My neurological condition and how I think it might help you

I have the second most common blood type in the world.

Likewise, I am programmed with the second most common form of the semi-rare neurological condition called synesthesia.

A person blessed (not inflicted) with synesthesia is called a synesthete. Basically what synesthesia is is when a synesthete touches, tastes, hears, smells, or sees something, and immediately the color sensor in the brain is triggered. The color sensor and one of the "five basic senses" sensors cross each other, collide, merge, whatever.

I, Alison Barton, am "possessed" (if you will) with the two most common synesthesia forms: 1) grapheme --> color, and 2) sound --> color. See this image below? It's divided into three sections: alphabet, numerals, musical notes. See how everything is colored? Well, 1) that's what I see whenever I read anything, 2) that's what I see whenever I do math, and 3) that's what I hear whenever I hear music. I read and hear colors. Those are the colors with their corresponding characters and musical notes.

Synesthetes never get to choose the colors (synesthesia is utterly involuntary), the colors never change throughout a synesthete's lifetime (I guess you could say the colors are eternal), and the colors differ depending on the synesthete. My set of colors that you see above has always been the way it is, and whether 9 or 90 years down the road, "A" will always be red, etc.

Now, how can my neurological condition be of any help to you? I will begin explaining by taking you back in time to a flock of sheep in the southern Utah mountains. There I stood, in the midst of this quaint group of lambs, all going "baa baa baaaaaaaa," but somehow no individual animal's "baa" sounded exactly like another's "baa." Each "baa" was totally unique.

Next, let's travel the Washington DC subway system. One day I was riding the Blue line to my Foggy Bottom metro stop, and as I sat quietly and very much to-myself, I glanced around and noticed that all of the dozens of fellow riders were different-looking from each another. No one was even close to being identical to anyone else. That might not sound impressive at all, but step out of the subway train, and into the rest of the real world, and tell me that you can find someone who looks 100%, in every facet, like someone else. I really doubt you can do it. Not even identical twins are totally the same in structure.

Think of the sheep. Think of the people. Think of my synesthesia. Here's how it all ties together:

Not only is music inevitably colorful for me, but so is human phonation. I estimate that I've consciously paid very close attention to approximately 100 human voices, to define the color of each one. Yes, the sound of each human's voice is like unto a musical note, in the sense that it unfailingly projects a color.

There are four factors that determine a voice's color:

1) Warmness or coolness (e.g. whether it's more like a fiery color than a watery color, and vice versa)

2) Edge (i.e. whether it's a hybrid color, like green or purple)

3) Shade (e.g. lighter blue or darker blue)

4) Texture (e.g. bold, feathery, raspy, etc.)

Have I freaked you out yet with all this color weirdness? I probably have. Maybe you don't understand anything I'm talking about here, and you just think I'm a nut. But don't worry, you don't need to understand the technicalities of synesthesia.

What you do need to understand, however, if you want to get the point of this whole blog post, is the fact that *no one's* voice color has ever been the exact same as anyone else's in all my listenings. What that means is this: even if you perceive that there's absolutely nothing special about you, nothing that sets you apart from anyone else, you're wrong. You've got a voice, thoughts, opinions, and ways of saying things that are all unlike the rest of humanity's. If nothing else (which I highly doubt there's nothing else), you're unique that way, and to me personally, that is big.

To conclude, this synesthesia thing is definitely the strangest thing about me, and I almost can't believe I was brave enough to publish about it. Go me. If you have any specific questions about all this, I'd love to converse about it with you!

Bottom line is:

You're special, awesome, and there's no one like you in the whole world! (K, bye!)

Parakeets, evidences of God's existence and care, science vs religion, and other yaddi-yaddi-yadda! :)

Written approx. 9:30am, Sunday morning, 1/20/2013, typed solely on iPad (ermahgersh!!! essentially the first time ever using an iPad, and I wrote an entire blog post on it!!!)

I just got done trying to drive down south to meet up with some friends for breakfast. I made it only three minutes down the road when I decided to turn around and go back from whence I came. It was -6 degrees Fahrenheit outside and dangerously foggy everywhere, and every second I struggled seeing things that were only three feet in front of me. I was on the town's main road when I convinced myself to turn around. I pulled over into a fairly easily accessible high school parking lot because I figured it was a safe place to perform the turning around of my car. Immediately upon entering the lot, I started hearing sirens and seeing colorful whirling lights of emergency vehicles of every kind, which paused mere inches directly in front of the turnoff spot I utilized to enter the high school parking lot. I had NO IDEA there was a wreck at almost the exact spot of the main road that I had exited. That's how bad the fog was; I couldn't even see a crash mere inches ahead of me.

