When Languages Hijack Your Mind
Strange, Surprising Moments from Learning Multiple Languages
Over the past year of learning several languages, I’ve noticed strange and unexpected things happening in my brain. While I doubt these moments are unique to me, I’ve never heard anyone talk about them, so here are 16 interesting occurrences I recorded, paired with what science say about each.
1. Monday, June 3, 2024 – A Spontaneous Thought
In the morning before work, I stood in the kitchen, washing the dishes when I glanced outside and noticed a unknown red car parked in my neighbour’s driveway. I thought it was strange. And without effort, my brain said “Pourquoi il y a une voiture rouge?”. At this point I had only been learning French for 5 months.
Science: Even without fluency, repeated exposure builds automatic links between thoughts and the new language. The brain can sometimes “default” to that language when certain cues or contexts trigger it (Kroll et al., 2014).
2. Thursday, October 10, 2024 – Dreaming Past Tense & COD
I had just finished a night shift and came home. Tired, I fell asleep. A dream followed shortly after, where I was using the Passé Composé with Direct Object Pronouns in French naturally. In the dream, it felt completely natural as if it was now apart of me, even though it’s a rule I learned back in February 2024. I had struggled to apply it fluently, and in the dream it finally “clicked.”
Science: During REM sleep, the brain replays and strengthens recent learning. Grammar rules can “click” overnight as they consolidate into long-term memory (Fenn et al., 2003).
3. Wednesday, January 1, 2025 – Nightmare in Telugu
Excited to start my Telugu journey while juggling work and my other languages, I had turned on Telugu One Radio and left it to play while sleeping. Shortly after, the unfamiliar sounds of Telugu provoked a serious nightmare. I had to wake up, and turn off the radio.
Science: Unfamiliar phonetic patterns can be processed as “threatening” during sleep because the brain is attuned to detect unusual sounds. This can trigger anxiety responses in dreams (Revonsuo, 2000).
4. Monday, March 30, 2025 – Anglophone Brother in French
On another occasion, I went to bed one night with Sud Radio, a radio emission in Toulouse, playing like I usually do. In my dream, my monolingual brother was speaking in French. I found it weird. I woke up shortly after only to realize that all the French my brother was using was exactly what was playing on the radio. My brain had used my brother as a conduit in my dream to bring me the contents of Sud Radio.
Science: Auditory input during sleep can be woven into dreams by substituting familiar faces or contexts. The brain blends external stimuli with internal narratives to keep the dream coherent (Stickgold et al., 2001).
5. Sunday, May 20, 2025 – Another Spontaneous Thought
That evening, I sat down at my desk to watch an episode of Plus Belle La Vie. I saw a scene at the beginning of the episode, and I suddenly had an unprovoked thought in French, asking myself questions about what was happening in the scene.
Science: Spontaneous target-language thoughts can occur when comprehension patterns have become automatic. This is a sign that the brain is beginning to treat the new language as a natural medium for reasoning (Segalowitz, 2010).
6. Wednesday, June 4, 2025 – Audio Trick with German
While listening to Pimsleur German audio and drifting off to sleep, my brain created the corresponding imaginary situations to trick me into staying asleep. I only woke up when I heard unfamiliar German words during the lesson.
Science: The brain often generates imagery to match incoming audio, even in light sleep stages. New or unexpected words can disrupt this flow, causing awakening (Andrillon et al., 2017).
7. Friday, June 6, 2025 – Unidentified Language
I was walking to the refrigerator with my headphones on, listening to an audio. I understood clearly what was being said, but it felt so natural that I didn’t know which language it was until I finally heard a word that made me realize it was French.
Science: High familiarity with a language can make comprehension feel language-independent. This happens when meaning is accessed directly, bypassing conscious language identification (Dijkstra & van Heuven, 2002).
8. Sunday, June 8, 2025 – Automatic Texting in French
That afternoon, a friend from Burkina Faso messaged me and I replied, writing an entire sentence without conscious thought about correctness of grammar or vocabulary. It simply flowed out.
Science: Language output can become automatic once grammar and vocabulary retrieval are fast enough. This “proceduralization” frees up working memory for meaning rather than form (DeKeyser, 2007).
9. Friday, June 20, 2025 – Desiring Portuguese
Coming from a restaurant across the street that evening, I was talking to myself like I normally do, then suddenly I felt a strong urge to produce Portuguese. It felt extremely familiar and as if I had already acquired the language despite having only 17.93 hours of Comprehensible Input and 42.38 hours of Passive Listening to the radio.
