TO THE BOSTON TERRORISTS, DOMESTIC OR FOREIGN: WE ARE UNITED AGAIN

IT'S TIME TO CHANGE THE WORLD WITH LOVE * AMERICA IS UNITED 

Our prayers go out to those killed or injured in the Boston Marathon. It's time to take a stand against the destruction of our country. More than ever we must come together and unite as the United States. If we start being kinder to each other, no one can defeat us. That means left and right, Black and White, rich and poor. We are so powerful when we are united. A nation divided cannot stand. Love, peace, unity, service. When we think of others' first, our own problems diminish. It's a circle.

In light of the Boston terror attack that just killed an 8-year old child and another adult, as well as injuring 8 children and 110 people, it's time to unite our country and stop fighting each other. A divided nation cannot stand. 

A DIVIDED NATION CANNOT STAND

I am sick of the "Left-Right" divisiveness in the media. It's just a phony ruse to get us to watch TV. It seems to help the Nielsen ratings, which helps the TV networks earn more money through advertisers. There is no real divide. No matter what side you are on, we all want the same ultimate goal: peace. 

All my friends and loved ones, and even Facebook friends whom I have grown to love -- no matter how at odds we seem politically, we all really want the same things in life. We all want to see ourselves are kind, helpful, and generous. We all want prosperity, harmony, abundance, joy, enlightenment, safety, success, comfort, charity, love.

This world was set up to work against human nature. It sets us up to compete against each other and often feel like failures. 

It's time to change the paradigm. 

I have many ideas which I will post, but first I'd like to hear from you. How can we change the world? 

Please comment here. 

Thank you. 

LOVE xoxoxo 

CONGRESS: YOU WIMPS! VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE ON SANE GUN CONTROL

Gun Control vote in Congress tomorrow...

The Sandy Hook tragecy -- a horrifying sacrifice of lambs in the most horrific scene of gun violence our nation has ever witnessed, had to have happened for a reason. These children can't have died in vain.  It had to have happened in order to wake us up. How can anyone in Congress -- Democrat or Republican -- vote against their conscience? How can anyone vote against common sense gun control? How can anyone vote against universal background checks and a limit on military assault weapon sales? 

What has happened to reasonable, sane, good people?  Why are we paying the salaries of Congress people that go against 90% of all Americans who want sane, common sense gun control laws?  Can't you all see the strange intervention of all these horrific gun shootings? Can't you see the way the universe responds to our sick worshp of the gun, a weapon of mass destruction?  Should the government allow everyone to have a stash of Anthrax or a personal nuclear weapon or a missle in their closet, just in case you need it to kill a group of people with?  You think a weapon that can kill 30 people in rapid succession is a normal weapon?  

Is it really fear driving you or "eye for an eye" renegade justice? Tell the truth. I hear enough on late night talk radio, even on Coast to Coast, about storing food and building bunkers.  Since Timothy McVeigh there has been an anti-government fear mongering that is way out of control. Obviously you can't be following Christ if you are living in fear and storing up "treasures on earth" even if it's just corn in silos.. or weapons. This is surreal. It's all in your head. You are not living life at all if you are in fear. Love casts out fear. Haven't you heard?  

If I believed in evil, which I don't as an objective force -- it is obvious that anyone who is against background checks and banning weapons of mass destruction that are hand-held - is walking the edge.

Every show on TV glorifies violence. Primitive men slashing each other. We seem to have a blood lust that won't quit.  My theory is that we are snowballing toward violence so we can find that nothing else will satisfy us but the OPPOSITE OF VIOLENCE.  Today in Court where I had to renew my restraining order against the most mallicious stalker, But my job is to not even think of this man. He is nothing. I have to turn the other cheek and see no enemy. I have no enemies. There are no enemies.

The only way out of hell is to realize that there is no hell.

How dare our TAXPAYER-funded Congressmen and women back down on the most important issue of our time. The main issues I am concerned about as a mother: are mental illness, bullying, hate speech and  alcoholism/drug addiction. It's too easy to pick up a gun when you're depressed or in a rage and you've had too much to drink. Whether a person is suicidal or depressed, angry or full of road rage as is the case on California freeways -- we need to keep guns out of the hands of people with temper issues and those who have substance abuse problems.

