One day, a long time ago, I was in a high school English class (Mr Parrot's class), sitting with my friend Melissa. I'm not sure how the subject came up, but I asked her how she sees numbers - what pattern they are to her.
She thought I was cracked. Seriously cracked.
I tried to explain to her what I meant, and even drew her a diagram of how I see the calender year.
She thought I was cracked. And told me so :)
The thing is, I see the years, year, months, month, days, weeks, week, hours, numbers and alphabet in a certain pattern in my mind. It's the way it is. I thought everyone did. In fact, I was always curious what the pattern looked like for people who are super good at math, and I thought that if I could change mine, then I could be better at it. In a way, I still do.
Melissa thought I was crazy. I felt like an idiot. She told me she didn't visualize anything like that. It took me until this year to ask anyone else.
I asked Adam, a couple of months ago. He had no idea what I was talking about either.
Then, we saw a story on W5. Turns out, I'm not crazy. It's a condition where one part of the brain talks to the other. They think 1/23 people of it. It's called synethesia; it's a type of sensory confusion.
For some people, synethesia means seeing letters or numbers in color, or even tasting certain colors.
Question for you: what color is the letter R?
I feel so much better knowing I'm not the only one. And now I'm not scared to admit that I see things slightly differently.
