Head reading

Recently I've become aware of a couple of behaviours that I'm exhibiting that seem slightly strange. The first and most noticeable one is that I count. All the time. Not things, specifically. Just random counting. For example, when walking from my car to the office building (or the other way 'round), my mind is processing the usual stuff - what I have to do today, going over conversations, pulling up images. But in the very corner, there's a metronome. It's ticking and I'm keeping track of the ticks. Sometimes each tick corresponds with a step, sometimes I'm off beat. It doesn't bother me when I'm off beat. Sometimes the current count fades and I start over, but at a random number. I'm completely unaware that I'm doing it for a while and then I notice it. Usually between numbers 60 and 80. I also count what appears to be heart beats. Sometimes I find my self counting nothing at all. Sometimes I find I'm counting in different languages, sometimes it's Spanish, sometimes it's French, sometimes it's German, sometimes it's a combo of three or four languages. I took a moment to google this discovery this morning. It seems that subconscious counting is a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). That's not to say I have OCD. No, OCD would also be accompanied by other behaviours and it probably would bother me to be off beat. It might also be a response to anxiety. A way to control SOMETHING in a situation where I might not have any control. I guess that makes sense. I do prefer to be in control of situations. I think most people do. But why would I feel anxiety walking to or from my car? Does anyone else do this, or am I just a weirdo?

Another strange thing I've noticed lately is random words get stuck in my head. Usually new words or phrases. I generally don't know how they got there. For example, over the past 2 days the words Ogg Vorbis have been floating around in there. For the life of me I couldn't imagine why and I certainly didn't know what it meant. They're not words I've ever heard before. I dismissed them as words I'd made up. But it kept popping back up. Last night I just couldn't stand it, so I asked Brian if those words meant anything to him. They didn't. So I googled it. Turns out that Ogg Vorbis is an audio format, like how MP3 is an audio format. But Ogg Vorbis is open source. So then I started to connect the dots... I recently have been using an audio recording software for some narration on a software demo. I opened it up, and sure enough, there is a menu option for exporting to Ogg Vorbis format. My mind had subconsciously picked up that word while I was exporting to .wav format. Weird, huh?

And one final trick I've noticed that my mind plays on me, and I imagine this is quite common - songs. They get stuck in there. But usually 2 days after I've heard the song. Does this mean I'm SLOW?? LOL Sometimes more than one track is playing in my head at the same time. They never blend together, they're distinctly separate but playing in parallel. I find that very odd because I'm unable to process multiple sounds in actuality.

Anyway, I felt compelled to put those thoughts on to paper in an effort to help me process and makes some sense of it. I guess it worked, to some degree. I haven't come to any solid conclusions regarding the counting. I think the random words and songs are just a symptom of me absorbing things around me and subconsciously processing them. Strange that it's all related to the auditory sense. I guess I could conclude that my primary mode of communicating with the world is through auditory channels, rather than visual or tactile methods. Maybe if I understand this, it'll help me to better connect with the world around me?