One day last week I was driving to pick the children up from school. The sky was grey and spatters of rain were being gently wiped away by my wind screen wipers. I was fed up with the radio, which surprised me because I usually love singing along to the Pina Colada song when it comes on at that hour of every day. Like clockwork.
I had recently downloaded an app to stream radio stations. We had been playing around with it to listen to the football when we were out and about. On this particular day I realised it was still early morning and I eagerly turned it on, finding one of my favourite morning shows. As soon as I heard those voices ring out through my car speakers I was overcome with emotion. I felt like that warm blanket had come and wrapped itself around me and it was such a wonderful comfort.
After a few minutes confusion set in. A traffic report spoke of main roads familiar to me back home. Meanwhile I felt slightly lost with cars, bikes and Jeepneys on all sides of me, as I tried to negotiate lane changes at just the right time. Next the radio broadcaster was doing a weather update, talking about the sunny skies as my wind screen wipers were busy keeping my window dry.
Your sight and audio senses are closely connected; they depend on each other to help the brain process daily information. When they get confused, your brain gets addled. My brain was very addled. I had to turn the radio off and go back to listening to what my brain is familiar with in this environment, while I drive. Then the Pina Colada song came on again. Like clockwork.
6 Responses
This post made me smile! Thanks for sharing your experience with cognitive dissonance. It is very true that when there isn't alignment with what we see and with what we hear our brains gets jumbled causing confusion and making it harder to think. I loved your humorous perspective!
Link to my page: http://psychandmom.blogspot.com/
Nice read. I shared…
Would love for you to take a look ay mine and give some feedback. It is fairly new, so I welcome all suggestions!
http://walkinginmydestiny.com
Thanks for stopping by Emily, I believe it is such a huge part of culture shock and I liked this vignette as an example of how day to day life in a new country can cause dissonance the most simple of ways.
Thank you for stopping by Jason, I wish you well with your blog.
Routine and familiar things always help to settle you.
Reading your post brought memories of my visit to Manila and riding around in jeepneys with the radio blasting! So much fun.
Thanks Corinne!