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Metaphors of Mental Experience   Home   >   Psychology and Religion   >   Wisdom   >   This article

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Introduction
Metaphors and Idiomatic Expressions
Visual
Light
Spatial
Voice
Spatial or dynamic
Identity
Miscellaneous

References
Links

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Introduction

In their book, Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson revolutionized the study of linguistic metaphors, and also made a substantial contribution to cognitive psychology generally. They demonstrated convincingly -- or, it might more accurately be said, called to our attention something that should really be quite evident -- that metaphors are a basic ingredient of human thought. As they summarized their findings, "We have found...that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature."

That is, their thesis is that we use metaphors widely to think about things in general. My own interest in this area is more specific. I began to notice some time ago how many metaphors we use about thinking itself. That is, whereas Lakoff and Johnson are concerned with metaphors for all kinds of things, I'm more specifically interested in metaphors and similar idiomatic expressions for how we desribe our thought processes and interior mental experiences. Accordingly, I began about two years ago (before I encountered the work of Lakoff and Johnson) collecting and cataloging these colloquial expressions for mental events as I ran across them in various places. The list is now sufficiently large that I see possible value in placing them on the web.

I'm in substantial agreement with the theories of Lakoff and Johnson, and believe their work has done psychology a great service. However, when they broach the subject of metaphors of mental experience, I am not completely persuaded by some of their interpretations. An example would be their suggesting that the metaphors "falling under hypnosis" or "falling asleep", on the one hand, and "waking up" on the other, occur because we sleep lying down and stand on awakening. There's perhaps some truth to that, but I think things are more complex.

In particular, I approach this from the standpoint of phenomenological psychology. That is, I believe that people have subjective, sensory, or sensory-like experiences associated with mental events. When a person says, "I see what you mean," they don't only mean this as a metaphor for visual seeing. They also 'see', with something akin to an interior sense of seeing. Similarly, a phrase like "lofty-minded" is not just what Lakoff and Johnson call an "orientation metaphor." I believe this again relates to subjective sensations, either proprioceptive, or along modalities of sensation that haven't been fully recognized by empirical science (in large part, because they are private, and perhaps subtle).

An example

Consider this example: Imagine some children ask their father, "Daddy, can we go to the park today?" The father thinks about it briefly and replies, "Well, I don't see any reason why not." Now behind that statement, I propose, is the factual assertion that he did not see any reason. Implicit in the statement is that he performed a mental operation, one we are all familiar with. This mental operation, which has no precise name, and belongs more or less to the vast realm of experience connected with what Michael Polanyi (1964) called tacit knowledge, is that whereby one may look, within the mind, for images that represent possible reasons not to do something.

This occurs as a mental mode -- computer scientists might think of it as a subprocess, subprogram, or even an agent -- in which one directs attention to an inner realm in which images customarily appear. Again, we have no name for this realm, but if I ask you to imagine a dog, and you see an image of a dog, then this place where you're seeing it is what is meant. Lacking a better term, we may call it the sensorium of imagination .

Directing his attention to this sensorium, then, the father, keeping in his mind the general topic, looks to see if specific images associated with possible negative outcomes occur. Does he see, for example, the image of a rainstorm spoiling the outing? Does he see an imagined scene associated with another competing activity or engagement? In directing his attention to the sensorium of imagination, images such as these may spontaneously appear, or not. If they do not, that is what he means when he says, "I don't see any reason why we can't go to the park."

At least, I propose, such is the ordinary meaning of the statement. It is also true that people may speak more or less precisely, or may mis-speak. A person in another situation might say, "I don't see a reason why not" when it would be more correct to say that they don't think, believe, or feel there is a dissuading reason -- but, technically, those are all saying different things and reporting different psychological experiences than not seeing a reason.

My conjecture -- I only call it that at present -- is that there are more such inner senses than are currently recognized, or at least well-studied, by cognitive science. The case of the father not "seeing a reason" is a case in point: this is a real psychological experience -- but it is just barely within the realm of what is scientifically recognized.

This realm is not well understood scientifically in large part because it relates to private experience. However, we do appear to have many colloquial, idiomatic, or "folk" expressions that relate to these things. Moreover, were we to expand the radius to include poetry and literature, we would likely find a great many more ways of indirectly, metaphorically, or obliquely referring to and describing such mental experiences.

The fact that we have many colloquial or artistic expressions for things that are not officially recognized by science is, to my mind, something extremely important to notice. It implies the existence of two different realms of collective verbal intelligence: one associated with folk or colloquial language, and the other associated with scientific language. This would seem to have rather broad sociological and psychological implications.

In any case, I believe the basic point is to suggest that we might better notice and study these expressions for the sake of what they may reveal about the nature of our minds. Among the practical questions they may help us address are these:

• What do these metaphors and expressions suggest about the nature of thinking and mental experience in general?

• Does it improve our collective self-consciousness or self-awareness in any useful way to identify these expressions?

• To what extent are human conflicts the result of misundertandings and inability to adequetely communicate about such mental states?

• Could study of these expressions lead to better understanding of emotional, psychological, and spiritual unhappiness? Could it help address mental problems, such as depression and substance abuse?

• Or considering the same basic question as the above from the positive direction: could improved metaphors assist people in achieving better self-knowledge, self-understanding, and self-organization? Could this promote, to use the phrase of St. Paul, a renewal of the mind by the transformation of thinking (Rom 12:2)? Indeed, could it be that the acquistion and employment of better metaphors for interior life is a basic requirement for such improvement?

One last remark before proceeding: I am continually surprised by how many of these metaphors and colloquial expressions there are. I list below about 200 of them. However, as I still encounter new ones on a regular basis, I couldn't say that this represents even half, or even 10% of the potentially relevant ones in our common language.

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Metaphors and Idiomatic Expressions

Note: The division of metaphors into separate categories is only provisional. The last category, Miscellaneous, contains those not obviously belonging to the other categories, or which appear to fall in more than one category.

Also, we have not made a clear distinction between metaphors and non-metaphoric idiomatic expressions. That is, all are idioms, but only some are metaphors. We are interested in both -- or, for that matter, any terms or phrases or terms by which people denote or describe mental experience.

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Visual

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Light

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Spatial

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Voice

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Physical or dynamic

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Identity

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Miscellaneous