Thursday, November 18, 2004

Ramble

The internal monologue. This morning, some excitement at remembering my blog and a frenzied, enthusiastic thought process. What will I write tonight? There was no stopping the thoughts, the possibilities. I stopped myself. It's been a while since my internal narrator has been so active. I'm used to the visual part of my imagination, and the logical part that analyses and constructs. I use them all the time. But this bubbling narrator was different. I stopped.
Rupture. Who spoke of the dangers of the internal monologue, a voice that must be stopped? Yet it seems so natural. An excitement that loses its context the moment it comes into existence. And that is the problem.

But how would my aural, or vocal, imagination be different from my visual imagination? The thrill of spontaneous rambles and reasons, not unlike the thrill of watching the visuals of a movie.

Ah, that reminds me: at long last, a clue to the things I see: synaesthesia. It would seem that the type that caused the biggest surprise when I realised that most people don't have it, is called emotion colour syneasthesia. I find it hard to entirely agree with, but here is a short description:

"Emotion-Colour Synaesthesia" Responsible for Auras

Supposed psychic powers that enable people to see auras around others may simply be a quirk of the brain, according to a University College London (UCL) study of a rare form of synaesthesia where some people see colourful ‘auras’ around their loved ones.
The case study, reported in the October issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology, shows how some people can experience colours in response to people they know or words that evoke emotions – a condition known as emotion-colour synaesthesia.
Dr Jamie Ward, author of the study, says: “A popular notion is that some people have a magical ability to detect the hidden emotions of others by seeing a colourful ‘aura’ or energy field that they give off. Our study suggests a different interpretation. These colours do not reflect hidden energies being given off by other people, rather they are created entirely in the brain of the beholder.”

Paragraphs found here: http://www.forteanbureau.com/blog/archives/002044.html

So that's it, I have a quirk of the brain?
My own evidence in this regard suggests that it's something that occurs in the interface between myself and other people. My reasoning is simply that what I see often reflects something that I can recognise in that person - a certain kind of emotion that is not particularly mysterious. I just happen to pick it up visually. This is not the whole story, and the other part is definitely in my own brain. It's almost like these people (whom I can see in this way) somehow have access to my wavelength. So you could say that they log in (or simply come in) and by us being connected - or sharing a frequency - I am able to detect them. My detection leaves a visual residue, but the origin is nonetheless "real" at some level.

If my memory serves me, I read that the eye is the sense most directly connected to the brain, via nerve endings at the back of the eyes. This was given as an explanation for why the colour at sunset affects us so (emotionally). An interesting idea in this context.

1 comment:

Kat said...

Isn't the concept of synaesthesia mind-boggling? I'm pretty prone to tactile/auditory hallucination, so the first time I heard the word -- contextually described as, "like, being able to taste purple and shit" -- it resounded pretty deeply. There's no end to the possibility of a multi-media internal narrative.

I'm glad you're blogging; it's a buzz completely apart from any other I've experienced. And it's awkwardly ex pos facto, since I'm starting at the beginning of your archive, but cheers and good luck!