The mind is a weird, complicated, dangerous and sometimes back-stabbing entity.
Most of the time it tries to do what is best for you and –by extension- itself. It can fail on you but most of the time this is the logical outcome of over-stressing or poor maintenance.
We ask a lot of our minds, so we really don’t get too miffed if they go into hibernation mode unless it comes as a very inopportune time.
Sometimes, however, our minds can turn on us. I’m not talking about medical conditions, or things like mental disorders. I’m talking about the good, old-fashioned; what-the-hell was that moments, thoughts and dreams that our minds sometimes spit out in all contradiction of good sense and sanity. This mostly occurs in dreams or in sudden, alien thoughts. Sometimes our minds are actively trying to ruin things for us, like that guy who constantly gives you links to terrible, terrible things on the internet.
I was thinking a bit about this while reading a thread on people trying to conquer addictions, like drinking and smoking. Many of them shared the experience of having dreams about ‘falling off the wagon’ or giving into their addictions. Was their body so addicted to the substance that triggered these thoughts? Was their brain trying to cheer them on in a different way, a ‘look how terrible it would be if you went back! Think of the guilt!’?
Then I thought: maybe the brain is like a really dumb puppy. It’s trying to do the right thing and gives us the things it thinks we want and then doesn’t understand when we get all mad and yell at it. The dreams are just the dead animals the simple puppy brings to us, thinking it will make us happy.
Say you’ve been really lonely. It will give you a dream about meeting someone, but then you wake up pissed off because it was like that dream was mocking you. It gave you something; something you thought was real in that dreamscape, only for it to vanish into nothing in the morning. The brain doesn’t understand this. It was only a dream, right? It gave us what we wanted, didn’t it?
Or say you’ve been really bored or not too sure about the direction your life is headed in. The brain will give you an awesome adventure full of enough explosions, butt-kicking, and romantic interest to fuel three Jason Statham movies. This only serves to undercut just how boring and uninteresting you think your life is at the moment.
The brain was just thinking ‘awww you’re sad. I will try to cheer you up for a while!’ To us that was terrible- why would our subconscious ridicule us? Why would it tempt us with something we know we can’t have?
Maybe it’s just that simple- our brains are dumb and we overthink things in our waking hours. We really should just kick back and enjoy the ride, content in the knowledge that our subconscious can give us a really bitchin’ lightsaber battle if it so desired.
Note: Even if it’s true that doesn’t mean I can’t still be pissed at you brain. I mean, Gaspard Ulliel? Why would you do that to me?
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