The use of individual words is, of course, the most elementary stage of speaking; from these one has to compose sentences and paragraphs in order to render and convey a complex idea. But how is one to express an idea if he cannot readily grasp the meaning of words, if the very idea he has escapes him along with the words he has just managed to understand?
When this man listened to people talk, heard a radio broadcast, or tried to understand a story, he was trapped with disjointed, fragmentary images that needed to be deciphered:
Even when my mother makes a few simple remarks, I don’t get the point of what she’s saying. I latch onto the first or last word she’s said, and while I’m trying to figure these out, I forget the rest.
I was sitting in an auditorium once, listening to some stories and a performance by some visiting artists. While the narrator was talking, the whole audience began to laugh. Seeing everyone else laugh, I did too, though I didn’t understand a thing the man had said and only had some real reason for laughing when an actor imitating a drunk began to stagger and fall.
When people talk to me, or I listen to the radio, I usually can’t understand more than half of what’s said. I have plenty of gaps, “blank spaces” in listening too. Mostly I just listen to the words without understanding. This means I only manage to grasp a little of what is said. As soon as I recognize the meaning of a few words, the rest are drowned in the flow of speech I hear.
For example, when I heard the word “catastrophe” once, I asked the person who mentioned it what he was referring to and tried to figure out what he meant. Suddenly I remember the meaning of the word and what he was talking about—a train derailment. But it took quite a while before I could remember that. This is typical of the way my damaged memory operates.
When I listen to the radio I think I understand what I hear, except that while I’m listening I forget what the announcer is saying. If I really concentrate on a particular word he’s using, I find I really can’t understand it for quite a while, or have forgotten it completely. (If I haven’t, I soon do.) Of course it’s easier, more relaxing listening to the radio than tiring my eyes trying to read a book letter by letter. On the other hand, when I listen to the radio I don’t have a chance to stop and think about what I’ve heard. Ever since I was wounded, I haven’t been able to remember a thing I’ve heard on the radio, whereas when I read a newspaper or book, I can stop and reread some of the words or sentences, think through the ideas. Even so, I quickly forget what I’ve read, though for a little while I can retain more of the main points than by listening to the radio. On the other hand, reading has become more and more difficult over the years.
As a test of comprehension, he was read the following paragraph in which the relationship between objects was complicated by numerous details:
“On both sides of the house were large trees of a rare variety that had big berries resembling fir cones on the under side of the leaves. In the pond, across which four white swans were gliding, one could see the reflections of the Chinese lanterns, made out of brightly colored paper, that were hung everywhere and depicted grotesque, grinning faces.”
What was he able to comprehend after the first, second, and third readings? A very limited number of words and images, disjointed fragments of sentences having to do with “trees,” “swans,” and “mirror reflections.” The paragraph was read to him again and again, but these disjointed bits and fragments did not add up to a meaningful context. He struggled with this as though it were a hieroglyphic in which, after considerable thought, one can establish the meaning of particular elements but not the entire text, which remains unclear and needs even further time to decipher:
No . . . I can’t make anything out of it . . .
They’re talking about . . . about . . . it’s hard to say . . . about lantern lights, and about swans in a pond . . . and something like woods on both sides . . . swans . . . and lantern lights.
There are these trees . . . on both sides . . . and berries . . . and some more lantern lights . . . and swans floating. There’s a house . . . and alongside it . . . fruit trees . . . . They look like fir trees. Then there are also lanterns . . . and a pond . . . swans floating . . . near them . . . horns. And so . . . lantern lights . . . colored paper. . . . No, I just don’t understand it!
His comprehension definitely reflected a mind restricted to undeciphered images. He tried to attend some study groups and educate himself but here, too, the problems were overwhelming:
When I listen to the teacher, the words she uses seem to make sense—rather, they seem familiar. But when I focus on each word and spend any time considering it, I can’t remember what it means or form any image of it. Meanwhile, as she continues talking, the words fly by and vanish from my memory the minute I try to understand them. And for the life of me I can’t recall them again. When my therapist O.P. asked me once to tell her what we did at the last lesson, it took me some time to answer, even though I’d spent several days on that chapter, had taken a few notes, and read through them the night before. But when she questioned me, I had to look over my notes again. It’s awfully hard for me to read my own writing, my own notes (someone else’s handwriting is completely impossible). So naturally I couldn’t look through the notes quickly, particularly since she had asked me a question and I was under pressure to reply. Finally I remembered a bit of what I’d read the evening before and tried to make some general comments limited to a few words. But I just couldn’t express what I wanted to say.
Naturally his problems were not limited to comprehension. He found it difficult—actually impossible—not only to interpret the steady flow of words a speaker used and grasp the logic behind them, but to formulate and express his own ideas coherently. Fragments of words swarmed through his mind, colliding with and blocking each other, so that in the process of trying to formulate an idea he forgot what he wanted to say. Hence, when he had a request to make at a government office, or wished to speak or ask a simple question in his study group, he could not make himself understood:
When I had a request to make at one of the district offices, I spent a whole day thinking about what I was going to say. But when the time came and I finally entered the building, it took a long time for me to get up enough nerve to go into the office because I was afraid I wouldn’t remember the few words I needed to carry on a conversation. They’d escape me the minute I tried to express myself. Then I’d have to wait until other words occurred to me. (And they can turn up one minute and disappear the next.)
While I was standing in the corridor, and later—after I finally entered the manager’s office—at the moment I was considering what to say, the words escaped me. The office manager looked at me and asked: “What do you want?” But the few words I needed to use seemed deliberately to have slipped my mind—all of them. Something felt very wrong in my head, I just couldn’t remember a thing.
Once I went to the club to hear a lecture. When the speaker finished, he asked if there were any questions. I decided to ask one. I felt quite normal then – that is, my head wasn’t aching or buzzing too much. The speaker asked me to go ahead with my question. I heard him, but for some reason couldn’t talk, couldn’t say a single word, even get one letter out. It was as though a lock had suddenly slammed shut on my mind. The whole audience was looking at me and waiting for me to speak. Meanwhile, I was not only unable to speak but couldn’t utter a sound, even though I was quite relaxed then, not at all nervous. Seeing that I’d either forgotten what I wanted to say or was a bit drunk, the people sitting next to me said: “Sit down if you have nothing to say.” So I did. But since no one in the audience had any questions, the speaker turned to me again and said: “What was it you wanted to ask?”
The same thing occurred when he was alone and wanted to make a note of something that had come to mind. In one sense this was easier than conversing, since he had a chance to read over what he had written; on the other hand, it was sometimes even more difficult in that a thought escaped him the moment he tried to put it down.
An idea for something occurred to me, an image of what I wanted to say, and I began to try to remember the right words to express this. No sooner had I got two words down when the very idea that had just taken shape in my mind suddenly disappeared. I forgot what I wanted to write. I looked at the two words I’d written but couldn’t remember what I intended to say. So my idea was gone—I couldn’t remember it, no matter how hard I tried.
When a good idea came to me I’d no sooner pick up a pencil than it would be gone. That same idea wouldn’t occur to me again the whole day, maybe not even the next, and if I happened to think of it again, I wouldn’t recognize it. By then it would make no sense to me, since I’d already gone on and written something else.
These handicaps, made it a colossal effort to write and describe what had happened to him; his mind had nothing to work with except undeciphered images and unrelated ideas.