. Next thing I know, I’m face down across the top of a boulder spewing lake water from every orifice.
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Made love to a woman in a wild cave once. We turned off all the lights and the water noise from the stream seemed to blot out hearing. We were left with only the other three senses and it was exceedingly strange. Not unpleasant, just weird.
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Picked Patriot and SCUD shrapnel out of my front yard. I was actually standing outside looking around the sky and waiting to be one of the “innocent bystanders” you read about when a chunk hit a neighbor’s roof. I then realized that this might not be my brightest move and went inside.
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This one is weird. I was maybe 6 or so and we lived in an old frame house high on a hill in (very!) rural Kentucky. A thunderstorm blew in and as usual, my step-mother turned off all the lights but one. It got very dark and I stepped into the kitchen where we had an electric stove. There were arcs dancing across the top of the stove. Not arcing from the unit to anything else, just flicking into existence, staying for some substantial part of a second, and then reappearing somewhere else. I can’t figure out why it was arcing like that. It would seem that the whole unit would hit the same potential almost instantly so, no arcs. Still can’t figure it out.
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In a car accident when I was small and, as Dorjan (sorry about the missing umlaut!) mentioned, seeing every tiny blade of grass, every twig and piece of gravel. Remembering it too. That was 40+ years ago and it’s still clear.
That’s what I can think of for now.
Testy
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Seeing my blood on grass. We were at my aunt and uncle’s house, and my cousins and I were playing in the wading pool. Being normal kids, (brainless), we put the slide from their swingset into the pool. My cousin slid down, and hit me in the nose. The red drops of blood on the deep green grass was really cool looking.
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Having a c-section when the anesthesia doesn’t numb you completely. I was in surgery for my second daughter, and they made the first incision. I said, “Was I supposed to feel that?” Doctor:“Oh shit!”. Someone else said, “We have to keep going, it’s too late now”
Much moaning and groaning later, out pops my baby! It wasn’t very painful, just very uncomfortable!
I see words as colors, too. To use the days of the week as examples, the word Sunday is forest green, Monday is sky blue, Tuesday is a sort of dark velvety royal blue, Wednesday is shiny orange, Thursday is charcoal gray, Friday is wine red and Saturday is sort streaky yellow and orange.
An odd thing is, I speak German and French, and words for the same thing have different colors in different languages. Monday, though blue in English, is streaky light gray when it’s *lundi *(French) and is khaki tan when it’s Montag (German.)