Rob Heinsoo - Two Point Five Years of Color

Rob Heinsoo

Two Point Five Years of Color

5th-Sep-2008 04:29 pm

Until 2006 I was colorblind. Show me a sunset and I saw shades of green. Hand me a pink shirt and I was sure it was grey. Before my first date with Lisa, my future wife, I gave her my address and described my house as the gray house on the corner. The only gray house on a corner anywhere in the neighborhood belonged to the local drug dealers, which she realized when they opened the door and called inside to see if there was a ‘Rob’ sprawled somewhere in the haze. Lisa said “Uh, sorry, I’ve got the wrong house,” backed up and found me in the blue house on the corner.

On February 8, 2006, I sat at home typing Dreamblade notes on my laptop computer while Lisa went to hear a National Geographic lecture with her mom. As usual, I had Windows Media Player humming along playing music. I liked having the Alchemy visualizer twirling colors around at the side of the screen while I worked. Suddenly the screen flashed orangecrimsonpinkpurplescarletblueviolet. I’d always thought of the program as a mix of flashing yellows and blues and some greens. Had the visualizer changed? No, it was the same program I always used. But these were actual colors! I sat and watched the full spectrum twisting for almost an hour.

I knew that I had a conclusive color vision test hanging on the wall across the living room from me. The day before I’d had my nose pressed to a landscape painting by Lisa’s brother, trying to see the pink in the sky that she said was the painting’s best feature. I hadn’t been able to see anything except some dark streaks. I pointed to them and said, “Is this the pink?” but Lisa just shook her head, saying that I might as well not try.

When I dared to set the computer aside and sneak up on the landscape, I was ecstatic to find that the sky wasn’t just a blue and gray wash. There was the pink. And those dark streaks I’d noticed the day before? They were beautiful orange.

Lisa came home and found me sitting in a pile of all our art and photo books, spread out on the floor, looking at colors and details I’d never seen. I was bawling. I was overwhelmed by the reality that this was how everyone else saw the world all the time. Lisa had to talk me into going to sleep, I was worried that I was going to wake up and it would all be gone.

Two years later, I still have color vision. I don’t have a medically verified explanation for how I regained colors, but with a prompt from a neurologist friend of Lee Moyer’s, I have put together a good guess. No one ever accused me of being colorblind until I was in fourth grade. I don’t remember having any trouble recognizing colors when I was younger and I didn’t have any trouble recognizing them when my color vision came back. But when I was in third grade I ran into a metal pole at a full downhill sprint. It was a serious head injury and it left me with symptoms that bothered me into my thirties. Those symptoms have all gradually gotten better or gone away. My guess is that I also lost the world’s colors to that metal pole.

After decades, something has reconnected. The tangled impulses composing my mind have agreed to show me colors again.

I’m happy.

Tags:mind, perception, transformation

Comments

6th-Sep-2008 12:29 am (UTC)

leemoyer

Woo hoo!
Color and the LJ, what a crazy new millennium for you.

Delighted to see you here old thing. And delighted that so many great game folks are present, Robin, wanton heat jet, gloomforge and now you.

6th-Sep-2008 01:44 am (UTC)

gloomforge

I'd heard the story from Mr. Moyer, but it's still amazing. It's good to know that miracles do happen, and to the people who deserve them.

6th-Sep-2008 01:46 am (UTC)

gloomforge

Of course, with that said, I should warn you that your 2.5 color is soon to become outdated; 3E Color is coming out later this year, and it's going to simpler and more streamlined, with much stronger defined roles for the primary colors.

6th-Sep-2008 02:27 am (UTC)

leemoyer

You crack me up little chum.

6th-Sep-2008 03:06 pm (UTC) - color blind page format

wanton_heat_jet

If you were still colorblind, you'd have an excuse for using this format for your pages. The color scheme makes me wish I were colorblind.

I mean, Great story!