In the face of such a tragedy as this (nothing could be more of of a sign that our country is out of control on this issue than the Sandy Hook school shootings of all innocent school children -- how tragic that the gun lobby can bribe our representatives. 

The gun lobby, like all powerful lobbies, represents the GUN MANUFACTURERS. There is no moneyed interest in "banning assault weapons."  There is no moneyed interest in "background checks."  Follow the money: there is TONS OF MONEY in the NRA GUN LOBBY.  It is backed by corporate interests. The gun lobby, like the oil or pharamceutical lobbies, has one prime motive: profit for the gun manufacturers. They make millions of dollars as a collective whose one purpose is to make money for the manufacturers of guns!!

Several people had the nerve to dispute my idea that the gun lobby makes a profit off promoting guns in every form -- guns, guns, and more guns.  

I have to ask them: what is the purpose of a lobby?  Answer that.

I will never vote for anyone who backs down off common sense legislastion to at least consider a ban on ASSAULT WEAPONS and to institute and enforce UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS.

I am a mother. Mothers raise the future grownups of our society and most mothers I know, have the interests of all our young people at heart. The more guns on the street the more accidents. The easier it is to use a gun for a temporary problem. It's a permanent solution.

Who on earth could promote such an ugly weapon of mass destruction as an assault weapon or AK-47?  Why even talk about it?  

Love is everywhere. The more you look for good, the more you will find it. That is my mission now. I love all my friends, even those who are brainwashed by the gun pushers and the drug pushers.

There is an easier, softer way. Love one another. Or at least soften the blows by laughing together. We should all be learning new ways to get along by simply listening to each other, and deflecting the anger with humor. 

I try to turn every tragedy in my life into comedy. And what I most want is for our young people to get their innocence back. We need to be inspired again -- to enjoy life and this beautiful universe!

30 DAYS TO TRANSFORMATION: Get your thoughts right, and everything else will follow. What you focus on GROWS!  Each day when you wake up, take a pad and paper and make a list of things you are grateful for, even if it is just that you woke up!  You have hands, a pen, eyes to see... or a roof over your head.  Add 5 new things each day, or one new thing to be grateful for each day. Do this for 30 days. YOUR ENTIRE LIFE WILL CHANGE. Depression will be gone. I promise you, you will have a healing if you fill your thoughts with the ideas and things you love or want --- and the things you are grateful for.

When we withdraw our attention from our enemies, they expire from neglect.

Death may be sexier than sex to Ann Coulter and the bigots and haters, but not to normal Americans. 

DEATH IS NOT SEXIER THAN SEX - as I wrote to Ann Coulter once. 

It boggles the mind that anyone can dare call them a follower of Christ and brag about their guns. 

For those of you who call yourselves Christian, maybe you should read the Great Peacemaker's words. Christ, the Prince of Peace, would never condone the use of a gun or weapon of ANY KIND. His message was always "love casts out fear." The metaphorical sword he speaks of is the sword that cuts between love and hate. 

You don't find it a bit eerie that Sandy Hook and Superstorm Sandy share a common name? One may have had a hand in turning the tide for Obama's election win because it makes sense that disaster victims receive government help via FEMA funding. Who else is going to step in out of the philanthropy of their heart besides the American people?  Red Cross donations, which we all contribute to I'm sure, can't possibly cover all the losses in a major disaster like Hurricane Katrina or Supertorm Sandy.  This is where Federal Emergency Aid has to come through.  

On the other side — all those haters of taxes (even taxes that fund our common good and vital community needs such as public education, clean water, firefighters, police, highways, etc.) WERE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY with their unwillingness to raise revenue and not just demand tax cuts! 

What a bizarre time to be greedy. The candidate with the desire to help disaster victims via federal aid (FEMA) was the one that won the election. Superstorm Sandy seemed like it fell out of the sky, which it did.  Having taxpayer disaster relief was only common sense. There is no private corporation rushing to provide disaster clean up and free housing to victims, because there is no profit to be made. Who is going to pay for it?  Only the American taxpayer. There are certain things we all need in order to have a living, breathing, viable society -- we all need to help each other in our common welfare. The military, for example.

