I was born at the tail end of the rubella wave in the 60s, before they came up with the nifty "German measles" vaccine children get now. My mother had rubella while she was pregnant. Consequently, I was born with "minimal brain dysfunction," a compact way of saying, "Eek, who did the wiring in this place?" With MBD, the effect is like your mind is a giant switchboard where some joker unplugged all the wires and plugged them back in random order. While I'm pretty sure any tree I see looks essentially the same to the guy standing next to me, I may be able to "hear" the tree growing, "smell" its color, and "see" parts of it that he doesn't see. It's a distorted reaction to sensory input reminiscent of schizophrenia, only without the debilitating mental illness. Mostly.

- from Constructing Your Own Hallucination Engine by Roy K. Felps

"Dead Bug," watercolor by M.J. Bole.