“Let’s stop for a bit. I can’t stand this orange color!”
Where is the orange color? We are at the Trastevere in Rome, and all that I can see are the bars, the people in the streets in this early frozen spring, all this to the sound of church bells ringing. It’s almost night-time on a cloudy day, so we can’t even blame the sun for the optical illusion.
I am strolling with an actress I have known for some time, but we have never had the chance to have a proper conversation. I stop as she requested, but only out of politeness, since this well-balanced professional woman must be crazier than I thought.
We go into a restaurant to have dinner. We order risotto with truffles, and a good wine. We chat about life, and once again she comes out with an absurd comment:
“This food is rectangular!”
She noticed the alarmed expression on my face. Rectangular food?
“You must think I’m crazy; I’m not. At a certain moment in my life I thought that I was color-blind, that I got colors all mixed up. I went to the doctor and discovered that I have a common neurological disorder.”
When I got back home I immediately started to research on the computer and was surprised to find out something that I had never heard of before in my life: synesthesia. A condition in which the stimulus of a certain sense provokes perception in another. Those who suffer from this type of disorder confuse sounds with smells, sights with taste, colors with touch (not necessarily in that logical order).
Some scientific studies claim that the vision of auras in human beings was born there; I disagree with these studies, for I believe that all of us really have an astral body that can be seen when we alter perception. But what fascinated me most in my research was to find out that what we perceive through our five senses is not an absolute truth. Synesthetic people have a notion of the world completely different from ours, though this does not prevent them from leading a relatively normal life. My actress friend works on Italian TV every day, and says that she eventually became used to it.
Delving a bit deeper into the matter, I discovered a study in the British journal Cognitive Neuropsychology. A team of researchers from University College in London, headed by Dr. Jamie Ward, went even further: some synesthetics can perceive colors in emotion-laden words such as “love” or “son”. The vast majority of them end up associating someone’s name with a certain tonality. Ward describes the case of a girl identified as G.W., who simply by hearing certain names had her field of vision entirely covered by a certain color associated with that word.
I learn from an art magazine that the halos that we see around the heads of saints may have been created by some synesthetic painter in days of old, then repeated by others without anyone wondering about the reason for that circle of light. The 1965 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics once said in an interview: “when I write equations on the blackboard, I note the numbers and the letters in different colors”. One article explains that Feynman belongs to a group of persons for whom the number two can be yellow, the word car may taste like strawberry jam, and a certain musical note may evoke the image of a circle.
Ward says that synesthesia is by no means a disease: “quite unlike psychiatric disorders, synesthetic people have none of their basic functions compromised, but they do have a positive symptom which most other human beings lack”. The big problem lies in school-age children, who cannot understand why they feel things differently from others.
To my great surprise, some studies point out that one on every 300 people is synesthetic (although most say that the ratio is one in every 2,000).
The next day I called my friend and asked what sensation she always associated with me. “Gentle” was her answer.
Well, synesthesia can’t always be logical!
tags technorati : Technorati Paulo Coelho Paulo Coehlo Warrior of Light Warrior of the Light Newsletter
Perceptions !!
The moment one discovers that one does not ’see’ things the same way as others, immediate recation is of panic, herd metality ?!!!
Thanks for sharing about synesthesia, I was not aware of it. is it not that people who have this perceive more than others, whether that perception helps them or whether they r able to use this to help themselves.
“Those who suffer from this type of disorder confuse sounds with smells, sights with taste, colors with touch (not necessarily in that logical order).” So anything that is not in order is a disorder, hmmm !
About halo, u have quoted some views, what is your take on it, have u ever tried to see aura, halo etc. could you see. well with a little effort I can see the aura around the head of my freinds
aditya
PS : why did u put this on warriors page, what exactly r u trying to convey, is it just sharing of info.
Wow! What a lucky lady!Rectangles, circles - she is totally in tune with the Universe who deals in Geometry.
How fascinating!
Mch
This is wonderful! It is really surprising that for a disorder that affects 1 in 300 is so unknown.. And people, esp kids can get quite freaked out the first time they discover, whether publicly or not, that what is normal for them is not normal for other people..
For instance a friend in Japan discovered that letters and numbers come in colors, so if a combination of colors appeal to her, a name would be beautiful, same otherwise..
This is an informative post.. the stats is.. good to know.. And just to add, sensation is not always the same as touch. Sensation has that zz-zz feeling. Touch is more of a zz-zz-mmm-… thing if you can get what I mean.
If you have learned to handle a “disorder” you have won a new ability.
For me the words of a doctor (like common neurological disorder) is just one view and the try to bring everything in words and the try to make it explainable. The other view is an enlargement of what is the truth and the wonder of a human being
The world is such a fascinating place. Just recently on 60 minutes there was a story about a young man who is an autistic savant and a genius with numbers. He also mentioned how he sees numbers in colours.
Sometimes I wonder whether God makes examples of people to challenge those who think they know everything.
i think things things like this are the next step in human evolution. not evolution of a scientific kind were we adapt to our surroundings but evolving to a spiritual culture on earth. a book called “the celestine prophecy” mentions this. please pick up a copy.
When I woke up this morning I looked out the window and the sun was soft and the clouds in the sky where silent, kind of how I feel at this very moment.
Peace onto you
Love
Marie
Tom i agree with you (somehow) that this is the next step in the human evolution
When i listen to music, i associate it with different people. like the first time i have heard the song and around that time, a certain event has happened to a person i know. so every other time i hear that song again i think of that person.