I'm thinking to myself: What if I'd chosen to not turn around just then, and to keep driving in that right lane? Would I have hit that endangered person in that car?

Maybe I wouldn't have contributed to that accident, but some voice is whispering to me now, telling me that God is looking out for me. It's occurrences like this morning's incident that testify to me that there is a God.

All around, there have been way too many accounts of these "guardian angels watching over us" tales for there to not be a God to send those guardian angels. Way too many in my life, in particular, for there to not be a caring, fatherly Supreme Being.

Likewise, there have been way too many "miraculous" events and profound acts of kindness and forgiveness that have brought joy to countless numbers of people for there to not be a God to be the source of all miracles and goodness.

Two nights ago I dreamed that dozens of my friends and I journeyed to the moon in a spaceship. I sat between Shaina R and Karina J on the trip (two girls whom I LOVE and who make me laugh so happily hard all the time in real life!). After departure, it took us only an hour to arrive at our destination. When we stepped out of the spaceship and onto the moon's surface, we needed no space suits or helmets; the casual Earthling attire sufficed, and we breathed as we normally would at home. While standing on the moon, we could see that the stars were much huger-looking than normal, and that they truly were pentagraminous (my new made-up word of the day).

Reflecting upon this dream has caused me to reflect upon how truly strategically our planet Earth is positioned in the solar system. HOW can Earth's position be simply happenstance or coincidental? It can't be. I declare that it's strategic. Strategy implies that someone implements strategy. That someone is God. He created the world then assigned it to be "third rock from the sun," a placement that allowed the world's mortal inhabitants to inhabit without automatically freezing or burning to death upon birth. Sure, Siberia, Alaska, Australia, Las Vegas, and the equator countries can all be sometimes uncomfortable to reside in climate-wise, but they're still survivable. The fact that mankind can survive and, in fact, have joy in almost all earthly geographical locations is absolutely a testament that a Supreme Being (God) strategically made it that way.

Which brings me to one last piece of evidence that denotes that there is a God (and when I say "one last piece of evidence," I mean it's the last piece that I'll write about for the time being; goodness knows it's not the "one last piece of evidence" that I can think of, for there are MANY! Like perfectly hexagonal snowflakes...). 

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I GIVE YOU.........THE PARAKEET.

When I was a tiny, tiny little toddleresque girl, my family had a bright green, beautiful pet parakeet. He lived till I was 16 years old or so, and he was with us even before I was born. We called him "Noisy Bird" because he was a total chatterbox. He could say Pretty bird!, I love you!, and Where's Richard?

He had conversations with himself in the English language, though sometimes we Homo sapiens couldn't decipher the exact words, but it was definitely English.

He could make kissy noises. And, most impressively, he could whistle the "Andy Griffith" theme song in its entirety. SUCH a great and sweet bird! Oh how we loved him, and oh how we miss him, even till this very day.

Tell me, how could the magnificent Noisy Bird, whose breed is so intricately and exquisitely crafted to be able to sing and speak human languages, be a result of a mere "chance/big bang" explosion? And it's not just the parakeet, but millions upon millions of other taxonomical species that, if pondered about, are recognized as organisms of amazing properties. The way all natural creations cooperate as ecosystems is astounding and miraculous, I do say. There just *has* to be someone ultimately responsible for all this awesomeness.

I do believe in science (jajaja, makes me remember that I love "Nacho Libre"); I believe that organisms and elements all coexist and collectively form areas of study that people SHOULD study! Of COURSE we're supposed to study about the world we live in, as long as it's for the benefit of mankind. I believe that such wholesome studies can do God a great honor. By showing our sincere interest in His creations, we show a form of gratitude to Him.

My parting words for today: Guess what? YOU, my friend, are an intricately and exquisitely crafted creation of God. You are a child of a Heavenly Father, who is God, and you were created in His image. He loves you dearly, wants you to have joy, wants you to enjoy and take care of the world that He's blessed you with the opportunity to inhabit, wants you to take care of His other children that inhabit alongside you, and wants you to keep in touch with Him as you sojourn.