Iconic registry

There’s an interesting process going on inside my head that I get to observe every so often. It picks up words that are in the general vicinity and processes them without warning ..suddenly my head is full of thoughts and images that have no relation to what I’m doing or thinking at the time. They can come from the room where I’m sitting ..or the road where I’m driving. I guess it’s the way subliminal advertising is supposed to work. For instance, I’ll be driving along looking for a place to park when suddenly images of dolphins appear in my head. I look around and spot a car on the other side of the road with a personalized license plate that says ‘DOLFIN LVR’. So now, when it happens, I take the time to investigate ..see if I can find the words or phrases that trigger these events ..make sure I’m not hallucinating and losing it. Today it was a word buried in a newspaper article ..I was eating breakfast when a picture leapt out of the morning paper screaming ‘Ojai’ ..the name of an unpretentious little spa town near here. I was not thinking of Ojai ..I’ve never been to Ojai ..the topic of the article wasn’t specifically about Ojai ..and even if it was ..I wasn’t actually reading the paper ..it was just sitting on the table next to me. I look closely at the picture to see if there’s anything to suggest Ojai ..but there isn’t ..just some oak trees on a hillside. So, I figure there must be something in the vicinity that triggered the idea ..I begin reading the article. It was about different places in the world where people can go to celebrate Easter ..and sure enough ..Ojai is one of them ..along with Italy, Florida and Puerto Rico. The article mentions the word Ojai when it says “..you can either spend Easter soaking in a spa in Ojai ..or strolling through museums in Venice.” Now, I know they say that reading is an active process ..but I believe the brain is a hybrid ..it can passively register words long enough to serve up their meaning without any effort on my part.