Have you ever been in a situation were you're just minding your own business, doing whatever, and then out of nowhere you suddenly think of some words you don't have any recollection of? For instance, earlier today I was relaxing and the term pulmonary fibrosis popped into my head.

At first I didn't really care about this, but I ended up looking up pulmonary fibrosis, pulmonary, and fibrosis on Google. The results being "scarring of the lungs", "relating to the lungs", and "scarring of connective tissue".

I don't know why I started thinking about pulmonary fibrosis, it's not like I study disease (let alone lung diseases). This is not the first time this has happened either, last month something similar happened, albeit at the time I was working on an essay and the words were actually useful.

The only reason I could think of that explains where the words came from and why I didn't know what they meant, is because I've heard them before out of context. While typing this I decided to search the Internet for comparable instances. But the most common result was OCD, which I do not have. Anyway, I don't really understand the topic too well, what reasons do you think cause strange thoughts?

thecrzyguy : I think it's more like ADD than OCD. I have the same thing happen to me all the time, only mine are accompanied by very strange mental images relating to the word or term that randomly generated in my mind. As a matter of fact, the layout I'm using is a result of such an occasion. You're most likely right in saying you just heard the words out of context. I'll be just standing around or spacing out or something, and a word that I have absolutely no idea the meaning of will just worm it's way into my thoughts. So, I wouldn't worry too much about it.


By the way, you live with anyone that either used to or still does watch House? My mother drove it into the ground and that's where a lot of the medical terms I'm familiar with came from.

Maybe it's just me, you and moss here, but this is a pretty common event for me as well. Unless it gets to the point of interfering with your day to day life, I wouldn't read into it too much. Our brains love to play tricks on us and I can only imagine this is no different.

Sometimes you can just remember words that you recently saw somewhere, like a newspaper or sign, that happens to me a lot, and when it happens, I can't remember where I saw it from.

I doubt any of you would like to know what I think about randomly, let's just say I have a morbid mind sometimes. So me telling you might break Vizzed rules of being a family friendly site, and thus I won't say it.

18mlivingston :  
I feel your pain man. I'm in the exact same boat if I'm understanding what you mean correctly. I often want to respond exactly how I feel on the boards here, and catch myself right before I type it out that I'd get a ban with a quickness for expressing such an opinion or view. It's hard to keep that kind of thing in sometimes. I have a lot of respect for you for keeping it in check, seeing as how a lot of people don't have that kind of self-control.

Whereas what I do is similar, for example I just looked up verisimilitude to check to see what it was, I really like looking up locations because I think I might know where they are. I like finding things geographically and then looking at street views or satellite feeds to see what things really look like down there on the ground.

It's cool technology and it's what I do instead of looking up random things that come to mind but I think it's in the same neighborhood.