Speaking of music i would like to say my goodbye to pavarotti. in my eyes he had followed his path to the end and i loved his voice. he is one of the few people that enjoy what they do for a living, and he does it with such passion !
marie, yes i think that we shall evolve to a completely spiritual culture on earth without currency, conflict and were everyone follows there path. please read the celestine prophecy, and you shall understand that we have already started awakening this spiritual culture and that it is not fsr off.
Amen to that wish of yours tom.
aditya
in reference to this section of your piece….
I learn from an art magazine that the halos that we see around the heads of saints may have been created by some synesthetic painter in days of old, then repeated by others without anyone wondering about the reason for that circle of light.
I have always been led to believe that this light was “Dharnakaya” a word I picked up from reading Robert Pirsigs “zen and the art of motorcycle maintainance” … I have since researched this a little, and you will see in eastern culture that there spiritual beings have this light painted around them too.
It may be that a true spiritual being has lost the seperation of the senses (read the tao teh ching) and so experiences everything differently, whilst synesthesia gives us a glimpse of that totality.
also Amen to that wishof yours tom!
Tom I am currently reading the celestines prophecy and it made me think of a recent post that was on the blogspot
The law and the fruit
I agree with what Leaf wrote its a beautiful and brave piece!
much love all
Maktub.
let us hope that synesthetic people shall help us walk a faster pase down the path to this new awakening culture. too many people have died not knowing there purpose in life, with this, new culture, people shall awaken to there purpose and peace shall be found if everyone can follow there own unique path.
marie, i have just finished the ninth insight, which means i have finished the book. there is a nice surprise at the end about a tenth insight.
yes amen to this seemingly perfect culture on earth. find your own path and follow it so that you are contributing to this emerging culture.
AVC, Deb !
if u chaps r around make u’r presence felt. if not for u’r self for me.
Tom !
after u recomended it I read about that book, now I will get a copy.
In the meantime, can someone guide me as to whether it’s OK to quit a fight !
aditya
by the way everyone, in the entry, The Sign, i remember telling you of a sign i had repeatedly kept seeing, which was the number 69.
i now know what this meant, on the 6th of the 9th (6th of september)
one of my relatives died, but on that very same day, my aunt who had been in australia for the past years miraculously appeared at my nan and grandads. i quickly rushed down with my family and she had given birth to a boy.
this had reminded me of a lesson i had almost forgotten. life walks along side death. always. as life sits at the table with you, death lies on your bed, they are never far apart, constant companions, life and death.
Dear Aditya,
A thought on perception:
A common language is highly practical, but let’s not mistake the words for the things that they symbolize.
In my view, the only purposeful meaning of the word reality is “the world as we perceive it”. As our experiences and our abilities of perception grow, so does our world.
To an extent, this means that we all live in different worlds.
However, even though we may categorise and label ideas differently, all of us will at some point experience the idea of “1″ as well as the idea of “2″ (regardless of what we then choose to call them).
And all of us will find that the idea of “2″ is identical with the duplicate of “1″ and thus, for instance, that “2″ could be related to the idea of movement as “1″ with origin.
Even though it can be argued that “1″ and “2″ are indefinite ideas in themselves, there exist a common ground for all - a truth as it were - available to all of us simply by categorizing our individual impressions that we receive from our individual perceptions into our own individual systems of correlations.
Hence, explore everything, test and categorize, and the truth shall dawn.
aditya,
this depends wether it is a mental fight or a physical one. remember if it is physical, you really have to ask yourself, “what am i doing this for?” if you are in the right then remember “you cannot hit the person with the higher moral”
if it is an argument or if you are fighting for something you believe in then it is very different. if you are fighting for something you believe in, then fight your heart out, you must tap into your inner energy. you must realise that people arguing is the way of a person sucking out there inner energy, that is why when you are winning an argument you feel stronger and when you lose one you feel weaker. there is another source of energy apart form peoples energy. i believe that this energy comes form an astral line that keeps the universla balance fair. the celestine prophecy teachs you how to tap into this other source of energy which has not failed me since i learnt how, thankyou aditya.
The warrior of the light
listens to what his opponent has to say.
HE ONLY FIGHTS
if absolutely necessary.
Manual of the Warrior of the Light
HI AVC Thanks, what u have written above makes sence, but am not sure exactly what all, there seems to be diffrences in perception but on some level there is a commonality also, hmmmm. one to many, unity in diversity, i am just thinking aloud, pl take no offense if I am wrong. thanks for taking the trouble to write. thanks freind !
tom - yep buddy ! I truly apprecaite,
Paulo - thanks a ton ! man ! i read the issue no. next 155 the stories were ‘cool’ & u r hot !
AVC - this “Hence, explore everything, test and categorize, and the truth shall dawn.” yep ! that is the promise and that is the way, I will keep walking.
Let me misuse Paulo blog once again, after a long time this time.
Recetly I came across a news paper heading (both leading dailies in mumbai had identical headlines ) ” Hyderabad blast mastermind unmasked” they were referring to one ghastly terrorist attack in which 30 odd people, families really, enjoying a weekened togather were blown to pieces and may more maimed. I find such headlines inappropriate, in a way glorifying the effort of that fellow, mastermind is not the word to be used, monstermind it should be. Anyone who inflicts injury on innocent, unarmed people is a monster. media playes a big role in shaping up our reality, should they not be more cautious.