CC Hart - CC Hart

The photo shows a billboard for the AI company exa.ai. eaturing a magnificient white pegasus unicorn flying over a cotton candy pink clouds. There’s a clear blue sky in the background, and an arcing rainbow. The text reads 'Hallucintaions are fun, but not from your AI."

AI Marketing Has a Hallucination Problem

I hallucinate. These forced perceptions come to me only at night and are, at times, terrifying. Sometimes, right as I fall to sleep, I open my eyes and see large objects that look like multilegged mutant starfish. They dangle in the air above my head shimmering and swirling, their bodies crazed like pottery. They appear…

The word synesthesia as seen by CC Hart and when perceived via grapheme-color synesthesia

Words, Words, Words…

My partner and I like to play the Spelling Bee game in the New York Times. We have a strategy; I try to solve the pangrams while he picks away at the other words on the list. It’s typical for us to learn an unfamiliar word every few puzzles, often from the field of ornithology.…

The Color of Summer

Just another fog-shrouded summer day in The Sunset. Spring is yielding to summer here in California and there’s no surer sign of that transition in San Francisco than the ubiqutous fog bank that hangs over the Sunset District. In this neighborhood at the western edge of the city, summer days are gray and cool with…

Monstrous

“The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination”-Richard Wright According to the OED, my favorite writer’s resource, the word “monstrous” refers to not only a large, ugly, and imaginary creature, but to something which is extraordinary and/or unnatural. I’ve often felt my mirror-touch synaesthesia fits that second description; it’s outside of the…

Needled

By: Carolyn CC Hart January 11, 2017May 19, 2019

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H3N2 virus, my nemesis du jour I’ve been sick with influenza this week. The flu fairy arrived Sunday night and brought me all her gifts: fever, body aches, a sore throat and that hideous orbital headache I always get with respiratory viruses. I’ve missed several days of work, and am a bit worried I passed…

Midnight Clear

By: Carolyn CC Hart December 25, 2016May 19, 2019

"Carolyn Hart", "CC Hart", "Research on Synaesthesia", "Synaesthetes", hypnagogia, neurodiversity, Neuroscience"Carolyn Hart", CC Hart, Christmas, neurodiversity, neuroscience, sinestesia, synaesthesia, synesthesia, synesthesie1 Comment

I’m curious about the potential for co-morbidities in synaesthetes. My interest in the psychological and neurological conditions that are concurrent with synaesthesia is rooted in my own family’s diffuse weirdness, and amplified by the fascinating line up at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland for UKSA2016. Duncan Carmichael PhD (University of Sussex) presented on “The Health…

Built for Hurt

By: Carolyn CC Hart July 13, 2016May 19, 2019

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Photo courtesy of Roberto Vongher and Wikimedia Commons I’m delighted to have my essay “Built for Hurt” published in the inaugural issue of qualia, an “experimental journal dedicated to creative and critical thinking at the intersection of the arts, humanities, and medical sciences. With a focus on lived experiences, embodied encounters, phenomenological investigations and…

Less Gore, More Gorgeous

Photo by Valentina Saduil I’m glad that Halloween is over. Once upon a time, it was my favorite holiday. When I was a kid, I’d spend weeks planning the perfect costume, trying to hit that sweet spot between spooky and beautiful. I would comb through my mother’s closet for dresses and accessories that could transform…