Do Your Planets Have Papparazzi, Too?

One day, Meredith and I were laying in my bed talking and one of those incredible conversations unfolded little by little.

She started by saying, "You know what the weirdest thing to me is? Gravity." We talked about it for a few minutes and the conversation took a predictable course into the topic of space in general. Meredith shared with me that she always thought of the planets as different colors. Pluto, for example, was purple. At one point, I asked her what color Saturn was and she said, "Whoops, Mrs. Toler forgot Saturn in that picture. Let me get another picture." What she was saying was that during our conversation, she was looking at a mental picture she had of the Solar System from Mrs. Toler. Mrs. Toler was her third grade teacher. Meredith must have been looking at a picture her teacher had drawn on the board of the Solar System in which Saturn was missing. Fortunately, Meredith has multiple mental pictures of the Solar System.  She said it's hard to count, but she estimates maybe she has about 100 pictures in her mind.

So, as Meredith buried her head in the pillow, pausing the conversation while she was looking for a more complete mental picture of the Solar System, I asked her where exactly she was looking for this new picture. She explained to me that she has three places to look for space. There is "space" as in a physical area like a person's bedroom or a museum room. Then there is "space" like in your personal space (or your "space bubble" she explained). Lastly, there is a file on "space" as in outer space.

I asked her if she remembered when one day she told me that she had gone to her mental pictures of the Solar System and started labeling it with words for the first time. It was about two weeks after we started our therapy with Dr. Florance to improve her verbal thinking system. It was one of the obvious signs that the therapy was really working.  It was so remarkable. Now instead of just thinking of the Solar System in pictures, she was thinking of it in pictures AND words.

Then, of course, Meredith started telling me all about each planet and how they were each different personalities.  (I didn't know this at the time, but this is another example of her object-personification synesthesia.)

First, there is Sunphie, the Sun. She is bossy and talks like a California teenager.  For example, she tells Vestean (Venus), "You should really get some life on your planet."  Vestean answers back, "Why don't YOU have life?"  Sunphie replies, "Because I'M smokin' hot!"

Mercury and Mars are brothers--Max and Mark Murcer.  Mark is always mad at Max because he copies him.

Earth is the Peacemaker and his name is Earthen.  He is SO happy all the time since he is the only planet with life.  Earth's Moon is kind of boring.  He says, "Hello...thank you for landing on my face."  He is sort of like a butler for Earthen.  But as he circles Earth, he moves close to Vestean who is always asking him for things when he passes by.

The funniest and most clever thing of all, to me, is that she said the stars are the paparazzi taking pictures of all the planets.  The stars' twinkling, of course, is the flash going off on their cameras.

Next comes sophisticated Jupiter whose name is SJ.  He says, "Hello, fellow citizens!"  The hurricane is his birthmark. Saturn is very mature, and Neptune is hyper, constantly saying, "Hi star, hi star, hi star..."

Poor Uranus is named Urinater and he always has to pee, as you can tell from the expression on his face.  Lastly, shy little Pluto is named Penelope Purple.  Everyone else calls her "Penelope P."

Meredith said she could talk about the Solar System for hours and hours, but of course that would bore everyone!

Music is the "Go-To"

I recently read this great post by a teen with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), "Music is my 'Easy' Button." Through that post, she enlightened me to three main reasons why music is so much more appealing than talking for people with APD:

1.  Talking (for those with APD) is monotone.  Music is the antithesis to monotone.
2.  Talking is fast.  Music has long pauses, which makes processing the words much easier.
3.  Talking is random.  Music has a beat or pattern, which helps in processing and remembering the words.

What a smart young lady to analyze why music is so helpful to her. I asked Meredith if this was the case for her as well and she definitely agreed. She expanded on the fact that music has long pauses by saying that each word itself is drawn out, and as a result, easier to process.

One thing I have always been curious about is why it is that Meredith struggles with repeating conversations that she has had, yet can remember all the words to almost every song she hears.

I suspect that synesthesia has something to do with how easy it is for Meredith to remember song lyrics. I know that Meredith sees colors when she hears music. When I asked her how she remembers the words, she said that along with the seeing colors from the music, she sees the words as well--kind of like you would see on a karaoke screen I imagine.  (This sounds like what some people describe as "ticker-tape synesthesia.") Each song has different colors and lyrics. For example, one song might elicit blue and purple and the words would be green. I would think that in some form or another, this must help her in remembering the lyrics.

One other interesting thing Meredith told me was that she can listen to music in her mind.  Not imagining the music, but actually hearing it.  Here is a story that explains this a little bit...

Meredith and one of her good friends like to send videos to each other. Meredith told me that this morning, she was singing a song (into a hairbrush microphone) and recorded it for her friend. When she played it back to herself, she was surprised because she didn't hear the music playing in the background along with her singing.  She then realized that the music she thought was playing out loud was actually just in her head!