Science: Strong urges to speak a new language may reflect emotional or motivational connections to it. Even minimal exposure can create a feeling of familiarity when reinforced by positive associations (Gardner, 2010).
10. Saturday, July 5, 2025 – Random Sentences
Another trip across the street to the supermarket brought an experience where two complete sentences from my Anki deck suddenly and randomly popped up in my mind.
Science: Random recall often occurs when memory traces are strengthened but not actively retrieved. This is a form of spontaneous memory activation (Moscovitch, 1995).
11. Wednesday, July 9, 2025 – Women Voices
While doing my regular passive listening in Telugu, I noticed that when the men spoke, I could hear fewer of the sounds that helped me identify the language, compared to when the women spoke. The women’s speech was clearer and more distinct.
Science: Differences in pitch and articulation can make certain voices more intelligible to learners. Higher pitch and clearer enunciation often improve phoneme recognition (Bradlow et al., 1996).
12. Friday, July 11, 2025 – Language Lag Time
I sat down that evening to binge-watch my favourite Spanish series Al Fondo Hay Sitio. Then I remembered that I needed to watch at least one episode in French from Plus Belle La Vie before the evening ended. On watching PBLV, I felt like my brain needed an adjustment period to switch between languages, something that had never happened before.
Science: Switching languages requires cognitive control to suppress one linguistic system while activating another. This “task-switching cost” is normal in multilingual processing (Green, 1998).
13. Monday, July 14, 2025 – Spanish Intrusion
It was about 8pm that night while I was doing an intense Anki review session from my French deck. I suddenly heard the song “Vete no Más” from Al Fondo Hay Sitio playing in my mind. I could hear the rhythm, the lyrics, and the emotions from it during the session.
Science: Songs in another language can intrude on unrelated tasks because music and language share overlapping neural pathways. Strong emotional connections make these memories more persistent (Schön et al., 2010).
14. Saturday, July 19, 2025 – Desires & Memories in Spanish
While watching Al Fondo Hay Sitio, I felt a strong urge to produce Spanish in the accent of a character, but I couldn’t do it. A few hours later, I had random recall of clips from the show where I remembered entire sentences, not just single words or names.
Science: Accents and dialogue can become stored as “episodic language memories.” These often resurface when emotionally or contextually triggered (Hanulíková et al., 2012).
15. Sunday, August 3, 2025 – Trapped in Spanish
A few minutes before waking up that morning, my dream suddenly became lucid. In the dream, I was trying to express myself in English as I normally do, but couldn’t. I could only produce Spanish. Attempts in my other languages failed.
Science: Dominant activation of one language in the brain during dreaming can temporarily suppress access to others. This reflects how dream cognition relies on whatever system is most active at the time (Pavlenko, 2014).
16. Friday, August 8, 2025 – Natural Portuguese
While falling asleep during a tired study session, YouTube suddenly switched to a video in Portuguese. It felt like I had complete comprehension in a natural way without realizing it was Portuguese until I woke up.
Science: High similarity between languages can allow comprehension without conscious recognition. The brain uses shared vocabulary and grammar patterns to “fill in” meaning (Ringbom, 2007).
Conclusion
These moments show how the mind adapts in unexpected ways when exposed to multiple languages. Dreams, random thoughts, sudden urges to speak, and even confusion about which language is being used are not signs of disorder, but of the brain’s flexibility and creativity in building and accessing new systems of communication.
References
Christiansen, M. H., & Chater, N. (2016). The Now-or-Never bottleneck: A fundamental constraint on language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, e62. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X1500031X
Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1(2), 67–81. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728998000133
Kroll, J. F., & Bialystok, E. (2013). Understanding the consequences of bilingualism for language processing and cognition. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25(5), 497–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2013.799170
Pliatsikas, C., & Luk, G. (2016). Executive control in bilinguals: A concise review on fMRI studies. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19(4), 699–705. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728916000249
Rasch, B., & Born, J. (2013). About sleep's role in memory. Physiological Reviews, 93(2), 681–766. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00032.2012
I can only say for myself that even with very limited knowledge of a language the brain can accomplish astounding things.
2 weeks ago I was with my crush and talked to him in Ukrainian, he answered in Ukrainian and I was overly happy. Well…. I was confused that suddenly I was laying on my bed, realizing it was just a dream. My mother tongue (German) wasn’t a part of the dream at all, neither was my second language (English). The entire dream was coherent, the entire dream made sense and everything that was said during the dream was perfectly fine grammar wise, sentences were complete even though my vocabulary barely consists of a few hundred words.