I often wonder if people who have learning disabilities or other kinds of perceptual differences are being locked into a label based on a narrow understanding of reality? There are a plethora of ways to know and perceive. How exciting this is.
Off hand, I don’t know of many famous woman with these traits. Unfortunately, the life stories of woman are so often lost to us in an abyss of outright or subtle misogyny.
Although both Einstein and Steve Jobs, famous men, were dyslexic we still consider people who are dyslexic slightly broken or disabled .
But in the book The Dyslexic Advantage people who are dyslexic are revealed to have special gifts like the ability to visualize and grasp systems and patterns. They are also able synthesizers of information.
And then again there are people with synesthesia i.e. the melding of the senses.
Synesthesia has many forms.
There are over 80 kinds of synesthesia including mirror touch. These people feel other people’s physical sensations and pain like a phantom sensation Eg a touch on the cheek that one feels similarly if less intensely.
There are also people who feel other people’s emotions including suffering, highly empathic people.
I wonder how often are highly sensitive people and healers of many kinds are experiencing this version of synesthesia ?
Are these gifts or anomalies?
I saw a video of a musician who said nearly all musicians that he knew had the kind of synesthesia where color and sound are melded together. I know my brother Ed experiences this kind of synesthesia and writes music that are like visual stories full of color and movement.
I have both dyslexia and synesthesia. My dyslexia is milder than some. I’ve been able to learn to read just fine but my grammar and certain details are still a bit challenging for me. Most people don’t know I have either. After all, I am well educated. Still, Sometimes I may look stubborn, undisciplined, or befuddled when, for example, I ask, yet again, for an often repeated instruction.
But I wouldn’t give up either of these ways of experiencing the world. These kinds of perception somehow suit my purpose in life and what I have to share with others. Lets embrace our gifts and differences.
