Synesthesia

Allow me to take you one a tour through the mind of a synesthete (well, kinda sorta. I'm not really very synesthetic, but I kinda sorta am, and I think it's interesting). So, to begin with, I'm gonna explain synesthesia, even though everyone reading this probably already knows what it is. Synesthesia is a kind of cross-wiring of the senses in a person's brain. So they can hear colors, and see tastes, and smell sounds, etc etc. (And I think this is really cool because 1) it's a cool psychological concept and 2) it's fun to have and think about it, which is what I was doing this morning, and continuing to do now). A very common type of synesthesia is applying different attributes to numbers, which I do, and that is what I'm going to give you a tour of.

0 - Zero is strange. It has an almost lack of personality, but it's still really important. For some reason, when I think of zero, I think if the opening credits to Brother's Grimm, and also the part of Nightmare Before Christmas where Jack is falling into the Christmas door. Zero's kind of a big, dark, void. But it's not scary or mean or imposing. The more I think about it, the more I like it.

1 - One is like an old, wise, wizened guy who knows what he's doing, and is stable. That's a major part of one for me. One is also white (the color, not the race). Like Gandalf or Dumbledore (hooray nerdy literal references!)

2 - Two, firstly, is blue. Like a dark, basic blue. But two is also like a ten year old boy in knickerbockers and a newsboy cap. Like Oliver Twist, but not an urchin .

3 - Three is kinda strange, because it's almost exactly the same in my mind as six. They're sisters. Both are green, both are young adult age, and they seem like twins, but aren't. It's kinda weird.

4 - Four is one of my weakest numbers. I can tell that it's yellowy-orange, and might be female. But that's it, really.

5 - Five is one of my strongest numbers, but not personality-wise. But for me, the number 5, the letter B and the color red are all very closely related. Like, so much so that when I was describing something as being red, I held up five fingers. Personality-wise, 5 is a big jovial guy (kinda like the Ghost of Christmas Present, but without the whole message to get across).

6 - See number 3.

7 - Seven is kind of a strange number for me, because it doesn't really have a color, or really a set personality, but it is intensely my favorite number. It's a kind of vague yellow-ish/orange-ish color. It has a very amiable kind of disposition, but even though it's so vague, I'm still very strongly attracted to it. Maybe it's just my favorite number. Who knows.

8 - Eight is also kind of vague. It has both male and female qualities, it's a dark color, and it's either really nice (the female part of it) or kind of off-putting (the male part of it). Yeah, eight's kinda split personality.

9 - Nine definitely has my favorite personality. Nine is a wizard (but not like Dumbledore or Gandalf, a silly wizard) in a purple robe with silver trim and a purple pointy wizard hat (including silver stars). Nine is kind of a goof (kind of unintentionally). I like nine.

And that completes my comprehensive tour of single digit numbers. As I get into multiple digits it gets kind of strange (sometimes the numbers' personalities combine, and sometimes they don't, and it's just too complicated for me to easily describe). So I hope this was interesting for you, and not too boring (because basically, it was just me talking about myself, but whatever).

And if you think that synesthesia sounds cool and you want to learn more about it, here are some links:

You can never go wrong with Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

An interesting-sounding paper I just stumbled upon: http://www.dovepress.com/acquired-auditory-visual-synesthesia-a-window-to-early-cross-modal-sen-peer-reviewed-article

And you can never go wrong with Steven Fry and Alan Davies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqQIL4nuB-g