Our common welfare is not the dirty, socialistic term half the country thinks it is,  think it is after 30 years of listening to Rush Limbaugh (who "earns" $45 million a year to spew hatred and hate speak and to bully good people that happen to be women or God forbid "liberals.")  Our common welfare is the things we share. We share the public highways; we share the water supply. We share the air we breathe. We share the risk of fire damage to our homes. Our government OF the people, by the people and FOR the people.  Our military, our public schools, highways, police, fire, clean water - all help the common good. Paying taxes to help our society function and thrive, instead of cutting social security and medical services is the only way to have a healthy society. Stop living in fear and stop listening to talk radio unless it is loving and cheerful and FUN! 

xoxo
Lydia

A WOMAN'S WORTH: DRESSING LIKE A HOOKER?

Dressing Like a Hooker: A Woman's Worth

I’m not spiritually evolved enough to stop dressing like a hooker, but at least I tried a turtleneck the other day. You can’t get a job in Hollywood without ‘Lap dancer’ on your resume, and I’m referring to the writers not the actors. Wearing death-defying cleavage is supposed to make us more employable or marriageable. And since the only valuable women in America are teenage-wombless-buttless-mutants (TWBMs), I can’t just quit cold turkey. So I’m in withdrawal from cleavage. (more below....) 

If a certain rock star and I hadn't dumped each other back in the 90s, I would have 

lived on his private island in Fiji and life would be too perfect. But since pain is the touchstone of all spiritual progress, I ended up raising three boys and two dogs, including my husband, who were all going through puberty at the same time.

But I had a theory back then:  honestly believed that you were supposed to be married to the person who annoyed you the most, since the most spiritual growth happens with your enemies. That’s why the Arabs and Israelis are next door to each other. They just don’t get it

yet.

Whenever I’ve had regrets about mistakes I’ve made in life, I realize that my son and stepson are my markers. Having the privilege of raising these children is direct evidence that there really are no mistakes. If I hadn't sold my house at the ‘wrong’ time, I would never have found the apartment where I walked into  party and met the future father of my child. I can honestly say I wouldn’t trade my downfall, horrific crash and burn, or the meandering road to wholeness for anything.

On my excruciating Big Sur divorce trip, in which I sobbed love songs into a tape recorder and stopped at every crashing surf vista point —  I stayed alone at The Madonna Inn — a twinky fairyland honeymoon resort —  and asked the host, "Isn't it illegal to stay here alone, after a marriage has ended?" She said "Just the opposite: it's good luck. In fact you will meet someone new and get married here!"   It's true; it was a magical, healing experience. 

(FYI: I stayed in the Krazy Daisy Room, the only room they had left at 10 PM when I rolled into town. It'a an exact replica of my childhood room. I turned on the TV and the newscaster said my name "Lydia" referring to the weather girl. (I played a weather girl on Too Close for Comfort.) Coinkydink? Then I wandered down to the pink leather dining room, where Frank Sinatra was singing a song called "Too Close for Comfort!"  

I don't believe in an anthropomorphic version of God — but I call these 'godshots" (TM) 

More to come....  

This is wonderful!  I met two spectacularly creative young women, both artists, innovators and great thinkers: Christy Heyob and Kerstin Larissa Hovland. Christy is doing amazing things combining art with healing. Kerstin is an innovative artist with a background in computer engineering, who integrates art, performance and technology with music and light.  Both of these women are on the cutting edge, starting new companies. Found this on Christy's blog. Please watch: 

We all get a little scared sometimes. Scared of graduating school without a plan; scared of monsters. One six year old has a remedy: think of something else until the “nervous has gone out of you.” Think of juice, pizza, and a piano shaped chocolate chip cookie. In other words, he says, “when the scared feeling comes into you, the scared is scared of things you like.” This is all advice told to filmmaker Bianca Giaever, who asked one very clever child to tell her a story…about anything…so that she could turn it into a movie.The story she heard was as brilliant as the film she created to go along with the narrative. Giaever explains on her Vimeo, “I asked a six year old what my movie should be about, and this is what he told me.” Watching the finished product leaves you wondering what other genius we’d learn of if children’s voices were heard a little bit more often. And the good news is that given the internet success her short has already had, Giaever probably doesn’t need to be scared about graduating school anymore. From Christy Heyob's site. 

