Essentially, a schema is the consequence of overlapping patterns that intersect on common features. A metaphor is similar in the way it presents a feature that is common to several physical events. A metaphor is a well worn linguistic string that is disarmed of its capacity to occasion some original effects. Unlike functional vocabulary, however, a metaphor's early perceptual associations are held as a subtext, somewhat unspoken and not entirely forgotten. If someone refers to a situation as being a ``Catch 22''[29] it is not, we suppose, because he has just read the book and compulsively refers to it, but because a particular aspect of the story-line that was salient for some previous commentator, is salient in some aspect of the present situation. The use presents a kind of puzzle that may be insufficiently resolved even for the speaker, and may require the resolving power of an additional speaker to achieve usable focus.
I feel like I'm in a catch 22.
You mean you feel damned if you do, damned if you don't? In this example the second statement is also a metaphor but it provides a focus for the initial statement, partly from the overlap of common features but also because, although the expression damned if you do damned if you don't is not much clearer, and perhaps only minimally more resolved, the agreement on the term represents a negotiated common ground.
Sufficient resolution is achieved by a neural process that consults
both memory and sensory data provided by the present situation.