Synes-what???

OK, so i has uncovered that I have a neurological condition. A harmless handicap, if that doesn't cause offence.

What is it?

Why, I'm glad you asked... Synesthesia, according to my well founded Internet research, is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

Basically, from what I'm after getting out of that, it's when one sense overlaps another and causes you to think in a way that isn't what other people would find normal.

There are many different forms of synesthesia, the most common being:

• Grapheme- where letters and numbers are perceived as colours.





• Ordinal Linguistic Personification- where numbers, days of the week and/or months of the year evoke personalities.





• In-Spatial Sequence, or Number form Synesthesia- where numbers, days of the week, months of the year, even time and years elect precise locations in space.

That's the one I have. In-Spatial Sequence. Don't believe me? Think I'm just being crazy??

Fine.

But I'm not. I swear, I only recently found out about this, and before then, I thought that it was normal to think like this. It's logical.

So when I'm thinking about days of the week, I see a circular diagram, with the days going left to right.

When I'm thinking of the months of the year, it's a circle again, but it moves from right to left.

I also see years in a diagram. The 1900's start at the bottom of a line, and it moves all the way up to 1989. Then, after that, The seem to turn a corner and carry on. The break of the millennium even made it into my mental diagram in the form of a red line. Hmm.

OK, it does seem quite difficult to grasp.

Other people with Synesthesia:

• Pharrell Williams (Hip Hop Artist and producer)


• Rollo Armstrong (Member of Faithless)

And here's some facts about Synesthesia:

• Synesthesia is not a disease. If anything, it is a gift, for synesthetes tend to have higher IQs, better memories, and other positive effects.


• Synesthesia is more common among females with a 6:1 ration when compared to males.


• The majority of synesthetes may have subtle mathematical deficiencies, such as lexical-to-digit trans coding or right-left confusion. (I should tell my old maths teacher this- I wasn' t just stupid!)


• Synesthesia is not the result of intense drug use. While those who take psychotropic drugs such as LSD or MDMA may experience synesthetic-like experiences, these experiences are extinguished by the discontinuation of the high and do not persist during sober periods.

Imagine!