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Description: Metaphor processing has been mostly researched using the space-valence paradigm, where participants respond to either space-valence congruent or incongruent stimuli. Little attention has, however, been devoted to the role of valence-space associations in bilingual orientational metaphor comprehension. Here, we employed a reaction time method and tested Polish (L1) – English (L2) highly proficient bilinguals, who performed a metaphoricity judgment task to L1 and L2 conceptual metaphoric sentences that were either valence-space-congruent (BAD IS DOWN and GOOD IS UP) or incongruent (BAD IS UP and GOOD IS DOWN). The results showed a valence effect, where negatively-valenced sentences were evaluated more accurately than positively-valenced stimuli. We also found an interaction between valence, congruency, and language, such as in both L1 and L2, negatively and positively-valenced congruent metaphors were easier and faster to process than those violating the space-valence congruency. Altogether, the present study provides a more embodied and experientially grounded approach to studying human cognition, lending credence to the automatic activation of primary metaphorical mappings in the human mind.