Growing up a thicko

One of our adult dyslexic readers emailed us this fascinating piece about how he thinks. It's reprinted here in full:

My schooldays were a nightmare, I was bullied by teachers who had no idea about dyslexia or how it affected the world a dyslexic person lives in. This is an opportunity to record not only my hell at school but also how my mind works.

 

Left and right, up and down, sweet and bitter, love and hate, I’m sure I don’t need to go on giving examples of opposites. As children we lean all about them at school and like most things we don’t question what we are told by our “superiors” be them teachers or parents. During my time as a school boy I clearly remember thinking things weren’t always as they seemed and on occasions I would question something which was clear and obvious to the class (my mates) but seemed “wrong” to me.

The way our brains work is unique to each and every one of us and working with children who suffer/enjoy autism, dyslexia and learning differences in general has helped me to begin the long road of unwrapping the way I as a dyslexic person “thinks”. One aspect of how my mind works relates a lot to my school/teenage years and my ability to dream lucid dreams, I didn’t realise it then but I now know lucid dreaming was a window into how I thought.

Let’s start with my brain which I will call my onion, onion because every now and again I realise something or the “penny drops” and I’m able to peel off another skin from my “onion” reviling a little more into the way I think. I’m not going to explain the ins and outs or the wonder of lucid dreaming as its all well documented, just tap in LUCID DREAMING on your PCs search engine and all will be revealed. What I realise now is that I was questioning everything I was learning; I was able to put new knowledge into shape, form, colour, rhythm, depth and texture but most important of all I could add emotion to my “dream”.

I can't speak for other people but it seems to me that what they are taught is never questioned, at least not on the level I’m trying to explain, as children we were told black is the opposite of white and it was never questioned, it was obvious, but my onion had to work through it, it had to see if there was a skin to peel away, I knew it was a fact that black was the opposite of white but my mind had a mind of it’s own, lucid dreaming was an insight as to how I was working it all out. I believe I had an idea as a school boy as to what was happening but was unable to express myself verbally without making myself sound silly or stupid, few people understood lucid dreaming let alone how my understanding of thought was presenting it’s self.

I have not experienced lucid dreaming since I was in my 20s but I do experience a phenomena while asleep which seems to have taken it’s place, it has taken years to begin to understand what is happening and a surprisingly long time to realise it is a follow on from lucid dreaming.

I guess it has to be called a dream because it only ever occurs when I’m asleep but it’s nothing like a dream at all. It usually happens when I have disturbed sleep, perhaps a dog barking in the distance kicks it off or I may be having difficulty to sleep due to the stresses of the previous day. It is only when I become “aware” of the “vision” that I realise it has been a reoccurring thing, I am also aware of the time I have been having the same vision, some last weeks and some a few days. Once I have become aware of it I never “see” it again, another one always takes its place.

So what is it I “see”…… and why do I think it has a bearing on how a dyslexic person “thinks” !!

It’s a flash of images, all intertwined with no top, bottom, edges or sides. It remains still but I’m able to move in and out as I wish, I’m part of it, we are as one, it has depth like a 3D image. Each part has a meaning and each part has colour. The colour’s not the same as the colour you see during the day, it’s more abstract, not at all like normal colour, the shades of what I see are the shades of emotion, the nearest I can get to what it appears like is metallic or opalescent, it has it’s own depth which I cannot explain. I have over the years begun to understand what it means, some CE (Coloured Emotions) blend into each other, so a feeling of pity within a shape can effortlessly blend into a feeling of sadness, the feeling of tension can blend into a feeling of calm and all the feelings between are readable.

Love and hate often blend together, we are able to love someone yet hate aspects of what they are, love and hate are not opposites, at least not in my world. The opposite of hate is happy, I have never seen hate blend into happy, like water and oil they have there own place and never mix. This is an example of how my mind thinks; it questions everything before accepting what it’s told.

Trying to explain exactly how I “read” this phenomenon is impossible, I can only say over the many years I have experienced them that I am beginning to understand more of what’s happening but I realise I’m only scratching the surface and many more skins on my onion will I hope peel away as time moves on. There are many aspects about the phenomena I experience which I do not understand, why for example when it happens should I feel so ecstatic?

I do think I understand why it only lasts a split second in time, once I “see” the “image” there is nothing else to experience from it, its job has been done and it moves on to the next “image” which will appear in its own time. I liken it to tasting something, for example if you put vinegar on your tongue you know straight away what it is, you have no need to keep thinking about it, your tongue has done it’s job.

Sometimes during the day I may become aware that I have been thinking through a problem, it may have stemmed from an overheard conversation or something off the radio or television. People may have been discussing an issue where no common ground can be found, a difference of opinion or an argument. I suddenly realise that I have been thinking about it unconsciously, my onion has been trying to “sort out” the problem. Occasionally I found I couldn’t stop thinking about the issue and it would literally make my headache. More often than not it was about trivial things of little importance, I have no say in what my onion chooses to worry over, hard as I try to think of other things it has to take its course. Then, I suddenly realise that I am back to “normal” but more important than that is that I have worked out an answer to the problem, at least an answer that is best suited to all parties. For example….

A while ago a police sergeant was talking on the radio about the congestion on the

London

roads, he said he didn’t know what would happen if a solution couldn’t be found. My mind went into involuntary overdrive, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I had flash CE during the night and headaches during the day. Then when it stopped I realised I had thought of an answer, or at least one that could warrant consideration. The answer was this, any car can park in allotted parking areas for free as long as they leave there dipped headlights on, that way the owner would do the shopping in a shorter time as possible, in and out double quick, being in charge of a car with no dipped lights would make for a hefty fine…..

 OK, I realise this is full of holes and would probably never work in practice but I use this example for two reasons.

 1) It’s a good example of how my onion works with no input from me, indeed I couldn’t care less about the congestion on the London roads.

2) I told a few people about the headlight idea, some people thought it a good idea and said I ought to write and tell someone about it (who) !!!!

Quite some time after that I was reading a letters page in a newspaper and low and behold, there was “my” idea sent in by someone, had my idea spread? I know the same idea can materialise from people around the same time but I use this as a good example of what has happened in the past with other “ideas” I have had.

I was diagnosed dyslexic when I was eleven and my parents were told I would probably never read or write very well. I am now in my 50s and realise I was in fact quite bright. I was assessed at the Tonbridge dyslexia institute (I think that’s what it’s called) and was put in the top 15% of intellectuals of my age group, I was also told my reading and writing was that of an eleven year old.

Because my onion never let’s up on mundane trivia the rest of me suffered, it’s like 90% of my brain does its own thing and leaves me with 10%. I hope the 10% I have used for these notes have been worthwhile. I realise this must all sound very odd and strange and I hope you can take it for what it is.

Mick Bean


Mick has written a short story about how he suffered at the hands of teachers back in the 50s and 60s who had no understanding of what dyslexia is. For more details of the book, go to http://www.booksy.co.uk/viewtopic.php?id=64