I like the following metaphor of Lakoff and Johnson. In my paper this quarter, I wrote a section about the power of metaphors to affect human brain and mind.
The mind is a body.
Thinking is moving.
Ideas are locations.
Reason is a force.
Rational thought is motion that is direct, deliberate, step-by-step, and in accord with the force of reason.
Being unable to think is unable to move.
A line of thought is a path.
Thinking about X is moving in the area around X.
Communicating is guiding.
Understanding is following.
Rethinking is going over the path again.
Reference
Philosophy in the Flesh : The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought
