My name is Carlene. I’m 20 years old and have a diagnosis of Aspergers syndrome. I live at Somerset Court. The last few months I have taken part in research for the Atmospherics project. I’ve loved it and this involves finding out how different colours affect a person.

Red
This session I tried the red coloured silk. I found it nice and relaxing. I like red but I didn’t think it could be a relaxing colour, but it was relaxing.
Orange
This week in Atmospherics I tried the orange coloured silk. Orange is not one of my favourite colours. I don’t hate it, but I don’t like it much either. I found it distracting like the yellow but not as bad as the yellow. I did move around quite a bit under the orange. Orange wasn’t that relaxing.

Yellow
This week I tried the yellow colour silk to see what effect it had. I’m not that keen on yellow anyway. The yellow silk made me feel distracted most of the time and I couldn’t keep still. I just couldn’t relax even though I tried. The yellow silk also made me think too much, that also meant I couldn’t relax.

Green
This session I tried a green coloured silk. I like green a bit. The silk I found nice and cool and fresh. It was quite relaxing. It made me feel like I was lying in the fresh green grass.

Blue
This week I tried the blue silk and it made me feel relaxed – not as relaxed as the violet silk, but close enough. It made me think of the sky and sea because they are both blue.

Violet (Purple)
This week after trying all the other coloured silks I went back to my favourite colour purple silk. I found it as relaxing as before. It was a very relaxing session. It’s made me feel so much better after an unsettled week.

Pink/Magenta
This week I tried the colour pink silk. I’m not a fan of pink, I find it too “girly”. I thought the pink silk was going to be distracting like the yellow silk, but surprisingly it turned out to be calming and relaxing. I also felt nice and cool under the pink silk. Although I don’t like pink, it turned out to be a good session.

White (We don’t usually use white but Carlene wanted to try it.)
Today I tried a white silk and it made me feel distracted at times but not too much. It also was a feeling like I was up in the clouds sometimes.

No Silk
Today I tried no silk at all and I didn’t like it very much. I didn’t feel like I was in my own space at all. With the silk you forget anyone else is there. I felt vulnerable without any silk. I didn’t feel very safe if that makes any sense.

I really look forward to every session. I’ve really enjoyed the research and have come to the conclusion now that my favourite colour is purple. I feel the most relaxed with purple.

Carlene Boulden, September 2008.