Associations.

Our minds link tangible with intangible against our will.

What we sense in the now--what we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste--makes us, or at least me, think of people, memories, and very distinct emotions. It's like a slightly different and deeper sense of metonymy. I'm not looking at this in the sense of nostalgia or things reminding us of memories, but more so how the brain instantly and almost permanently makes associations that stay with you for years if not for the rest of your life.

Every time I listen to Lazy Eye by Silversun Pickups I think of how someone once told me the girl in the video reminds her so much of me. And it's true. I totally see it. The quiet shy girl just groovin' to her music. I don't even like Silversun Pickups that much, but for some reason this link means a lot to me and I'll never forget it.

I can't listen to Aphex Twin anymore because it was playing during one of the most awkward, long and painful car rides of my life.

Every time I smell coffee and my mouth starts watering, the first thought I have is I'm like Rory Gilmore, the coffee addict needing her next fix. I have NO idea why, but that's what my brain does.

When people discuss marriage or the like, one of my first thoughts is a moment when someone very intimately told me that I'm going make some man very happy one day. And the thought that always follows is the question I only asked in my head during that moment, Are you sure about that?

My brain repeats these connections, thought processes, and conversations the same exact way each and every time. It's as though each association is linked to a separate button that starts a train of thought in one and only one way every single time. It never diverts. It never changes.

It's only a few seconds where my brain goes into retrospective stream of conscious autopilot.

I think it's fascinating. And it makes me wonder...is everything permanently imprinted in our brain in the same manner? Although we may not consciously recall every bit of what our minds have processed, is it still there anyway? Maybe that's what makes certain people "smarter," and by that I don't mean critically smarter, but information retaining smarter: the ability to consciously recall things our brain has processed in the past.

Perhaps for most people it takes experiencing the same sensation in order to turn on the part of the brain in which that information resides. That is the only way that information can exist-when it is triggered by our physical connection to the outside world.

It makes me wonder if that's what deja vu (spelling? I'm too lazy to double check that) really is. Experiencing something exactly as we have before makes us recall something our mind has sensed in some way before. The only difference is we can't quite pinpoint where, when, or why. Usually we can, probably because it's something that left more impact. Maybe deja vu is just recalling relatively insignificant information we've worked with in the past.

So I must ask, what other little things are stowed deep away in this little head of mine?
Probably more of these ramblings.