The Rainbow in my mind.

One day I was in Pages for All Ages, which was a bookstore in Savoy (before it closed). I was looking through the young adults section, and I picked up a book called A Mango-Shaped Space. The cover had a cat and a bunch of colors on it, so needless to say, I was drawn in quickly. I flipped it over and read the back cover. There was a quote from the book which read “Everyone thinks I named my cat Mango because of his orange eyes, but that’s not the case. I named him Mango because the sounds of his purrs and his wheezes and his meows are all various shades of yellow-orange…” ‘Well that’s interesting,’ I thought. So I read on. The book is about this chick named Mia who is “far from ordinary. She is keeping something from everyone: sounds, numbers, and letters have color for her.” 'Okay, now that’s kind of strange.' I thought. 'Because I do that too…'

I was doing a craft project in elementary school, and I made a necklace with colored beads, which spelled out my name. I told someone about it, and they were kind of confused. As a kid, I usually assumed everything that I did was special, and then later I would find out that everyone did it. So, I naturally assumed that I was the only one who could see letters and numbers in color. Later I realized that I actually was.

As I learned from the book A Mango-Shaped Space, seeing letters and numbers in color is called synesthesia. There are around 60 different kinds of synesthesia, such as seeing a word and having a specific taste in your mouth, or hearing a sound and seeing a shape or a color appear in your vision. This happens because of “crossed wires” in your brain. I would try to explain it from a medical standpoint, but it probably wouldn’t make sense. One of the most common kinds of synesthesia is color-graphemic synesthesia, which is where you see letters and numbers in color. I have this kind of synesthesia, as well as another kind called number form synesthesia. This means that whenever you think of numbers, you form a mental map of the numbers. I also do this with days of the week, months, and years.

So, what exactly does it mean? Well, when I see numbers, letters, or words, I perceive them as a certain color. I don’t exactly see them as a certain color, I just sort of…understand them as a certain color. For example, the letter A is red (which I’ve read is a quite common perception for people with synesthesia, although letters and numbers are not usually perceived as the same color between two different people). I understand A as being red, even though I know, as I type it, that it’s actually black. All of the words on here are black because that is the color that I’m typing in, but I perceive them as being colored. Another example is the word Thursday. Thursday is totally yellow, even though there’s only one yellow letter in it (the h). So, with words, I see the individual letters’ colors, but then there’s also an overall color for the word. (I’m hoping these descriptions make sense.) For days of the week and months, etc, I have a certain image of the order of them. It’s not exactly like I see a picture of the days when I think about them, but I have a certain feeling as to how they’re organized.

I really love having synesthesia, mostly because I really like colors, and it’s neat to have everything be colored. I also love it because it gives me a really good memory, nearly photographic. I can remember numbers and names because of what colors they are, and dates because of the way that I see them ordered. I'm also a really good speller because I can tell when a certain letter doesn't belong in the word because the color is wrong. Some famous people with synesthesia are Nikola Tesla, and both Syd Barrett (founder of Pink Floyd) and Pharrell Williams are thought to have it, but it hasn’t been confirmed.

If you want more information, and a clearer explanation as to why synesthesia happens, Wikipedia has a pretty good page. In closing, here’s an example of how I perceive things; I’ll try to make this as accurate as possible, although sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint the actual color of a letter.

Vivian

This isn’t exactly how it looks, but you get the general idea. :)