Stephanie Whitehead – Words or Colours?

This class has been very fascinating for me. I didn’t think twice when I signed up for the class but after a few classes I realized the irony of my taking this class. It was all about words and their use and how people use them. As for myself I have no words at all and it is difficult for me to put my thoughts into words, which frustrated me many times in class when I tried to enter the discussion. I “have” what is called synesthesia. It is, to put it simply, the convergence of the senses. They are not separated. There are five different kinds and I have 4, including the most rare (of course). The rare one, associating things with color, is in fact my strongest form of synesthesia. I think in colours. Everything in existence, be it thought, emotion or object, is associated with a colour. Words are associated with colours because each letter has a very specific colour. These blend together to give the words a colour. But a word is merely a word and the theory behind the word, or the object it is symbolizing, can have a completely different colour. Thus, my mind at times has difficulty expressing my thoughts and opinions on things because, essentially, I have to translate colour into “object” into words. Often there are objects and thoughts that are very close in colour and are merely shades of difference and this causes quite a lot of issues. Some of my friends have gotten very good at interpreting what I mean or just understanding my way of expressing things. At times I am so lost for the word that I have to gesture the concept or create an image of the object with my hands. As a result, I believe you can now see the irony of me taking this class (which I enjoyed very much despite all of the issues). And that’s only one kind of synesthesia, mind you.