Well, what do you know? I just found out I’m a Synesthete. No, I’m not an android or a Cylon. Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which (in my case) you associate the days of the week with colors. Synesthetes may also associate numbers, musical tones and various sounds with specific colors. Some of them even see color when music is played.
For most of my life I just assumed that everybody did it. Then I started asking around and people looked at me like I had just spotted Bigfoot. It can’t be that rare. I’m a visually oriented person. I can watch and enjoy the same movie numerous times, noting the director’s choices; changes in camera angle, lighting, perspective, color choices, pacing, and sound score. That’s why I love animation; there are no visual limits. I love to draw, I spent my career in Graphic Design, and now I create comics. There must be a connection.
On the morning drive I started thinking about those colors. Monday is a cool grey, Tuesday is aqua, Wednesday a bright green, Thursday a deep blue, Friday a bright yellow, Saturday a cheery orange and strangely enough, Sunday is silver.
On a whim I did a Google search for the term “associates days of the week with colors” and found out that it had a name and even a diagnosis. Here’s the scoop from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
My colors:
Something interesting happened when I tried to create the graphic. No matter how much I tinkered and adjusted the tints and hues in Photoshop my mind kept shouting at me, “No, No, No! That’s not it. Not even close!”, almost as if these colors do not exist in the physical world. Nor, do they ever change. Synesthetes were quizzed about their choices by Neurologists and tested again after many years. Their colors were extremely consistent.
Perhaps it’s only a trick of memory. I may associate Sunday with the silver chalices used in the Catholic Mass. I can certainly see why Monday morning, the day we all return to work might be portrayed as lacking in color. Or, maybe I received a blue, toy racing car on one special Christmas morning that happened to fall on a Thursday. The human mind is a complete mystery.
But it was definitely a Friday when those yellow Aliens landed in my yard.
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