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Jessica Wurtz's picture

Seeing Personality

So when I read this post, it made me think of something that is only somewhat related, and much more off the wall, but nevertheless, it came into my head. I started thinking about people who claim to be able to see people's "auras" that surround them and what color that person emits. I don't think I disbelieve that people can do this, it seems to me just another sensory cross-over like the people with synesthesia. When most people see and interact with others, they take in things such as like what people physically look like, what their voice sounds like, etc. Often, this also comes with an underlying impression of their personality, and sometimes is not based on anything factual, it is just what we often call instinct. So the average person might think that some people are cheerful, sad, mean, or any variety of personality descriptions. But it seems that a small population of people can actually see these descriptions in color form. The cheerful might be a sunny yellow, sad might be deep blue, and mean maybe black or something.

But the general population brushes these people who see auras off in disbelief. Why can't this just be another kind of synesthesia, and those people just happen to have a different way that their neurons are wired? We've been talking about how each individual perceives their environment differently than the next, so maybe this is just one of those different ways to perceive people that is rare among the general poplulation. My questions are the same as in the previous post about hearing colors, as to how different sense are connected, or disconnected, depending on how you want to look at it.

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