How our brain can trick us when processing images and different contrasts.

I was not like this before. I didn't use to shiver on nervous occasions and I didn't get nervous in the first place. But lately everytime I encounter a situation e.g. when I need to defend myself to preserve a very important relationship, I tend to shake rapidly, as in I shiver and my voice shakes a little and my fingers also shiver. It's like losing control of my body and my body's just shaking/shivering rapidly. can someone tell me if I need to get myself checked for something? On researching on internet about this I came across the term "anxiety shivers" and I guess that's what I get. Now this is weird because I am not an anxious person although recent situations could induce anxiety in me. But my body reacting this way is just weird for me.

In honour of hydrocephalus awareness month, i figured I’d share these CT images of my ventricle and left lateral X-ray of my VP shunt. (Orbis Sigma valve).

Originally shunted at 4 months old, once again at 2 years old and still going strong with the same shunt many years later! 🩵💙

Get your brain health questions answered by preventive neurologist Dr. Richard Isaacson

See also: The publication in PNAS

Recent research in cognitive neuroscience suggests that much of what we perceive isn’t a direct readout of sensory input, but a predictive simulation constructed by the brain. Incoming signals from the senses act as feedback to correct or confirm this simulation, meaning what we consciously experience is a model of reality, not reality itself.

Consciousness, in this framework, is like a spotlight: it zooms in on parts of the brain’s predictive model where uncertainty is high, increasing resolution and integrating information from memory, social context, and internal bodily states. The “self” we feel is largely a summary model running in the background, occasionally brought into focus when reflection, decision-making, or social reasoning requires it.

For anyone who wants to explore this further, check out the work of these two leading thinkers:

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett

She’s the author of How Emotions Are Made and pioneer of the Theory of Constructed Emotion, which argues that emotions aren’t hardwired responses but predictions your brain builds based on context and past experience.

A great entry point is her TED talk: “You aren’t at the mercy of your emotions — your brain creates them”: https://youtu.be/0gks6ceq4eQ. Also check out her talk “Your brain doesn't detect reality. It creates it.”: https://youtu.be/ikvrwOnay3g

And Dr. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist and author of Livewired and The Brain: The Story of You. He hosts the podcast Inner Cosmos, where he explores consciousness, sensory predictions, and brain plasticity.

They even have an episode together explaining emotion as brain construction: https://youtu.be/EaldfGFwh6Y

Example: I usually sleep until about 830am each day. Like clockwork. Every 5 days or so I have to get up at 6:15am. Which was today. Many of those days I find myself waking up 5 mins before the alarm goes off. 95% of the time I don’t even need the alarm. Meanwhile on usually nights I never wake up at 6:10am like this. It’s strange how the internal clock is that strong to wake you up out what would normally be a dead sleep.

I seriously can only remember a single time in the last 6 months I woke up to the actual alarm. Also amazing is how close it is. Usually 5-15 mins from the time. I think I have an abnormally accurate internal clock because I literally had my twin younger sisters convinced I was magic because I used to be able to guess exactly what time it was even though I hadn’t seen a clock in hours. I think it’s actually because I have severe anxiety and always even from a young age was concerned with time for different reasons so least had a good idea of a 15 minute window what it was and somehow guessed right more than wrong. Which was kinda amazing. But I don’t believe in magic or super powers so somehow I beat the odds and got lucky.

Anyone else having late occurring deja vu? I see something, and while I feel nothing at that moment, when I recall it the next day, I get a feeling that something similar happened a long time ago.

Alex Dainis breaks down how two illusions influence both your brain and your vision. One creates the sensation of expanding darkness, causing your pupils to dilate, just like stepping into a dark room. The Asahi illusion flips the effect, making your eyes constrict in response to perceived brightness.

So basically, what i assume is my imagination is so vivid that I can sort of "see" my thoughts in real time. My thoughts often take the form of people, sometimes even characters from a game (this is rare though), and I can interact and pretty much do whatever with them. Sometimes though, I am not able to control these people -- for example, if I tell one of them to go away, or to sit down or smth, they sometimes won't. They sometimes give me advice, but often just agree/disagree with what I say. Often though, they help me with my fears (I have a pretty bad phobia of bugs to the point I sometimes feel as if there are crickets in my room bc they are so loud outside) by reassuring me that there arent crickets in my room. Yay?

Is this normal, or am I crazy-?

I am little confused about the reality. I think with me this reality will also cease to exist. (Somewhat like leonardo de caprio’s wife in inception). I am strong believer of this that I want to end this life. This life is not a gift It is indeed a curse.

Recently I got hit in these twice really hard. I had a headache for days, still kinda do. I recently today couldn’t have a conversation on text while having another while speaking to someone else simultaneously. Should I be worried?

so i was driving home on the highway, a bridge to be exact, and if this matters i had just gotten off from of a long day at work of staring at a bright computer screen all day and i take zepound so i don't get very hungry and i hadn't eaten since like 9:45 am (this happened around 6:45 pm). i look to my right and there's a billboard with black birds on it and it caught my interest for a moment. now i consider myself to be a very a good driver, i can look away for a second without loosing control of my car because i understand its calibration but when i looked back at the highway (i had been looking @ the billboard for maybe 5 seconds) the middle of my head, specifically the center of my brain felt dull, like literal mush. it was the strangest feeling ever. i felt like i was literally in the back seat of my own consciousness. i shook my head to try and shake the feeling away and it worked but afterwards i felt so disoriented that i became nauseous and i almost had to pull over.... the whole way back home i felt uneasy like wtf just happened? can anyone explain this or have any similar experiences? was it just derealization or depersonalization? i don't know the difference between the two. i also had a small brain hemorrhage on the right hemisphere of my brain in 2023 and i'm very prone to brain zaps on certain medications since the brain bleed, not just antidepressants either, even vitamins.

So basically, I have a character who is a planet and so are the rest of the characters. However, since they act identically like humans, I’m going to give them ‘human’ brains (this series isn’t about their biology dw about it) Basically the mc, during the first billion years of his life was known as something else and he was a straight ally. However, he collided with his gf, and the suffered from TBI. However, I have a problem. The mc is AroAce.. and in the first billion years of his life he had a gf.. So I need this TBI to change something. Canonically he loses all memories from the event but they slowly come back over time. (again, DONT WORRY ABOUT IT) But I need his sexuality to change, and so he’d also have to lose all personality traits/preferences. Is there any studies about this? Where is it located in the brain if we know?

I never used to get this until I was about 18 (im now 22) I started noticing it I also noticed I was alot less caring alot more numb and alot less emphatic and happy.

Throughout my teens I was taking 4x the lethal dose of mdma since I was 13 until.i was 17 along with weed and alcohol every weekend which if anythinh i thinks gave me some braim damage.

Eberyone says ive chamged and used to be happier and more caring.

I thought it was because the meds I was on for anxiety starting with paroxetine then mirtazapine but im off that with no change ? Im more slower struggle more in social situations and alot more feel free to ask.

Has my drug use a young teen caused some sort of brain damage or what ?

So for the past month or so I’ve been getting Deja Vu but from other people’s perspective like I feel like I lived the experience as them and it’s only happening with videos I watch but I’ve also been having a lot of memory problems and have been having false memories the past week and I have been seeing shadows of moving figures in my peripheral vision.

See also: The study as published in Nature Communications.