Replacement of images / sounds in the brain

[MirceaKitsune]

Many people probably had weird experiences when waking up, while transitioning between being asleep and the brain re-activating. I've had several myself... but there's one in particular which I never found an answer to and fascinated me quite a bit. It happened quite some time ago (I believe two or three years) but I still remember it pretty well.

 

Over where I live, it's still common for merchants who buy and sell things to walk through the city yelling "we buy / sell whatever" as hard as they can. Sometimes that happens while I'm still sleeping, and I was occasionally woken up by said merchants. One morning however, such a merchant was the subject of a strange and interesting experience about how the brain works.

 

When I woke up, I heard someone talking in a language I couldn't understand. I stood up for several seconds and listened in confusion, trying to make out what was being said. It was only soon after that I started hearing the words in my own language again, and realized it was another merchant walking the street.

 

The interesting part isn't that I couldn't understand what was being said, since I assume it's possible for language recognition to take a while to reactivate when waking up. What ingrigues me is that I was basically hearing entirely different words than those being spoken. My brain modified the voice reaching my ears, and I heard the same voice saying something else. Imagine someone next to you saying "Hello, how are you" and you hearing something like "Alala, haba ala ola" in the exact same accent and tone.

 

Did anyone else ever experience their brain modifying words that way? And does anyone know when and how the mind can make complete replacements to sounds and maybe even images, which can even be completely unnoticeable from reality?

[Phi for All]

Isn't it possible that the merchant called out for a while in one language, a language you didn't understand, and then switched to your native language as he moved along the streets? I've been in places where street vendors called out the name of their wares in English, Spanish, German, depending on the predominant customers. At one time, I knew how to say "shrimp" in seven languages.

[MirceaKitsune]

Isn't it possible that the merchant called out for a while in one language, a language you didn't understand, and then switched to your native language as he moved along the streets? I've been in places where street vendors called out the name of their wares in English, Spanish, German, depending on the predominant customers. At one time, I knew how to say "shrimp" in seven languages.

 

Very sure it wasn't the case. He / she was calling out in our language, with the same tone and everything. Whatever happened took place somewhere between the ear and the brain.

 

One more detail I think I remember is that when I started hearing the merchant, I was still sleeping. At first I started hearing them in a dream, which is where I heard the words in another language. Soon after however, I opened my eyes and stood up, completely awake and aware again. Even after that however, I kept hearing them in this other language, until I focused hard enough and my mind snapped back in place.

Edited April 25, 2014 by MirceaKitsune

[StringJunky]

Maybe you heard it in your language without alteration but your brain had not - at that point - made intelligible sense of it.

[MirceaKitsune]

Maybe you heard it in your language without alteration but your brain had not - at that point - made intelligible sense of it.

 

Yeah, that's very likely what happened. My curiosity was when and how this can happen. Sounds and voice are specific vibrations of air... the ears can only hear what exists. But this experience means that the brain can somehow replace the signal before it processes it, or lose information and get something malformed as the "final product".

[Phi for All]

I still think this is an aural illusion. I've heard what I thought was a woman in high heels walking up my front steps, only to realize it was the drapery pull gently knocking against the wall from the wind. When I was hearing it though, I was convinced it was someone's shoes. What I was thinking at the time affected what I was hearing.

 

Our ears are probably more easily fooled than our eyes. Have you heard of the McGurk Effect?

 

[Acme]

Many people probably had weird experiences when waking up, while transitioning between being asleep and the brain re-activating. I've had several myself... but there's one in particular which I never found an answer to and fascinated me quite a bit. It happened quite some time ago (I believe two or three years) but I still remember it pretty well.

 

Over where I live, it's still common for merchants who buy and sell things to walk through the city yelling "we buy / sell whatever" as hard as they can. Sometimes that happens while I'm still sleeping, and I was occasionally woken up by said merchants. One morning however, such a merchant was the subject of a strange and interesting experience about how the brain works.

 

When I woke up, I heard someone talking in a language I couldn't understand. I stood up for several seconds and listened in confusion, trying to make out what was being said. It was only soon after that I started hearing the words in my own language again, and realized it was another merchant walking the street.

 

The interesting part isn't that I couldn't understand what was being said, since I assume it's possible for language recognition to take a while to reactivate when waking up. What ingrigues me is that I was basically hearing entirely different words than those being spoken. My brain modified the voice reaching my ears, and I heard the same voice saying something else. Imagine someone next to you saying "Hello, how are you" and you hearing something like "Alala, haba ala ola" in the exact same accent and tone.

 

Did anyone else ever experience their brain modifying words that way? And does anyone know when and how the mind can make complete replacements to sounds and maybe even images, which can even be completely unnoticeable from reality?

Hearing and speech hallucinations are not uncommon in the hypnopompic state. According to this article the 'why' is likely related to impaired short-term memory. What you remember you heard and what the actual words were could then logically differ.

 

A hypnopompic state (or hypnopomp) is the state of consciousness leading out of sleep, ...

 

Depressed frontal lobe function in the first few minutes after waking known as "sleep inertia" causes slowed reaction time and impaired short-term memory. Sleepers often wake confused, or speak without making sense, a phenomenon the psychologist Peter McKeller calls "hypnopompic speech".[1] When the awakening occurs out of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, in which most dreams occur, the hypnopompic state is sometimes accompanied by lingering vivid imagery. ...

Hypnopompic @ Wiki: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnopompia