Synesthesia

Yea, it is a big word with a definite meaning. Then again, I love big words with definite meanings, so I am going to do a post about it.

First, my parents burned into my brain that television, or the majority of it, is not for educational purposes; they were wrong. I have learned a great deal from television shows. 1) Cosby and his kids taught me never to play ball in the house, though I do not have much confidence that I would have been treated as kindly had I broken Mom's vase (pronounced vay-suh, not voz). 2) President Bartlet opened my eyes to the reality of word trivia: for example "Only three words in the English language begin with the letters 'dw'." This, of course, must be modified a bit to say that only three words which are not proper nouns or slang (Dwight, you dweeb, Dwayne doesn't count.) They are: dwell, dwindle, and dwarf. And, 3) Gregory House has taught me that synesthesia is the experience of one sense through another.

Pot smoking hippies the world over would swear they experience this ony a daily schedule, but this comes without inducement for some. Synesthetics hear colors, smell sights, or even sight smells. Numbers have a particular color associated with their pronunciation, letters an attitude about them, and entire words a plethora of adjectives cataloging their meaning, all wholly disconnected from what the dictionary has defined them as.

When I first heard of this, two months ago, I felt envy. One of my best friends, a guy who is dyslexic, artistic to an ability I cannot begin to dream of, and driven by the experiential world around him, knew immediately what I was describing. His exact words were "What? You never noticed that 7s were kinda angry?" No, no I did not...

Luckily, geniuses who can create an experience for me exist in the world: www.playauditorium.com

This may be the most beautiful game I have ever played. I already told the programmers that I want to be a beta tester for it, and almost want to talk to them about legal aid should they determine they want to take this further than a simple flash game. Who knows, maybe I will...

Only if the sight and sounds of the situation smell right though... No, I don't mean that figuratively.