The average person may not stop to think about it that often, but the human mind is a strange, strange thing. It's a miraculous machine that turns sensory input into meaningful information, and it shapes the way we see, feel, and interact with the world around us.
With the help of u/Sufficient_Idea_4606, who asked other Reddit users, "What's the most interesting psychology fact you know?" I've created a list of some of the most bizarre and disturbing psychology facts I'll never be able to unlearn. You'll never think about your brain the same way again...
1.
"Alien hand syndrome (aka Dr. Strangelove Syndrome), where one of your hands essentially does whatever it wants. The alien hand isn’t necessarily trying to sabotage or kill you; it just can't be controlled by your consciousness. It does whatever it wants, even if it sabotages you. And the consciousness could feel like it has become antagonistic."
2.
"There isn’t a single case of a blind person developing schizophrenia. One theory suggests that the absence of visual stimuli may alter the development of certain brain regions associated with schizophrenia, reducing the risk of developing the disorder."
3.
"The brain 'hallucinates reality into being.' The brain is a prediction engine. It’s not energy-efficient to process all the information coming in, and it’s beneficial to anticipate what will happen next. So if you’re looking at something and it appears as you would expect, you don’t update your internal model of the world. This could explain the invisible gorilla experiment."
4.
"Folie à deux. It's when two people share the same delusion. (Usually romantic partners, but sometimes parent/child or other relationship types.) I've only seen this touched on in fiction a couple of times: in an X-Files episode, and, I think, you could consider the main characters in Natural Born Killers to have this type of psychosis."
5.
"You pay more visual attention to things between heartbeats, the implication being that your brain is preoccupied talking to your heart and pays less attention to visual stimulus during the heartbeat itself."
—u/bruisesandall
6.
"People generally would take a smaller house that was larger than their neighbors' over a bigger house that was smaller than their neighbors'. This is wild to me. Human beings are bonkers."
7.
"The way memory works is really interesting to me. We think of it as a camera, but it’s not at all. We save the essential details, the skeleton, and every time we remember it we flesh it out based on those details. So you’re not really remembering something; you’re constructing it. And the more you recount or think about a memory, the more likely it is to be distorted."
8.
"Borderline personality disorder was named to describe patients who seemed on the borderline of neurosis and psychosis. These patients exhibited psychotic-like symptoms, such as severe paranoia or dissociation under stress, so severe that a primary psychotic disorder could not be ruled out. However, these breaks from reality were brief and reversible, so they didn't seem to fit the criteria for a permanent psychotic disorder either."
9.
"We have a mirror neuron system that 'turns on' within the first 72 hours after birth that helps with attachment and attunement as well as learning."
10.
"In the 1960s, a treatment for epilepsy was cutting the corpus callosum — the bridge between the left and right hemispheres. They could then ask each hemisphere different questions by showing signs to one side of their visual field. The right half of the brain could recognize an apple and pick it out by touch, but couldn't name it. The left half could name and describe it easily. They would ask the right half of the brain to get up and walk around, then ask the left half why they got up, and they always made up a plausible excuse: I was thirsty, I felt like stretching my legs, etc."
11.
"Pica is the name for the disorder that causes people to consume weird items like glass, chalk, laundry detergent, and a lot of other things covered on My Strange Addiction."
12.
"While asleep, the brain recalls memories in reverse order. Not the entire time when you’re asleep, and not just while you’re asleep. It may have something to do with memory consolidation."
13.
"There is a natural phenomenon that causes humans to subconsciously favor the left side of space; it’s called pseudoneglect. As opposed to humans who have suffered a right-hemisphere stroke, who can severely neglect the left side of space."
14.
"Placebo and nocebo effects have always been so fascinating to me. And it is not just psychosomatic, but there are real physiological implications of a placebo. For example, it can change patterns of brain activation and upregulate endogenous opioids (the body's natural painkillers). On the other hand, nocebo occurs when your brain convinces your body that harmless things are harmful, triggering negative effects simply because you expect them to happen, like thinking you are under a curse."
15.
"The brain is crosswired, where the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa. No clue why this is, but it’s silly."
16.
"The Mandela Effect is fascinating! It's the phenomenon where a large group of people remembers an event or detail differently from how it actually occurred. It raises questions about memory, perception, and the malleability of our recollections. What's even more intriguing is the psychological mechanisms behind our collective misremembering of certain things. It's a mind-bending dive into the complexities of human cognition!"
17.
And lastly: "Neuroplasticity — how the brain can change as a result of trauma, and that we can work to heal trauma and rewire the brain."
Learning these psychology facts made me realize that I know less about the human brain than I thought. In fact, there's probably still a lot that humans don't know about how our brains and bodies work, and I'm both fascinated and frightened to see what scientists will discover in the coming years.
Do you know any bizarre or scary psychology facts? Let me know what I missed in the comment form below!
Note: Responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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SpaceX
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NASA