Word images

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I just had one of those instances where I thought about something that goes on in my own mind, and realized I don't actually know if other people experience this too. In the past when I have told people about such things, they usually say it's common, but you never know.

Anyway, the phenomenon is that my mind builds "picture stories" from associations with parts of words. For instance, whenever I hear that a record or similar was "expunged", I get a vivid image of someone wringing out a sponge, complete with the sound of the wringed-out water dripping into a sink, etc. I don't mean a hallucination, just a mental image. The "connection path", which is like a reflex, comes from a combination of three things: 1) The fact that the sound of the word "sponge" is embedded in the word; 2) The fact that "exp" is also the beginning of words like "expel" that mean "to force out"; and 3) the fact that the word as a whole means essentially "to purge something 'unclean'".

Now that example is actually not the best, because it does have something to do with the meaning of the word as a whole. But there are plenty of examples where there is no connection to the overall meaning at all, for instance when the "trigger" is a person's name, or when the word is in a foreign language and I don't even know the meaning. And sometimes the fragments that are assembled to form the picture are themselves interpreted by my brain in different languages, or are not even pronounced the same way in the context of the word.

What's even more interesting, sometimes the "word picture" is much easier to keep in mind than the actual meaning, and can override the meaning in terms of my emotional reaction to the word. A negative word or phrase can have a neutral or positive picture, and vice versa. I've never asked others if this happens, or attempted to share these pictures with others, as I've assumed they didn't care.

I suspect tendency toward this positively correlates with creativity and inventiveness, and also that things like synesthesia might just be very extreme forms of this.

Oh, and another example just thought of, that shows how random they can get:
Throughout middle and high school, whenever I heard about the president James Madison, I always pictured him sitting down with one of those big wheels of cheese in front of him, with a slice of the cheese on a plate. I actually don't know for sure why, but I can surmise that my brain learned the connection because Madison is the capital of Wisconsin, where a lot of cheese is made. And I think there's a team from Madison whose fans even wear wheels of cheese on their heads. But the intermediate step, the place in Wisconsin, would never appear as part of the image.

Sometimes this would help me remember things, like if a change in government was made by Madison, I could remember that the "Cheese President" did it, and thin of the cheese being there when it happened. But anyone else would have no doubt thought this really weird.

I don't experience a slightly different version of this phenomenon and I think you could be right about the synaestesia hypothesis. I usually associate words with other words, colours or smells. In most cases these have to do with the word in question, in others they don't. The words Bullies and bullying for example are connected to a strong camphor smell, the connection possibly being that I don't like that particular smell in too great an intensity.

I reckon most people have similar experiences of associations even though the nature of the individual associations may vary greatly between indiduals. The human brain is always trying to find patterns and to make connections, even though we are not aware of this process most of the time, so I think that our brains are also trying to fit words into some kind of pattern.

I would also hazard the guess that people on the spectrum are more likely than NTs to form associations between words and not-words like pictures or sounds, the reason being that many of us seem to exhibit more sensitive physical perception and synaestesia-like impressions.

These sorts of random mental associations can become so strong that I accidentally begin to make decisions based on the incorrect, imaginary association or meaning of a certain thing. Normally this just results in my making frequent small "reality" checks that day, and I try not to do anything important on rare days like that.

My worst problem in this regard is my very strong association of red lights with "danger". At intersections, while driving, I first look at a red stop light and think "danger!" I feel a mental jolt as I scan around to see where the danger is, then almost immediately after realize that red lights mean "stop" and not "danger". That's why I try not to drive on days like that, though sometimes I have no choice.

Mental associations become more powerful when I'm either stressed or mentally exhausted, and they get especially bad if I'm lacking sleep.

I feel that they play an important role in my being mentally flexible and having a good memory and even better imagination. And they're sort of interesting in themselves. But on the whole I find them to be a minor nuisance as I keep having to make little reality checks each time one of those pops into my mind.

Another interesting thing is that I immigrated from Russia to Canada when I was six years old and didn't know a single word of English. In the absence of any real meanings, all I had were my own word-associations as the total of reality. They literally took over. Imagine those random associations being all you had in a language you were immersed into daily at school. Imagine even thinking in a free-associating language. Entire concepts in your mind that you could hardly explain in English could be expressed with a single invented word that had the appropriate association. That's how my only friend and I invented our secret language in grade school.

I can totally understand what you're saying with this.



That must have been interesting. It reminds me a little of something my mom has told me. My mom is Swiss and spoke Swiss German to me when I was very little and starting to learn languages. My dad spoke English, as that is the only language he is fluent in. At one point, this apparently gave me the idea that each person invents his or her own language, so I came up with and started speaking my own nonsense language (which must have made perfect sense to me!). After that, my parents realized the need for consistency, and both spoke English. That means I didn't have the advantages of growing up bilingual, but also did not inadvertently become "trilingual".

Yes. I'm a visual thinker. I saw the sponge. It was pink and roundish. And full of soapy water. On a black and white kitchen bench.

I also have associations with colour. Red is danger but purple/brown is worse. So when people say they love the colour purple I look like this
Sometimes they have texture too.