What does “se me ocurre” mean in Spanish?

In Spanish you don’t come up with an idea — the idea comes to you. Ocurrirse works backwards, like gustar: se me ocurre is literally “it occurs itself to me.” So ¿qué se te ocurre? asks “what comes to your mind?”, and no se me ocurre nada is the honest “I’ve got nothing.” The thinker is the bystander; the idea does the work.

The couple’s opposites game lands on a word with no clean opposite — “Agua.” — and the prompt is exactly this verb: “¿Qué se te ocurre? ¿Aire?” Spanish loves this things-happen-to-you construction: se me olvidó (“it forgot itself on me”), se me hace tarde (“it’s getting late on me”). A very useful shrug of a grammar pattern.