Daniel R.

Stream of consciousness I think is a wonderful thing. And if I meant for this to be about that I probably would not have written that. I'm pretty sure that I really meant to be writing about free association, since I was talking about that the other day. So, let me try again. Free association I think is a wonder thing. It's a window in the workings of the brain. If you consider memories are just certain synapses firing the in the right order, free association is just which path is strongest at that time. Take a simple word like apple. What pops into your mind? Is it the computer company, original sin, that tasty fruit you had for lunch, accidently snorting apple sauce up your nose. But even more fun is where does that first thought go next. I want one (the apple computer that is), I think it would be cool to name my daughter Eden (even though its one of those names that shouldn't be given to children), I bought apples today when I went shopping, ow that sounds like it would hurt (thankfully that's never happened to me, although I did recently throw out some year old apple sauce from our refrigerator). Zig-zag next thing you know your back in high school biology. It's kind of like the Dead Zone by Stephen King. When you are trying really hard to think about something, instead try to think about things around what you are thinking about and you might just remember what you really wanted to. As my co-worker has been tend to do, just say apple. I prefer pink elephant myself, but try to form that new link in your brain or just float along a merry free association path for awhile. You might remember what you wanted to, or if nothing else you had fun for a few minutes.