I was once sent
to a researcher in light therapy because I had a sudden depression no
one could explain. My doctor was trying to
determine if light therapy would help. He attached a computer to my wrist
which I wore for 3 days and 3 nights. It measured my
Circadian rhythms. After reviewing the results, he concluded that light
would do me no good.
"The problem," he explained, "is that you have the Circadian clock of a cavewoman."
Not knowing if this was good or bad, I naturally asked him to
explain. He told me that I have a 26.5 hour day and that aside from
that, I am impervious to my environment. So, tonight
I had a revelation: if synesthesia stems
from the oldest part of the brain, doesn't it make sense that it would
show up in the mind of a cavewoman? Further, if it is also true that
in evolutionary terms, synesthetes represent the future, doesn't that
make sense too, since time is circular?
He was wrong about light, by the way. As it turned out, I used reflected light to cure my
depression. I discovered that by looking at reflections, I could travel
out of my feelings. Of course, I didn't
realize that I wasn't actually going anywhere. Nor could I see that my emotional life
was the underside of a Mobius Strip I'd managed to flip over, by viewing
the world upside down. From that angle, I could spot the necessary shapes into which I poured my
inchoate feelings. And by the time I developed the pictures, the emotional shapes had gelled.