I saw this and it brought back a memory of an early reading, which I still sometimes use an example today when I give my opening spiel.
My belief is that Spirit uses my mind much like its own personal rolodex to relay its messages to my clients. If Spirit can pull a card from my rolodex mind, they will use that get their messages across.
My client was a woman and I made contact with her mother in the spirit world. The reading was going along fine and the mother in spirit showed me a fine china tea pot. Since Spirit showed me a vintage fine china tea pot, I went with what that image means based on my rolodex mind - I have a love for all things vintage and vintage china is a particular favorite of mine. So I relayed what I saw and that her mother must have loved china. The client said no. In fact her mother was never into anything like that. You see, as a medium, I can misinterpret things but it is also my job to go back to mother in spirit and figure out where I went wrong with interpretation. Mediumship is a lot like playing charades or telephone.
When I went back to the mother in spirit to get more clarification, she showed me that the kettle was about to whistle due to the boiling water. The tea pot was a metaphor for the mother's temper... she would hold in the anger/upset/frustration until it grew, began to boil and then she'd blow up on the next person that crossed her, even if only a tiny slight. My client lit up because the metaphor described that aspect of her mother perfectly.