By the way, apropos of nothing... I have to ask: does anyone else love Psych on USA as much as I do? It is relentlessly silly. And Gus has such funny facial expressions. But the show I crave in my sleep is "Arrested Development."  My son and I watched 53 episodes back to back over the holidays. (Catch a clip of "The Best of Lucille Bluth ("I'd rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona" down below.) It was cancelled and the protest grew into a riot, so Ron Howard made a deal to bring it back on Netflix. We all wait with breathless anticipation. Also — in case you missed it, Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters is hilarious as Chelsea Lately's substitute host! Sir Elton John, my favorite, was just on. This was a repeat. )

My favorite music right now: The Lumineers (Hey Ho); Mumford and Sons; The White Stripes "Seven Nation Army; Atlas Genius, Passion Pit, Cage the Elephant, and so many more. Here is White Stripes: 

MY FAVORITE SHOW: ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT!

Easter Even If You're NOT Religious: Renewal, Resurrection, Transformation,

By Jorge Barao, Artist

Written by Blog Contributor "The Easter Worfy" 

_______________

Happy Easter to everyone, believers and non believers alike. Easter celebrates the belief in the resurrection of not only the soul, but the body itself, new life, new birth, hope for something eternal, given us by a man who taught us lessons for life that to this day bring hope to billions all over the world.

Whether or not one believes in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, we cannot escape the very real existence of his life, or the message it brought. One thing we do know about Jesus is he existed. There's actually better historical evidence, albeit limited, than there is for many historical figures we accept without question, such as Alexander the Great, who’s earliest recorded historical account (that we have) was written 400 years after his death. The earliest recorded account of Jesus was written in contrast, a mere 30 years after his death via the Gospel of St Mark. And the earliest non-Christian, non-apologetic references were written a mere 70 years after his death by the Judeo-Roman historian Josephus.

Of course the fact he's referenced at all in Josephus' "Antiquities" speaks volumes. True it is believed that two lines were added claiming Jesus was the Messiah, but the actual reference has never been challenged. Josephus was a Jew who betrayed other Jews in an incident similar to "Masada", where all the Jews cornered committed ritual suicide, and Josephus being one of the last surviving surrendered, and said to the Romans "see, I killed them all for you". For this he was given Roman citizenship, an apartment in Rome and a job as a Librarian and scholar. 

So for him to even mention Jesus, says a lot for the historicity of the man. Other non-Christian non-apologetic sources validate his existence as well, such as the reference to Christ’s crucifixion by Pilate by the Roman Emperor Tactius recorded just 100 years after his death in his final work “Annals”, or the letters to the Roman Emperor Trajan by Pliny the Younger, all provide firm historical validation to the existence of Jesus Christ, and his crucifixion at Rome.  In fact for such a lowly, Judean preacher to be named at all by such significant historical figures even Emperors demonstrates not only the existence of the historical Jesus, but his significance at the time.

Today the internet is full of self-professed intellectual atheists who love to demonize and mock, ridicule and dismiss not only the divinity of Christ but his very existence itself. But these pseudo intellectuals are poorly informed and bent by their own personal animosities towards Christianity, warranted or not.

The fact is Jesus was a real figure in history, and whether you believe in his divinity or not, we cannot escape his life, history and teachings.  Whatever one believes, the man himself lived and taught us lessons for life that if we would only follow or even try to follow, would bring about if not the literal then certainly the virtual reality of heaven on earth that he promised us. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is within each of us. All we have to do, is let it out.

Happy Easter everyone, from the Easter Worfy

____________________________________

From Lydia Cornell's Kitchen: SPRING BREAK EASTER EGGS!

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

Cherish your children, help others. That is our main purpose: forget yourself, think of others first. If the whole world did this, imagine the circle of harmony, love and plenty that would result. "It is by self-forgetting that we find. It's by dying (to selfishness) that we are born to eternal life."  ~ St. Francis

My favorite celebrity, Audrey Hepburn, doing what we are all here for. 

