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!)