not understanding what's being said

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i'm just wondering if this is common among aspies.

every once in a while i'll hear something completely wrong. someone will tell me something and i'll hear it as something completely different. example: i went to buy gas, asked if they accepted $100 (that's all i had because i just went to the casino and won), after a while, the cashier said something that i heard as "receipt with that?" so i said "no, i'm fine", then she looked at me with a really weird expression, said something else, which i think i misheard again, then finally said, sounding a bit annoyed "nice winnings".

it doesn't happen all the time. i know there are people with a disorder where they'll hear everything wrong, but i'm not talking about that. i think it's normal for some people some time, especially if they aren't paying attention, but if someone is talking right at you and you're paying attention, do you occasionally hear it completely wrong?

Constantly.

Not that specifically. I usually know when I'm having difficulty understanding what someone is saying. It happens very often though and I've been avoiding noisy situations and telephone calls most of my life because of it.

I mark it down as one of those "a-hah" things since I started looking into AS.

All the time.

I guess it began in high school, with rock song lyrics. If I could not hear the lyrics I filled them in with whatever came the closest phoentically. Remember the old Mowtown hit Bernadette? I heard that as Burn To Death. Many, many more examples exist.

But, yeah, socially it happens every day now. I appeared dazed public when my social mask slips, but I can still wow 'em every now and then.

dp

All the time for me as well. People say they understand those moments, but I don't think NTs realize that for some of us this is a weekly, if not daily, occurance.

Yeah, for years I thought the first part of the lyrics to Manic Monday was "psychadelic blue extreme" instead of "crystal blue Italian stream." In Sweeny Todd I thought the line referring to Judge Turpin "vulture of the law" was actually "vulture of the Lord."

Yes! Definitely. I am 85% deaf on one side, though and I think that contributes to these issues.

My son is classic at replacing song lyrics. Remember Nirvana's "You're my Favourite Drug"? He always replaced the chorus with "you are a big fat bug". His lyrics are hilarious. He's a regular Weird Al.

When I was younger I used to amuse people with the bizarre things I actually thought were the lyrics to songs.

I was just recalling the other day "Girl all the bad Guys Want", I used to think the line "it's like a bad movie, she's looking through me" was "it's like a bad movie, she is looking groovy".

Incidentally, does anyone else here struggle with new languages because they can't separate one word from another in a sentence? During my GCSEs I was an A student in French, but I failed every listening exam, because the people talking on the tape in french sounded like white noise to me. I literally couldn't discern a single word from the string unless they said them separately.

This happens to me all the time too you are not alone. sometime si hae to ask themto repeat several times before i can get what they are saying and this really pisses them off. I hear total nonsense that makes no sense and i have ot have it repeated until it comes out right.

sometimes iw ill hear the wrong word and not notice that its a wrong word until hilarity ensues.

Happens to me a lot. I have to get people to repeat things often. Sometimes if I take a second, I can listen to what they said again in my short term memory and decipher what was said without having to ask, but I've usually already asked "what?" by the time I figure it out.

I call it my "creative hearing."

I was once working in a Tex-Mex restaurant that played Country on the muzak, and one day I heard a song come on with the opening line "Now I lay me down with sheep." (It was actually "..to sleep"). I immediately collapsed with laughter, drawing the complete attention of the restaurant. People were asking me what was so funny, and I finally managed to get out that it was this song. They told me it was Top 40, and I was gone again.

Finally, when they told me the actual name of the song, I tried not to say what I'd heard, but it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too late for that. Fortunately, everyone thought it was (almost) as funny as I thought it was.

happens when i am at the pc , that is why i say to my mom, never to talk to me when i am at the pc because i hear nothing

Yes, I have real problems with this. I often hear just sounds rather than words, and have to play them back in my head to figure out what the words are. It's much, much worse on the phone which is one of the reasons I hate using it so much. I also find it nervewracking when I have to speak to someone with a very strong accent because those seem to affect me more than they do other people. I'm very conscious that there's only so many times you can ask someone to repeat themselves before you appear rude.

I have days when I'm like this all day. Other days I'm the opposite, I'd be the one on the ball & everyone around me is dragging around in la la land.

There's a funny page with misheard song lyrics at www.amiright.com . That's great.