h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Monestial blue is the extremely penetrating deep blue you'd associate with stained glass windows with the light behind them. It's quite like Prussian blue. If green glass bottles were blue, that's the colour they'd be- it has the same character, if that makes sense. The grass description's a good one, it makes perfect sense to me.
I don't really know many people with migraines, but that doesn't prove anything.
Although the incidence of synaesthesia is supposed to be 1 in 2000, there seems to be a disproportionate number of us on the Guide. And until I heard it mentioned as a condition, I thought everyone had it too.

This thread didn't start off as a how can you tell you're colour-blind discussion. I said, how can you be sure that the colours you're seeing are the same as everyone else's. Obviously you can't, because they're not. I suppose if you're told something is called beige you'll see it as that (beige is a vague term anyway) and obviously, it won't be orange even if it is visually very similar.
As for colour-blindness, you probably wouldn't know about it. I think Duncan said he wasn't aware of it until he had tests, and still doesn't notice any deficiency.
I find it odd though that one group can see an object as blue, and the other purple (definately purple, not purplish-blue) enough to argue about it. They obviously were seeing very different things, or else used different terms for the same colour; but the latter is unlikely, or they'd be doing it all the time.

Well, one way of finding out you´re color blind is if people are using different names for the same color. Like two things you see as brown somebody claims is actually red and brown. But of course that could also happen when meeting an artist or a guy who works in a paint shop. You thinking it is simply blue, but the other insisting that it is a mix of azure and monestial blue.

I´ve also been told some people can see infrared. Does anyone know if this is true or just made-up. I can´t remember where I read it.

i've often wondered if those with blue eyes see colour differently then those with green or brown,my understanding is that blue eyes are more light sensitive

Well, that is partially true. The eyes aren´t more sensitive but people with blue eyes usually have sensitive skin. Blue eyes are caused by not having much pigmentation, which means your skin is easily damaged by the sun.

Wow! another question to which I'd love to know the answer!

I'll start the ball rolling - I have green-brown eyes (if it helps, the green encircles the brown, and if you really want to nit-pick, the brown is just brown, but the green is the colour of late-summer-leaves). Anyway, I have very good night vision.

My control in this case is my social circle (about six people). In the case of going into a room which is partially lit by ambiant light from the street-lamp outside, they will almost certainly trip over something, or complain. I am capable of reading in the dark, with a light on in the next room.

The downside of this is I'm almost pained by a sudden increase in light. I don't mind lightning, but a lightbulb being turned on, particularly if I've been asleep, is nearly debilitating.

x x Fenny
Now awaiting responses from a wide-ranged sample of eye-coloured researchers!

Brown eyes (dark shade, like creosote): I have fairly good dark-vision. I don't like to look at things in the dark because it scares me- super-active imagination.

I also have fairly good night vision I think. But I also used to have pretty good vision in general, it just seems to me it´s decreasing. But it is really annoying when somebody turns on bright lights when you´re sitting in the dark. I feel like doing a Gizmo.

But I guess i shouldn´t complain. I once flashed a guy with a camera in his face after we had been out in the dark for two hours. He couldn´t see for a few minutes

But is is possible to change your eye color? It seems to me mine changes on a regular basis. Which an ex-gf of mine also used to comment on.

My brother has mad chameleon eyes, which seemingly change with the weather. They're generally green, shading to green-based blues, browns, hazel and grey. And I am jealous.

Just be thankful you aren't David Bowie.

I'm jealous of him, too. You could freak so many people out just by having dissimilar eyes.

Here's some more for your random sampling, Fenny. I have very light, intensely blue eyes. I'm nearsighted as can be, my peripheral vision is not so hot, I'm sensitive to bright light but can manage quite well in dim light once I've adjusted to it. I think I see more variations in color than just about anyone I know. My friends think I'm nuts when I watch a sunset and get all excited about the changes that they don't notice.

I have light blue/grey eyes (and some natty white flecks as well according to one optician who examing my eyes once ). I am also very short sighted. How does one determine if they can percieve more colours than others? It's not something that I've really thought about before.

I seem to pick up on variations in color that are too subtle for some other people to notice. Maybe it's something like the opposite of color blindness. I can remember them really accurately, too. Makes it easy when I want to match something, for example, because I don't need to take along a swatch of something if I want to get an exact match. The only other use I've found for it (I'm a makeup artist) is that I can put together unorthodox colors and get a look that works. I think of them in terms of weight and luminosity. It's not a big deal, though I think the world probably looks more vibrant to me than to some other people.

Do colours suggest other things to you, like certain sounds?

That sounds like a backhanded way of getting a synaesthesia thread going again!

x x Fenny

Yes it was; but I'm sulking 'cos no one's taken that idea up yet!

Have you seen the synaesthesia article? There are some threads on there.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A558371

Oh and I don't get those sensations.

That was abortive!

I do get those sensations! But only with phone numbers and constant tones.

x x Fenny (desperately seeking some new multi-sensory experience)

I wasn't trying to stop the thread as I'm finding it right interesting!
I thought I'd point the article out in case it's not been seen (lots of older edited articles don't get read any more )

Yes, I've been there and posted. No one replied to those! so I'm pursuing the issue here. It's probably the thing I'm finding most fascinating at the moment- catch it quick, before it's replaced by... I don't know, boiled eggs. Maybe.
What colour would you say soft-boiled yolk is?

-Mandragora, eating boiled egg & soldiers at 2.18 a.m.