CalArts Mural in Choinard Hall

Calarts Chouinard Hall Mural 

Spirit Orb above my head, Dec. 2012 (4 pictures in a row turned out like this)

Producer Anselmo Martini ("The Apprentice" Brazil) , Lydia Cornell at London Hotel for
Blessings in a Backpack at Kentucky Pre-Derby party

Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Lydia Cornell at DVV's August, 2012 birthday 

Lydia Cornell, December 2012

Lydia Cornell, son Jack walking down the aisle at  Cornell's wedding to Paul H.

Lydia Cornell at London Hotel for Blessings in a Backpack, 2012

We are not material, biological beings in a state of decomposition. We are spiritual beings having a temporary human experience. 

Ancient Light

News feature: 2013-110                                                                    March 21, 2013 Supercomputer Helps Planck Mission Expose Ancient Light The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:  http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-110&cid=release_2013-110 Like archeologists carefully digging for fossils, scientists with the Planck mission are sifting through cosmic clutter to find the most ancient light in the universe. The Planck space telescope has created the most precise sky map ever made of the oldest light known, harking back to the dawn of time. This light, called the cosmic microwave background, has traveled 13.8 billion years to reach us. It is so faint that Planck observes every point on the sky an average of 1,000 times to pick up its glow. The task is even more complex than excavating fossils because just about everything in our universe lies between us and the ancient light. Complicating matters further is "noise" from the Planck detectors that must be taken into account. That's where a supercomputer helps out. Supercomputers are the fastest computers in the world, performing massive amounts of calculations in a short amount of time. "So far, Planck has made about a trillion observations of a billion points on the sky," said Julian Borrill of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif. "Understanding this sheer volume of data requires a state-of-the-art supercomputer." Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant contributions from NASA. Under a unique agreement between NASA and the Department of Energy, Planck scientists have been guaranteed access to the supercomputers at the Department of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The bulk of the computations for this data release were performed on the Cray XE6 system, called the Hopper. This computer makes more than a quintillion calculations per second, placing it among the fastest in the world. One of the most complex aspects of analyzing the Plank data involves the noise from its detectors. To detect the incredibly faint cosmic microwave background, these detectors are made of extremely sensitive materials. When the detectors pick up light from one part of the sky, they don't reset afterwards to a neutral state, but instead, they sort of buzz for a bit like the ringing of a bell. This buzzing affects observations made at the next part of the sky. This noise must be understood, and corrected for, at each of the billion points observed repeatedly by Plank as it continuously sweeps across the sky. The supercomputer accomplishes this by running simulations of how Planck would observe the entire sky under different conditions, allowing the team to identify and isolate the noise. Another challenge is carefully teasing apart the signal of the relic radiation from the material lying in the foreground. It's a big mess, as some astronomers might say, but one that a supercomputer can handle. "It's like more than just bugs on a windshield that we want to remove to see the light, but a storm of bugs all around us in every direction," said Charles Lawrence, the U.S. project scientist for the Planck mission. "Without the exemplary interagency cooperation between NASA and the Department of Energy, Planck would not be doing the science it's doing today." The computations needed for Planck's current data release required more than 10 million processor-hours on the Hopper computer. Fortunately, the Planck analysis codes run on tens of thousands of processors in the supercomputer at once, so this only took a few weeks. Read about the newest results from Planck at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-109 . More information about the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center is online at: http:///www.nersc.gov/ . Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant participation from NASA. NASA's Planck Project Office is based at JPL. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, contributed mission-enabling technology for both of Planck's science instruments. European, Canadian and U.S. Planck scientists work together to analyze the Planck data. More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/planck,http://planck.caltech.edu and http://www.esa.int/planck . Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov - end -

Remove yourself from this mailing.

Remove yourself from all mailings from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENA ~ MONDAY IS YELLOW: ARE YOU A SYNESTHETE TOO?

For years I've been obsessed with neuroscience, brain science, Einstein's Unified Field Theory, quantum physics, dark matter, metaphysics, the origin of consciousness, Jet Propulsion Laboratory CalTech NASA JPL, Mars Curiosity (I love Curiosity!)  the possibility of extraterrestrial life. I also am into unexplained phenomena and the paranormal. Read my upcoming blog on Art Bell and the strange Nevada site where he reigned for years via a radio signal that created the fantastic late night show "Coast to Coast AM." (I know, I know, this show can be very silly, and honestly I do not believe in Big Foot! Tee hee hee, hahaha. There are a lot of conspiracy theories on this show, including Chem Trails, which I don't actually believe in either. By now, there should be some outrage on a massive scale. But time will tell. I actually believe our thoughts create our reality, and this is an amazing way to live life. What you fear will own you. Fear is "False Evidence Appearing Real." What you focus on grows. Withdraw your attention from your enemies and they will expire from neglect. This is the metaphysical secret of the ancients and the "Christ" truth which is LOVE. Love casts out fear.  

