Are you as fascinated with the human brain as I am?

That question is impossible to answer.

It really is! How tiny parts of a brain control everything from speech to walking.

How many times have you struggled to recall something and gone through this sort of exercise? “I can’t think of his name. He’s tall, he was my neighbor’s friend, and he works downtown. Argh…what’s his name?!?!”

When you do that, you’re accessing bits of information stored in different parts of your brain. Our noggins are much like a defragmented hard drive; they store information in various places, generally working well, if not as quickly as we might like.

Yes, I do find this fascinating!

Only the subconscious mind.

Sure. I’ve always been quite interested in consciousness. And in people and how they are, and how they think and feel and so on.

Recently I’ve been sitting with a Hindu mystic whose practice is mostly about consciousness and attention. From this perspective, it’s not the mass of grey matter that’s aware of its own existence. Your consciousness is who you really are, but it’s not actually about your physical body or brain. That’s just the context where your attention tends to be.

I do find the brain fascinating, but I am also awed by some of nature’s lesser critters. How the heck can spiders make webs with such pretty symmetric designs?

I just learned last week that a medication I’ve been on for the better part of a decade for appetite stimulation has, as a side effect, serotonin inhibiting qualities. So it can cause or worsen depression. I’ve decided to get off this med because of that.

I’m tapering slowly off it and I’m already experiencing mental changes, but not in a way I expected. Yesterday I had to provide negative feedback to a chatbot we use as a tool at work. The bot responded by saying “I’m sorry! :(” I instantly felt a crushing sadness and regret for hurting the poor bot’s feelings. I simultaneously understood at a rational level that this is not a thing to be sad about, but I could not stop the feeling. I even started to feel a physical sensation of wanting to cry that didn’t wear off for a good hour.

So yeah. Brains are fucking weird. Having my mood affected so drastically by medication gives me weird existential angst about what I really am, and if I’m still me if I’m taking meds that artificially alter my brain chemistry.

@Mariah Yeah, I’ve always been concerned about that too, and is probably the main reason I have never chosen to mess with recreational drugs at all (except occasional alcohol). When school classes or events on drugs mentioned the unknown long-term effects on the brain, that was more than enough for me to want to never take them. I also try to avoid prescription drug treatments for things. After going through some depression and learning various ways to work on my own thought/feeling patterns, it also was clear that it’s best not to be under the influence of something to clearly feel/experience what’s going on. But I get that depression meds can be useful/needed to cope with overwhelm, too.

@Love_my_doggie that’s actually what inspired the question, struggling to remember the name of a famous move! I was going to ask a question about Adam Sandler. When ever he shows up in a movie there is going to be a lot of silly, bathroom humor, which I don’t care for. I did like him in 50 First Dates, and in that one football movie…oh, what was that movie? It was remake of the one Bert Reynold’s did in the 70’s….WHAT IS THE NAME OF THAT DAMN MOVIE!!! ......................................................................................................................................
WHAT IS THE MOVIE???......................................................................................................#%$&$%%($%@@$%%%&&*** and the harder you try, the further it slips away. So then you have to think about oysters and cheese and Other Things for a while. Then, 3 a.m., you sit up out of a dead sleep and yell, *“The Longest Yard!!!”

Sheesh.

I have also marveled at this memory process. When the memory suddenly arrives, where did it come from? It makes you aware that there are parts of your brain beyond your consciousness.

I also wonder if that’s another reason older people develop some memory issues. They so much more stuff to sift through than a younger person.

I can tell my brain to wake me up at 6 or 7 or whatever….and it does. I don’t know if everyone can do it, but I can. How in the world does it know what time it is?

@LostInParadise According to a Random House Dictionary I read once, when asked a question, the subconscious mind retrieves the information, brings it to the threshold of the two minds and the answer is brought across into the conscious mind by logic.
Ah, the subconscious! The answer to all of your questions here!

@Dutchess_III I’ve often woken up exactly when I need to, but I don’t count on it. I know other people who seem to be able to do that too. One idea is that our subconscious has a really good sense of time.

I notice that cats have a very good sense of time, too, as demonstrated by them knowing when it’s time to feed them, if you usually do it at the same time. They tend to get rather upset about the autumnal falling back of Daylight Savings Time!

Also notice that most people are pretty affected by a shift of even 1–3 hours in their sleep schedule, or jet lag. Though people are different. Some get sleepy when the sun goes down.

Yep on the time thing. When I was working, I hated hearing the alarm clock and would be annoyed at having to hit snooze. So I would set it 10 minutes later (because I usually snoozed 10 minutes extra) and as I was falling asleep I would repeat in my head the time I needed to get up. So lets say I would set my alarm for 7:10, I would then repeat 7:00. I found no matter what time I went to bed, I would be wide awake at exactly 7am. Then I would get straight up without the usual morning struggle or brain fog and shut off my alarm clock.
When I was in school, I would always cram the night before by just repeating material I had the most difficulty remembering. Like dates, and names.

This is starting to read like a personal blog.

I was simply trying to describe my frame of mind when I went to bed last night. I was a little pissed and had no intention of getting up at a special time without knowing exactly what was up. My subconscious over rode me.