Words stuck in your head- perservation/echolalia?

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It is when I hear words( and recognise them), but don't get the meaning.

Mmm I have both language and pop music 'echolalia'. I think in pop music they call the catchy bit a 'hook', which is meant to have the effect of pulling people in, emotionally or rhythmically or something. It's interesting because I don't get it with classical music, although that has some 'hooks' too, they're much longer sequences than in pop music. I think they're (humourously) called 'earworms'.

I'm finding the music phrase thing playing over and over in my head is worse now than when I was younger(I didn't really have it at all when I was young), and I don't even have to hear the song, it just comes from er memory or possibly some supermarket or shop or tv background music that I don't notice at the time.

With language, I go over and over what was said until I obliterate the original coversation, then I'm not sure what was really said, which is a big problem.

PP

It is true that the lyrics are repetitive. But when I listen to music it is not just the lyrics I pick up, but every little detail of the song, the hooks, the beat everything. So with songs are quite simple instrumentally, I can hear it in my head perfectly. But Radiohead songs just have so many.... 'layers' to them. Eh, I can't explain it, I'm not a music person. There is just so much going on behind their songs, beats upon beats, changing pace, rising and falling synths, background voices, other random assorted bleeps and bloops. Examples of this are Backdrifts, Where I End and You Begin and Idioteque (I can never figure out the drumbeats to this one, I think there are 2 of them).

Radiohead rocks I have this suspicion that Thom Yorke has Aspergers...

Me

Ah, ok. I'd be interested to hear that others tell you about that, because I have the same problem.



I know, that's why I like them. It's the type of music I feel like I can be "immersed" in.



Why do you say that?

Ever seen the way he 'dances' in live shows? Its awkward. He doesnt seem to have much control over facial expressions either...And he is also quite reclusive I heard, he doesnt like to meet his fans.

And the repetition in his songs. For all we know, what we hear may just be him verbalising his echolalia.

I don't know...He's just too weird to be NT.

One other famous person I suspect having AS is that American Idol reject William Hung. "She bangs, She bangs..."

Someone suggested to me one time that my ability to imitate animals may be echolalia - I can imitate any noise any animal makes EXCEPT guiena pigs . . . I just can't do that neat little whistle they make . . .

When I was sick back in the summer of 1998, I kept on hearing a voice in my head saying, "Dentabone." over and over again.

Last edited by CockneyRebel on 02 Apr 2006, 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I get random words stuck in my head for no reason. I tried explaining this and I got a really strange look from my resource teacher. :oops: The main phrases/words I get stuck in my head are "She cries" "faerie child" "cat" "stay" "angel" and "no". It gets very confusing.

Last night at work I found myself listening to the same two words over and over again...

First it was

Echo-Echo-Echo-Echo-Echo-Echo-Echo-Echo-Echo

then it was...

baba ganoush

over and over

I have had that for years... maybe forever. Sometimes I say them without being aware of saying anything, and it startles me to hear them come out. There are quite a few seemingly emotive words (like your "she cries" and "no") and these particularly annoy me. Imagine someone overhearing you say the word "darling" out of the blue. I hate that word; it's a word that forces me to feel stuff, a word used to inflict emotion on me. In recent years I've developed some muscular tics that accompany these internal word tics; they seem to have the function of making me immediately forget what word I was thinking about; as if the word rises out of the subconscious, or wharever, and the body punches it back. But it doesn't help, because the muscular tics make me feel equally stupid.

Is there such a thing as a shame tic? Suddenly feeling ashamed for no reason? (Not that I don't suspect there is a reason.)

I've just been reading that the cover painting from Hail to Thief is composed of words Thom Yorke heard on the radio that "rang bells" in his head.

i am a new user. not sure whether i have asperger's or not. anyway, i was reading through this thread and when jayshaw wrote "qualitatively appealing" it stuck out in my head as a lovely phrase.

could one use the adjective "aspergetic" as in "i am aspergetic"? it may be grammatically incorrect but it sounds nice.

Last edited by edwardp on 02 Apr 2006, 6:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

That happens to me a lot! Specially with songs. I don't think it's a particular AS feature, though. One of my workmates, who is 100% NT (or so it appears to me) has the same "problem". And when we're both bored at work (that is, most of the time) we have fun getting a song into each other's head, so to speak. And they're usually songs by singers we don't like, much to our horror.

recently i have been thinking of lots of words beginning with "asp" whenever i read the word "asperger's".

Whenever I think of the word "asp", a picture of a snake is in my mind.
I ued to drive forklifts and sing songs to myself and repeat certain words over and over until I could think of a new one. It was loud enough so others couldn't hear me (much).
"Footy" is my favourite word right now.

Recently I had the word "perseveration" stuck in my head. Sometimes to get a word out of my head if it is driving me crazy, I look it up in the dictionary. Then inevitably I will find a new word to think about in there.