On Science Channel they are finally talking about Synesthesia, which I've always had, but never knew the name for it. I thought everyone had it.  Maybe you have it too. Do you see letters and numbers in color? Do you smell shapes and taste colors? 

My son and I argue over our colors. I have always seen letters and numbers in color and shapes, very specific. For example, Sunday is tall and "root-beer-colored" like a tall rectangle or monolith (2001: A Space Odyssey)  Saturday is equally tall, and white. Monday is always yellow, so every man, moron or Monroe I meet is yellow at first. I can memorize lines more easily as an actress and writer since all the letters and names are color-coded. Tuesday is forest green, Wednesday is grayish-white with faint striped pattern; Thursday is brown, Friday is spinach green (cooked, not raw leaves) and the texture is sort of chaotic, faintly striped. Friday ends with a corner that closes off the week. So Monday thru Friday, the school-week/work-week is a series of colored blocks all the same height, then Friday has a corner at the bottom, which is like a cozy safe wall  

January is burgundy.  

You are encased in Friday afternoon and night has a wall on the right, which is the end of the school week. You can lean on the wall. Look up and you’ll see the next day, Saturday, which is really tall and white — but a subdued white with grayish tones. And again, Sunday is tall, root-beer colored.

Also days of the week and months of the year are different shapes and everything has a certain structure.

C is pink, E is light green, F is dark green, G is chocolate brown, H is light brown, I is white, J is root-beer colored, K is burgundy, etc. 
I only found out a few years ago that others also have this. I always thought everyone had it. I just found out my son has it too. People think I'm crazy. ~ Lydia Cornell 

__________

Synesthesia is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. (from 1 in 20 to 1 in 90 to 1 in 20,000).

___________

Richard Cytowic, MD, is one of the world's leading researchers on synesthesia, a mindblowing neurological condition in which two or more senses are linked so that you might, for example, "taste" sounds or "hear" colors. Cytowic and neuroscientist David Eagleman have a new book out, Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, about synesthesia, exploring the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy, and the subjectivity of reality. Jonah Lehrer, author of Proust Was A Neuroscientist and How We Decide, interviewed Cytowic for Scientific American. From SciAm:

LEHRER: What can synesthetes teach us about the nature of human perception?

CYTOWIC: Far from being a mere curiosity, synesthesia is a consciously elevated form of the perception that everyone already has. Minds that function differently are not so strange after all, and everyone can learn from them.

Synesthesia has opened up a window onto a broad expanse of the brain and perception. Younger researchers are now active in 15 countries. Because the trait runs strongly in families, it is easy to collect DNA from a large number of synesthetic relatives. This means that synesthesia may be the very first perceptual condition for which science can map its gene. This inherited quirk is teaching us that cross-talk among the senses is the rule rather than the exception--we are all inward synesthetes who are outwardly unaware of sensory couplings happening all the time.

For example, sight, sound, and movement normally map to one another so closely that even bad ventriloquists convince us that whatever moves is doing the talking. Likewise, cinema convinces us that dialogue comes from the actors' mouths rather than the surrounding speakers. Dance is another example of cross-sensory mapping in which body rhythms imitate sound rhythms kinetically and visually. We so take these similarities for granted that we never question them the way we might doubt colored hearing.

