Synaesthesia -- an amazing perspective!

Hello Folks!

At David Rankine's workshops and concerts, he often talks about synaesthesia -- the mind's ability to intake information from one sense but experience it via another -- to give only two examples, he will talk about the "colour" of a note, or how to "play" one's mandala. Now here's some exciting stuff about why we would bother doing this, and what is means to try.

I was very grateful to Andrew M for tipping me off about the CBC interview with George Stromboulopoulos and Daniel Tammet. (link below). This person, Daniel Tammet, describes himself as an autistic savant, but happily because of his own insight and powers of observation, he has trained himself to interact and communicate with others. The reward for his efforts has been the ability to communicate about his way of processing information and memory -- via synaesthesia. He shows a great gentleness and generosity of spirit, even though I am sure his struggle was not easy.

When you consider the brain is constantly accepting millions of bits of information from our "sensor array" (I try to resist using machine metaphors for this miraculous organ, but it's hard!) -- and the fact that we really can't process more than a couple of thousand via conscious mind, it makes sense that the unprocessed information is still available to us somehow.

Both Tammet and Rankine comment frequently that synaesthesia is available and normal when we are infants, but it is "beaten out of us." Our mind discriminates between what is useful and not useful, gradually screening out less useful info and losing the capacity to deal with it. And of course our early learning opportunities can frequently accomplish this process MUCH faster and unpleasantly, giving us a sort of unasked-for aversion therapy to synaesthetic processing or reflection. I belong to probably the last generation where teachers could force you to stop using your left hand in favour of the right hand in kindergarten! (And don't even get me started on the issue of learning disabilities -- that is a blog or 100 blogs in itself. I have one, and also an MA in Applied Language Studies. Dumb luck, and don't I know it.)

The implications for synaesthesia for people with so-called learning disabilities and neurocognitive processing problems are HUGE. I am off to obtain a copy of Tammet's book, Born on a Blue Day, and Embracing the Wide Sky. He is saying that he believes anyone can relearn their capacity for synaesthesia, and I mean to find out!

Tammet also has applied what he knows of his own process, to learning languages via patterns that he sees. His most famous ability helped him do a record-setting recitation of Pi to several thousands decimal places, which took over five hours to say -- but what REALLY knocks me out is the PORTRAIT he has painted of how he SEES the number Pi. As you know, this is a fairly mystical number representing the relationship between the circumference and diameter of a circle -- it is an irrational number, running to an apparently infinite number of decimal places with NO repeat or pattern in digits.

Coupled with recent studies in the brain's ability to "be plastic" -- to relearn or redirect processing in a way nobody believed possible -- this is the most fascinating thing!

So when you hear Dulcimerhead music, or attend a David Rankine workshop, or view David Rankine's art -- this is a big part of his project too. When he talks about playing a "blue" note on his dulcimer -- or "playing a mandala" -- this becomes more than creative play. It is tapping more of the creative potential of the brain itself! And I thought it was just fun. :)

Check out David Rankine's ever-expanding playground of music, art and ideas at
www.davidrankineart.com!

CBC 'The Hour' Interview

CBC's 'The Hour' with host George Stroumboulopoulos:

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=999589223

I got this off Daniel Trammet's blog Optimnem at http://www.optimnem.co.uk/blog/index.php

Don't you just love this excerpt from the Telegraph (UK) -- I gotta get his book!!!

Tammet quotes from the Borges story “Funes the Memorious”: “He remembered the shapes of the clouds in the south at dawn on April 20, 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marble grain in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once.”