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The first thing that comes to mind when I think of this topic is déjà vu.
What an eerie feeling that is when it happens!
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, folks.
Because there is a whole lot of strange things going on in our brains.
What are some odd psychological phenomena?
AskReddit users spoke up.
1. It is wild.
“Placebo effect is the one that is the strangest to me.
It’s so wild, like fake thing that causes a real effect. What’s even more wild is the placebo effect works on animals, AND it works on humans when you TELL them they’re getting a placebo and show them it’s a placebo.
It’s so weird.”
2. And this!
“It works backwards, too. It’s called the nocebo effect.
Patients who don’t believe a proven treatment will help them, progress more slowly in their healing than baseline patients.
Absolutely crazy how much our brain and thinking affects the real world.”
3. Super weird.
“The Frequency Illusion/Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
The frequency illusion is when you start noticing something for the first time and suddenly it appears that this something suddenly crops up everywhere. In reality this is not true.
A good example is a (not currently trending) word you heard for the first time. Suddenly you read and hear this word all the time.”
4. Interesting.
“Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.
When I was a little girl lying in bed I would sometimes feel like I was gigantic, like my body was taking up the entire room, or microscopically small.
Winds up this is an actual thing that happens to a fairly large amount of people, although normally just a few fleeting instances in their lifetime.”
5. Freaky deaky.
“Jamais vu.
Finding something unfamiliar on a subjective level, when we know it is familiar on an objective level.
Basically the opposite of deja vu.”
6. Wow.
“Blindsight is blind people who have an awareness of their surroundings.
Their brains still process data from their eyes at a certain level, they just can’t consciously see anything.”
7. Confused and scared.
“Confronting someone with information that is at odds with what their brain is used to stimulates the amygdala in the same way a physical attack does.
So telling some old person that what they think the world is like is essentially wrong can be compared to a slap in the face. This can be small things as well.
I tried to explain to my father once that people are making money off of YouTube as content creators and that idea was so outlandish to him that he got angry and loud. My girlfriend at the time was really confused and scared afterwards.”
8. Weeding it out.
“Your brain kind of defrags irrelevant information.
If you go on a long, uneventful drive, you might only remember the first and last ten minutes (or something unusual in between), but your brain deems it pointless.”
9. Beware…
“People can be made to remember things that never happened.
This is a large part of what caused the “Satanic Panic”.”
10. What am I doing here?
“Doorway Syndrome.
Basically, you think of one thing, then walk through a doorway, and it’s gone, filed away into matters relevant to the room you just left.
This is why you often forget why you just walked into the kitchen.”
11. Get creative.
“The fact that you can make yourself laugh.
It’s so interesting to me that our subconscious can come up with something on it’s own, delivers it to the conscious part of the brain and it finds it funny.
Also, creativity in general.”
12. Brains are weird.
“When asking for something big, lead up to it by asking for something inconsequential at first (so the person is likely to say yes), followed by slightly larger requests. Once a person has said yes, they feel obligated to keep saying yes. (Sales people do this a lot.)
OTOH, if you want something small, start by asking for something ridiculous, so by comparison, the small thing seems trivial. (Sales people do this a lot, too.)
Also, people are more inclined to let you do something if you give a reason. The interesting part is that it doesn’t really matter what the reason is. E.g., asking to cut in front of someone at the check-out.
If you ask, “Do you mind if I cut in front of you, I just need to buy these things” will be more effective than just saying, “Do you mind if I cut in front of you,” even though the reason is irrelevant. Everyone is in line because they need to buy things.
Brains are weird.”
13. Nightmare.
“Fatal familial insomnia (FFI).
You basically cannot sleep and you go insane as a result until you d**.”
Do you know about any unusual psychological phenomena?
Share them with us in the comments.
Thanks a bunch!