"When Senses Intersect" (SciAm) Buy "Wednesday Is Indigo Blue" (Amazon)

Previously:

                          Hearing-motion synesthesia - Boing Boing

                          These words taste blue: Synesthesia in SciAm - Boing Boing

                          Technological synaesthesia - Boing Boing

Famous People Some celebrated people who may have had synesthesia include:  Vasily Kandinsky (painter, 1866-1944)  Olivier Messiaen (composer, 1908-1992)  Charles Baudelaire (poet, 1821-1867)  Franz Liszt (composer, 1811-1886)  Arthur Rimbaud (poet, 1854-1891)  Richard Phillips Feynman (physicist, 1918-1988) It is possible that some of these people merely expressed synesthetic ideas in their arts, although some of them undoubtedly did have synesthesia. The Biological Basis of Synesthesia Some scientists believe that synesthesia results from "crossed-wiring" in the brain. They hypothesize that in synesthetes, neurons and synapses that are "supposed" to be contained within one sensory system cross to another sensory system. It is unclear why this might happen but some researchers believe that these crossed connections are present in everyone at birth, and only later are the connections refined. In some studies, infants respond to sensory stimuli in a way that researchers think may involve synesthetic perceptions. It is hypothesized by these researchers that many children have crossed connections and later lose them. Adult synesthetes may have simply retained these crossed connections.It is unclear which parts of the brain are involved in synesthesia. Richard Cytowic's research has led him to believe that the limbic system is primarily responsible for synesthetic experiences. The limbic system includes several brain structures primarily responsible for regulating our emotional responses. Other research, however, has shown significant activity in the cerebral cortex during synesthetic experiences. In fact, studies have shown a particularly interesting effect in the cortex: colored-hearing synesthetes have been shown to display activity in several areas of the visual cortex when they hear certain words. In particular, areas of the visual cortex associated with processing color are activated when the synesthetes hear words. Non-synesthetes do not show activity in these areas, even when asked to imagine colors or to associate certain colors with certain words. Synesthesia and the Study of Consciousness Many researchers are interested in synesthesia because it may reveal something about human consciousness. One of the biggest mysteries in the study of consciousness is what is called the "binding problem." No one knows how we bind all of our perceptions together into one complete whole. For example, when you hold a flower, you see the colors, you see its shape, you smell its scent, and you feel its texture. Your brain manages to bind all of these perceptions together into one concept of a flower. Synesthetes might have additional perceptions that add to their concept of a flower. Studying these perceptions may someday help us understand how we perceive our world.

Hear IT!

Synesthesia

Limbic

Synesthesia Experiment Read a list of random numbers between 0 and 9 at a rate of about one every 3 seconds. For example: 7, 9, 4, 0, 3, 8, 2, 5, 1, 6. After each number is read, ask people to write down the number and what COLOR that they associate with each number. Collect the answers. These will be called "Answers #1". Two to three weeks later, repeat the experiment, but change the order of the numbers. For example: 3, 6, 5, 9, 4, 1, 7, 0, 5, 2, 8. Collect the answers. These will be called "Answers #2". Compare Answers #1 with Answers #2. A person with synesthesia will have all or most of the same number-color pairs on both Answers #1 and Answers #2.This experiment can also be done using letters instead of numbers.

References and more information on synesthesia, see: Cytowic, R., Synesthesia: Phenomenology and Neuropsychology, A Review of Current Knowledge. Psyche: An interdisciplinary journal of research on consciousness. Synesthesia Test Mixed Signals Synesthesia Links American Synesthesia Association Synesthesia and the Synesthetic Experience Richard E. Cytowic Web Site Nunn, J.A., Gregory, L.J., Brammer, M., Williams, S.C.R., Parslow, D.M., Morgan, M.J., Morris, R.G., Bullmore, E.T., Baron-Cohen, S., and Gray, J.A. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of synesthesia: activation of V4/V8 by spoken words, Nature Neuroscience, 5:371-375, 2002. Palmer, T.J., Blake, R., Marois, R., Flanery, M.A., and Whetsell, Jr., W., The perceptual reality of synesthetic colors, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 99:4127-4131, 2002. Lemley, B., Do You See What They See? Discover, Vol 20, No. 12, December 1999. Cytowic, R.E., The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998. Cytowic, R.E. and Eagleman, D.M., Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2009. Cytowic, R.E. Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 2002. Duffy, P.L., Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds, New York: WH Freeman & Co, 2001. Mass, W., A Mango Shaped Space, Boston: Little, Brown, 2003. Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes - Ramachandran, V.S. and Hubbard, E.M., Scientific American, Vol 288 Issue 5 (May 2003), 52-59.