For the final assignment of the week, we were to go out to an area and study the sights, smells, sounds, tastes and textures of that area. Easy enough? Then we were told to represent our feelings onto a 10cm x 10cm thumbnail with colours.
Now, read the bit above again. Feelings. It's close to impossible to represent feelings physically. I mean how do you express your feelings, on paper? I genuinely thought the faculty had gone bonkers. Still, I stuck at it, spending time at my area, and experiencing all what it had to offer to my five(+1) senses. Initially, I came up blank. It was all black, no matter what I ate, to what I heard and to what I smelt. But slowly I started to get a hang for it. When you eat something, a dash of, well, a feeling pops up. But when you try to touch it, or try to see it clearly, it disappears. You become conscious of the fact that you are reaching into your inner feelings, and just like a chemical reaction, the colour disappears when you disturb the solution.
The best bit about this assignment was that I was forced to go out there and experience everything, which was extremely enjoyable. All those snacks, all those smells and those sounds. Often we aren't patient enough to pay attention. If the volume is too low, we turn it up. If there's not enough light, we switch on more lights. We simply don't have the patience to observe. But while observing the surroundings with each sense individually, I slowly started to immerse myself. If we simply concentrate, we wouldn't need to turn up the volume, or switch on more lights. We can hear and see a lot of things. But our brains aren't properly receiving the sensory impulse of those organs.
But slowly and steadily you start to catch a glimpse and then fully experience those feelings. It might sound far fetched if I called the feeling other-worldly, but its a new sensation, and a very pleasant
sensation at that.
Here are a few sounds I heard at the area I was studying at, and try to guess what each of the sounds represent.
This is also called synaesthesia.
synaesthesia |ˌsɪnɪsˈθiːzɪə| (USsynesthesia)noun [ mass noun ] Physiology & Psychologythe production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.
To explain this phenomena, I shall now use memes. Also known as pictures which are often humorous.
For more synaesthesia related memes, please visit this website.
If you haven't gotten the idea yet, don't worry. You probably synaesthete without realising it. Theres a reason why you like some numbers more than others. Or why you prefer certain sounds or colours, and even names. It's all down to synaesthesia.
When read a number or a name, or listen to some music, the so called feelings machine in your head starts up and starts spewing feelings. These feelings are influenced by your past experience and can still be influenced by future ones. Whenever I think of a bottle, I think of a Coke bottle, because the shape of the bottle is the one I remember the most.
For me, the number 5 is more attractive than number 8 is maybe because I enjoyed the multiplication table of number 5 more than I did of the number 8. There are many more influences, which include sports, and other media.
As the for the (+1) sense, or the Sixth Sense, is what we feel when all the senses combine to give us information. We use our Sixth Sense all the time, and we don't realize it. Only in dangerous situations can we feel that strong urge or push from our brain. For example, if you stand on the edge of a tall cliff or building, you brain physically forces you to step off. It would've realized this on taking in the perspective view from our eyes, the altitude from our sinuses and other various bits of information from the other senses. The sixth sense can also be called an instinctive reaction.
(Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink is a great read for more information our sixth sense, and also tells us the magnitude of power the sixth sense posses.)
Now, read the bit above again. Feelings. It's close to impossible to represent feelings physically. I mean how do you express your feelings, on paper? I genuinely thought the faculty had gone bonkers. Still, I stuck at it, spending time at my area, and experiencing all what it had to offer to my five(+1) senses. Initially, I came up blank. It was all black, no matter what I ate, to what I heard and to what I smelt. But slowly I started to get a hang for it. When you eat something, a dash of, well, a feeling pops up. But when you try to touch it, or try to see it clearly, it disappears. You become conscious of the fact that you are reaching into your inner feelings, and just like a chemical reaction, the colour disappears when you disturb the solution.
The best bit about this assignment was that I was forced to go out there and experience everything, which was extremely enjoyable. All those snacks, all those smells and those sounds. Often we aren't patient enough to pay attention. If the volume is too low, we turn it up. If there's not enough light, we switch on more lights. We simply don't have the patience to observe. But while observing the surroundings with each sense individually, I slowly started to immerse myself. If we simply concentrate, we wouldn't need to turn up the volume, or switch on more lights. We can hear and see a lot of things. But our brains aren't properly receiving the sensory impulse of those organs.
But slowly and steadily you start to catch a glimpse and then fully experience those feelings. It might sound far fetched if I called the feeling other-worldly, but its a new sensation, and a very pleasant
sensation at that.
Here are a few sounds I heard at the area I was studying at, and try to guess what each of the sounds represent.
This is also called synaesthesia.
synaesthesia |ˌsɪnɪsˈθiːzɪə| (USsynesthesia)noun [ mass noun ] Physiology & Psychologythe production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.
To explain this phenomena, I shall now use memes. Also known as pictures which are often humorous.
For more synaesthesia related memes, please visit this website.
If you haven't gotten the idea yet, don't worry. You probably synaesthete without realising it. Theres a reason why you like some numbers more than others. Or why you prefer certain sounds or colours, and even names. It's all down to synaesthesia.
When read a number or a name, or listen to some music, the so called feelings machine in your head starts up and starts spewing feelings. These feelings are influenced by your past experience and can still be influenced by future ones. Whenever I think of a bottle, I think of a Coke bottle, because the shape of the bottle is the one I remember the most.
For me, the number 5 is more attractive than number 8 is maybe because I enjoyed the multiplication table of number 5 more than I did of the number 8. There are many more influences, which include sports, and other media.
As the for the (+1) sense, or the Sixth Sense, is what we feel when all the senses combine to give us information. We use our Sixth Sense all the time, and we don't realize it. Only in dangerous situations can we feel that strong urge or push from our brain. For example, if you stand on the edge of a tall cliff or building, you brain physically forces you to step off. It would've realized this on taking in the perspective view from our eyes, the altitude from our sinuses and other various bits of information from the other senses. The sixth sense can also be called an instinctive reaction.
(Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink is a great read for more information our sixth sense, and also tells us the magnitude of power the sixth sense posses.)
salil? for what joy?
ReplyDeleteyou blog is quite interesting:D