Sometimes I get vivid images, other times it’s colours, sometimes it’s sounds, and other times I think of similar sounding words (which may or may not be accompanied by their own associated image, colour, or sound).
When I see or hear the word “heat”, I almost always picture that glowing red-orange colour of fire or an electric element.
I still remember the very first time I heard the word “truth”. I don’t know how old I was, but I remember my dad telling my sister and I that it was important never to tell lies and always tell the truth. I instantly thought of a can of tuna. Maybe it was because the words are sort of similar – both have the letters ‘t’ and ‘u’, and start with very similar sounding syllables ‘tru’ and ‘tu’. I still briefly think of tuna when I hear the word “truth”. And when I hear the name “Ruth”, I think of both tuna and rubies. Tuna because the name rhymes with “truth”, and rubies because they both start with “ru”.
Perhaps it’s because my mind goes off on so many of these tangents that I can appear so slow on the uptake sometimes. I’m terrible with verbal instructions because my brain is so busy translating the words into pictures, actions, colours, sounds, and even other words, that it’s very difficult to still listen at the same time.
(oh, and the word “listen” always triggers a picture of a hairdryer – maybe the sharp “sssssttttt” sound reminds me of the high-pitched electrical whine of a hair dryer).
14 Mar 2007, 2:08 am