17th-Sep-2008 02:49 pm (UTC) - Re: color blind page format

bruceb

I rise in support of the honorable gentleman from Luton or wherever the heck it is. :)

22nd-Sep-2008 04:45 am (UTC) - Re: color blind page format

robheinsoo

I fear you may be right.

I tell myself you don't know what you're talking about because I know you've recently dissed the colorful way your daughter painted your garage, and I LIKE that paint job.

Of course my appreciation of your garage may just be more evidence for your case.

17th-Sep-2008 02:51 pm (UTC)

jonnynexus

What happened when you first went through your wardrobe (closet)? Did you look at your outfits and scream?

:)

22nd-Sep-2008 04:45 am (UTC)

robheinsoo

I leave the screaming at my outfits to my friends.

17th-Sep-2008 03:09 pm (UTC)

goobermunch

Rob,

Thanks for sharing this story. I think the human brain is such an amazing organ. In my work, I often deal with people who have brain injuries, so I found your story fascinating. I'm perpetually curious about brain injuries and the symptoms and sequallae they cause. Color blindness is a new one for me. I suppose that means that the injury impacted your visual processing centers, which is kind of cool, since it means your impairment resulted not from deficiencies in your eyes, but in your brain.

--G

17th-Sep-2008 03:18 pm (UTC)

jagyr_ebonwood

Welcome to LJ Rob. Good to see you here. Great story by the way. All the more touching because it's true.

17th-Sep-2008 03:38 pm (UTC)

madmanofprague

That's so weird. So, it was all just gray? Were they different grays than other grays (warmer, colder)?

22nd-Sep-2008 04:48 am (UTC)

robheinsoo

No, not all just gray. Fact is, as goobermunch pointed out a couple comments above, my brain just wasn't processing colors the way other people's brains processed colors. So I could actually see some colors, some of the time. But pinks? Never. And some oranges? Nope. And blues might look gray and so on. Not the type of consistent perception you get when systems are actually working properly.

17th-Sep-2008 05:13 pm (UTC)

mythusmage

In a blatant attempt to make you feel bad, I write to tell you about the millions of people (mostly women) who can see a fourth color. Which means, in effect, they can see millions of colors instead of a few hundred thousand. Then you have people who can see sounds. Visual processing is a complicated thing.

17th-Sep-2008 05:53 pm (UTC)

gamescribe

Hey, it's Rodney, just dropping you a line to let you know this is my LiveJournal name.

17th-Sep-2008 06:36 pm (UTC)

jbru

Very interesting story! If you haven't run into it already, you may be interested in the book My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, a book about a neurologist's experience having and recovering from a stroke. I've seen her story a few times and a friend recommends the book highly.

17th-Sep-2008 07:22 pm (UTC)

righteousfist

That's amazing, Rob.

It's Hal, by the way. Add me! :)

17th-Sep-2008 07:30 pm (UTC)

anaka

Yay Rob! I'm glad to hear you're still in the world of color. Also that you have an LJ. Wonders never cease. *grin*

17th-Sep-2008 07:55 pm (UTC)

drivingblind

Man.

17th-Sep-2008 09:18 pm (UTC)

zomben2

What a tremendous story!

(This is Ben Monroe, BTW, in case you couldn't guess...)

17th-Sep-2008 09:54 pm (UTC)

armadillo_king

That metal pole explains a lot. ;)

Glad to see you here.

Jeb

18th-Sep-2008 12:10 am (UTC)

merricb

Sometimes, life is good. I'm so happy to hear that story, Rob. :)

18th-Sep-2008 03:28 am (UTC)

avylou

This is amazing and fascinating. I'm so happy for you! Brains are so cool.

18th-Sep-2008 03:52 am (UTC)

richardthinks

I knew it was possible to lose blue/yellow distinction through an injury, but I've never heard from anyone who actually did, much less from anyone who recovered. I suspect you're potentially interesting to neurologists, if you feel like advancing the cause of science.

Great post, thanks.

2nd-Oct-2008 07:37 am (UTC)

revjohn

I think it was the mental pressure of all the preparation I demanded from you for my wedding that finally did it.

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