The human brain is fascinating!
And one of the most fascinating aspects of it is that so much of it is still a mystery to us.
So that means there are a whole lot of strange things going on…
Folks on AskReddit talked about very odd psychological phenomena.
Let’s get weird.
1. Extreme stress.
“Tachypsychia.
Essentially, under situations of EXTREME STRESS, your mind starts processing information at such a high rate of speed that time seems to slow down in your perception. Victims of car crashes experience it.
I experienced it during my first firefight in Afghanistan. It was like the entire world was in slow motion.
Famously- you saw Tom Hanks character Capt. Miller in Saving Private Ryan experience it during the Normandy landing sequence.”
2. Don’t blink.
“Eye doctor here.
The average human blink has an interval somewhere between 4-6 seconds but when we read, look at a phone/tablet, or computer for extended hours the blink interval can reduce to once or twice per minute and it is damaging to the eyes due to the requirement of spreading tears but also because the glands are not being milked by blinking and therefore forcing backup of materials and even in severe cases, d**th of the glands entirely.
These glands are responsible for protection and comfort of the eye and when left to d**, your tears simply cannot protect the eye well enough.”
3. Try it!
“If you keep the first and last letter in every word in the same spot but rearrange the middle letters, your brain can automatically figure out the words.”
4. Can’t recall.
“It’s common for victims of v**lent crimes to forget key details, even if they saw everything, because their brain is focusing more on how to survive than how to identify the perp.
It’s rare for prosecutors to have a victim who remembers everything about the perp or the place, which makes the trial difficult because we often assume that victims will remember all the key details.
In fact they’re more likely to remember minor details like smells and sounds.”
5. Cool.
“It’s possible for the the human brain to read an incorrect sentence properly by filtering out excessive words.
For instance, there were two of the word “the” in the first line.”
6. Fascinating.
“Tendency of believing a conspiracy surrounding an event is tied to the severity of the consequences.
Hypothetically, a politician is shot. When people are told the shot missed, they are more likely to say the shooter was a random crazy person.
When told the politician d**d, they are more likely to believe there was a conspiracy. Events were the same – only the consequences changed.”
7. Delusions.
“Cotard’s delusion.
It’s a very rare delusion in which people think they’re d**d, don’t literally exist, some limbs doesn’t exist or are putrefying internally.
It’s very rare, but ain’t it a very odd delusion to have.”
8. Mob mentality.
“The ‘threshold’ effect.
Basically, it has been observed that people will do very out-of-character things if they see enough people do it first. Each person has a different threshold of what is “enough” other people.
The classic example is looting. Most people would never start looting in a disaster, but there are some who will. There are even more who will jump at the chance as soon as they see even one other person do it (threshold).
1). There are even more people with a threshold of 2. And even very conservative, law abiding people might only have a threshold of 4 before they join the looters. Almost nobody will hold out forever.
This is the thing that makes mobs dangerous.”
9. Seeing patterns.
“I frequently bring up this amazing thing that our brain can do, called “pareidolia”.
It’s the ability to see patterns in something where there are no patterns. Our brain will literally fill in blanks and make up information for two things to connect to one commonality. The reason that it happens is because of how we organize memories.
Every piece of information has to be connected to another piece of information in order for us to recall it. But if a piece of information doesn’t connect to anything, our brains can make something up in order to bridge the gap.
As a consequence, people can see meaning in things that literally have no meaning, and connect dots where there are none.”
10. Scary.
“Body integrity identity disorder describes the extremely rare phenomenon of peoples who desire the amputation of one or more healthy limbs.
Some of these people mutilate themselves others ask surgeons for an amputation.”
11. It’s alive!
“Alien hand syndrome.
A cognitive disassociation where a person essentially loses control of one of their hands and arms.
It doesn’t sit there lifeless, it performs actions without their knowledge as if it had a mind of its own.”
12. SDAM.
“I have SDAM (stands for severely deficient autobiographical memory). I don’t know of anyone else who has this condition, and there’s only about 2 articles I could find about it on google.
It’s non-serious and was not caused by childhood trauma that I’m aware of (I had a safe and fairly loving upbringing). It basically means I lack the ability to revisit any long-term memories. I know that certain things have happened, but I can’t go back and ‘watch’ it in my mind because I didn’t store the experience. There are a handful of exceptions, which are mostly recent memories.
I had my 21st birthday party 2 years ago and I don’t remember anything that happened during it, but I can see the photos. Seeing photos and videos of myself is super weird because it’s like watching someone else (because I don’t remember doing the thing). This also means I have no perception of my past self, and I don’t feel connected to the person I was even a year ago.
I know my personality is pretty much the same, but I also know I have changed an awful lot in the last few years, and I think some people think I’m trying to be a different person or something. I’m not, I’m just working solely with my present self and growing how I see fit.
It’s kind of upsetting that I can’t relive most of the good things that’ve happened to me, but it also gives me a sense of peace because I can’t relive the bad things either. That said, I have a very strong imagination, and I’ve fabricated and re-made past events in my head to fill in the gaps, even though I don’t use those imaginary scenarios for anything. It’s very odd.
It’s frustrating trying to explain this to people, so I no longer try to unless I’m comfortable with and trust them. Most people brush it off and say “well they’re in there somewhere, you just need to find them.” No, they’re not in there. Nothing is in there, and memory triggers usually do nothing for me.
I think a part of it may be because I have ADHD, and for me it has caused an overactive mind, which takes precedence over what’s happening in my physical environment. I think I’ve spent so much of my life in my head that I just haven’t recorded any memories of my experiences. Anyway, that’s my psychological anomaly.”
What do you have to add to this conversation?
Talk to us in the comments.
We’d love to hear from you!
