In an old Ellen DeGeneres stand-up she refers to the whole thing of searching for a word and involving the other person to try to figure it out as forcing them to suddenly participate in the $10,000 Pyramid.

"We were talking about floor lamps."

"No."

"Mariah Carey?"

"No."

"Things that taste like chicken! Things a monkey would wear!"

The good thing about aphasia (if there is a good thing) is that you know it's happening. One can be completely unaware of having an Apraxia (using one word, when you mean another) moment.

I usually only know it's happened because people are giving me bewildered, bemused or shocked stares.

Sometimes the words are close in sound or relationship. For example, "your sock is untied," when, obviously, I thought I'd said shoe.

Other times, they are completely off the wall. Like the time our dinner guests were all staring at me uncomfortably and my husband told me I'd just asked if they'd like a "cup of bluejay." Yes, bluejay. Chances are, a bluejay had just flown by the window at the moment I went to say coffee.

When I went into Attention Processing Therapy (APT), my wonderful instructor realized that I would often, unknowingly, insert the name of whatever crossed my field of vision, into a sentence. APT helped me relearn how to focus better on the task at hand. Thanks to that training, I don't have as many of the really outlandish apraxia moments and, when it does happen, I occasionally realize it, without prompting.

I'm going to piggyback on my own post here. I'm having trouble daydreaming, or using my imagination. This I'm just noticing today. I'm anxious, I calm myself down and try to think of a happy place, but suddenly there's a block and I can't think of anything but what's happening presently. I had a vivid imagination and no problem kinda fading off and now I can't. I'm a little freaked right now. Anyone else experience this?

Yes, a TBI can really impede one's inner life.

I was a professional fiction writer. Before my MVA, my mind was always swimming with ideas, conversations between my characters, etc... For a long time after the accident, my mind was just blank. The internal monologue had stopped. I was in a scarey silence. Left alone, I'd just sit, unaware of the passage of the hours. My sleep was black and dreamless.

As time passed, I began to regain some capacity for thought and imagination. Is it like before? No. I have only have pre-rem dreams and I know I'll never again write creatively. But, at least, I have thoughts.

God it's scary. I had the beginnings of a panic attack about it earlier. Thanks for the response though! Helps to know I'm not entirely crazy!