Do you Tetrachromacy?

I do! do you?

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I have to agree with her, in that having studied Art and so having to stare at objects all day, brought out the latent tetrachromacy in me more… but, then again… I never was a normal child to begin with.

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I was earlier today… I saw glowing violet folds, edging the folds of the beige bedroom curtains, during the slow approach of this morning’s dawn… was mesmerising, and also saw colourless edging around the other objects… well, not so much colourless, as a clear fog… not so mesmerising.

I studied university level arts and I am a tetrachomatic which makes me wonder if that is one aspect of my abilities that drew me into the arts so because of being tectrachromatic I was compelled to study art.

Sadly, no.

Art choosing the tectrachromat, not the tectrachromat choosing Art… one by one all my other subjects dropped away and all that was left was Art.

So yes, perhaps so… there isn’t just yellow in yellow or blue in blue but a multiple of colours within that one object or thing.

…can one miss what one doesn’t know of?

I’m surprised that Science hasn’t yet found the ability to wire a person up to a ‘visual maker’ i.e. artificial vision generator… or have they?

Where is Science when we need it most… inventing new and improved ways to dis-able us into docility and submission, so the peasants can never revolt again.

Those who are born completely blind never have their visual cortex stimulated, so it atrophies and, it is reckoned, most of its processing power (which is actually quite big, since vision is very complicated) is given over to other functions. In other words, it is not possible to “wire a person up”. On the other hand, for those who lose their sight later in life there is every chance of success, and much has already been done.

But to answer your first point, no, of course not. I do not consider my life deficient in any way.

I did not imply a deficiency in you at all, but posed an empirical inquiry on ‘the absence of loss’, which in my mind implies that the unexperienced cannot be fully-imagined and cannot therefore be manifested into a ‘feeling/feelings’, so you will never have that feeling of loss… I am not sure which is preferable?

Do you think you have acquired other senses beyond the ones we know as verifiable?

It’s certainly true that I can’t imagine what vision is like, much as I’ve tried. But not in a sad or bitter sort of way, but rather, one of insatiable curiosity.

If you mean a psychic sense, I believe I once had a prophetic dream, which I’ve mentioned before. I sometimes hear things, voices and such, that aren’t there, especially when waking up. So in other words, they could be part of a dream.

But if you’re talking about actual physical senses, I have very good echo location, as do many people born blind. If I click my tongue rapidly I can tell the size of a room I’m in, or if I’m outside, large objects up to about 30 feet away. This doesn’t work if I have a cold though, so I tend to bump into things a lot more.

Sounds akin to unrequited love, from your above premise… think of that feeling, then apply it to those thoughts… it could start triggering your imagination to ‘go there’ as I think the imagination is borne of thought and feeling.

I’ll have to revisit that thread, and get back to you here on it, as I do not recall what your dream was about.

…a skill acquired from a young age, or honed over many years?

Well, I know all about unrequited love too, sad to say. It’s not the same.

The dream was when I was at school. It was just before the summer holidays and we were all looking forward to coming home (I went to a boarding school), and I dreamt that when I got there my home and all its surroundings were just a pile of rubble. I have a very vivid memory, so vivid I can still feel it today, of crawling through broken glass, bricks and wood, cutting my knees and hands open while doing so. A few days later, my home town was hit by a tornado, doing thousands of pounds worth of damage, which you really don’t expect in the UK. My home was unscathed, though.

The echo location just came naturally. I didn’t have to develop it.

Oh yes, I do recall your dream recount… such occurrences stick with us for life, as they’re not your everyday folly, and so become ingrained in the psyche… seared into a part of mind, by a biochemical branding iron of sorts. Who knows what premonitions are borne of. :confusion-shrug:

So, an instinct kicked in? borne from a need, it seems… were you very young/a toddler, when it started to manifest?

The echo location? I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have it. It’s simply a natural sense.

I’m sorry Mags I sort of derailed your thread. Tetrachromacy is actually really interesting, as is anything to do with visual perception. Can you explain to me, in a way that I might understand, what the difference is between that and normal sight? Yes, I agree it’s a bit of a challenge.

Tetrachromats see over 9+ million more colours than those who aren’t tetrachromats, which enables the tetrachromat to see colours within the colour of an object (where others would only see that one colour) due to having an extra/4th cone that causes the phenomenon, which is caused by a genetic mutation… mainly in females.

Colours pop out at you, and sometimes swirl across the object, which is quite a psychedelic experience because of that. I have no idea what use it has in humans, but it has a mesmerising effect, as the mind seems to be taken up with translating this multitude of colour variation within the object.

Does this genetic mutation tend to come as a package with other genetic mutations and traits, as is so often the case? For all I know, I might even have it.