What An Emotion Looks Like . . .
December 11, 2005 - View Single Entry
Synesthetic Dreaming
November 22, 2005 - View Single Entry
I had
a wonderful dream in which I was playing a harpsichord (in real
life I have never done this). This particular harpsichord had a series
of overlapping squares of color laid across the top. Their
placement over the strings didn’t interfere with my playing in the
least. To the contrary, I was able to play the colors so well that by
the end I had discovered I could draw out an extended vibrato
perfectly. It was quite a thrill. The only surprises upon awakening
were the colors themselves. They were almost primary and dark in tone
while in real life the sound produced by strings – at least of a harp –
always make me see pastels. In the dream, the colors included red,
burgundy, rusty brown, and navy blue. I do not know what this means but
I am guessing that when the sound becomes baroque, the colors must
deepen. Patricia Duffy includes this dream of mine in her wonderful book Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens.
A Dream: Playing by Ear
November 18, 2005 - View Single Entry
A DREAM
I am upstairs with
my niece Jessica who is sitting nearby. I am playing the piano, only
instead of reading regular sheet music, I am playing the seams of a
gold dress flung on a chair I see in my peripheral vision on the left. When I mention this to Jessica, she is bewildered.
"What do you mean, Aunt Marcia, how can you play the seams of a dress?"
The answer was so obvious, there were
no words to explain it. I decide she must be joking. "Oh sure," I
joke back, "like playing a dart or an in-seam would be hard."
This is what the music looked like:
Man on the Steps of Civilization
November 09, 2005 - View Single Entry
I see the scaffolding for
civilization, I always have. It's similar to the scaffolding for the
personal self except that the stairs are wider and its networking
extends throughout the universe. This is a picture of man on the steps
of Civilization.
Why Is Gospel Blue?
November 08, 2005 - View Single Entry
Why Is Gospel Blue?
I am
the singer in the robe,
second from the right, singing my heart out
while the blue sound
is
made possible by the red
Embracing the Universe
November 06, 2005 - View Single Entry
Picture from my childhood: I remember this feeling, when
touching my feet to my head was a form of embracing the universe. I can't feel happier than
this. My synesthetic signals send me to a place that feels like this.
Taking pictures today feels the same way.
House Arrest
November 05, 2005 - View Single Entry
Self-Portrait
November 04, 2005 - View Single Entry
Language and the Memory of Color
November 03, 2005 - View Single Entry
When I look at this image, I hear a
vibrato. How? From the shape of the bridge. The colors influence the
sound I hear because they are responsible for the instruments that
might produce the sound of the vibrato -- browns typically produce a lower register
sound like cello -- but what would happen if I took away the colors? What would I hear then?
I would still recognize a vibrato because that
shape can have no other meaning; but without the colors, the image
would become a symbol that means vibrato but does not automatically sound like one. That is, I might not hear it, but I would still know it. Does that make sense?
In other words, I could
put the image on sheet music and use it as a musical notation for
vibrato, but would I still hear what I hear now? Or, since I saw the
image originally with color, would
I still hear it the same way, just from the memory of the color?
That's
what
happened when I experimented and made the image black-and-white. I saw
the shape, knew it was vibrato, and then added the sound from memory
of the color which was the extra step necessary to convert the symbol back into the
original
experience it represents.
Could this explain what happens to people
who are deaf but were once able to hear? Is this how colors work for
synesthetes who see letters with color, do they supply the colors from
memory?
Whatever the answer is, it
points to the importance of Memory in the Synesthetic experience, and
it also underlines what I already figured out: that pictures travel
faster
than words.
Interrupted Thought
November 02, 2005 - View Single Entry
Juggling Time
October 31, 2005 - View Single Entry
This is how I see the months of the year . . .
After I made it, I noticed that if I rotate the page 90 degrees
counterclockwise, my map of time turns into a man . . . well,
sort of a man: his right leg is November, his left leg is December, his
right arm is September and it looks like he's juggling time.
Bureau of Consciousness
October 26, 2005 - View Single Entry
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