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Alex Hansen's picture

Brain Control

After reading this post, I remember actually taking part in that word-association game in a psychology class, and it was much more difficult to read a word that was colored differently than what was written.  There were a few other activities as well that make seem to have a lot of implication in brain and behavior correlations.  Another game was seeing a picture of an animal and then reading the word of a different animal right after it (very similar activity). 

Another included displaying a picture that can resemble different images depending on the way in which you look at it.  For example, the typical photograph that most people know of is an old lady or a profile of a younger person.  What is it about our neurons and the input that makes different people see different images?  What is it that makes us able to see the 'other' image when asked, can we control what our minds and our brain?  Do our brains at first work instinctually, but if in a way 'asked' to work a certain way, does it happen?  What controls what you want your brain to do happen?  Why is it that at times you can control it while at other times you are not able to?

 Another activity involved memory.  You were given a slide of names or words and you had to remember them.  Most of the time you remember the beginning and end words, but your brain seems to forget the words in the middle when asked to write down all the words you recall from the activity.  Why does this occur?  Why is it that there exist patterns of behavior for memory?  Number patterns that seem to frequently reoccur?  What is it about our brains and the neuronal activity that causes such to occur?  Does there exist a similarity across all humans?  Across all animals?

My last thought pertained to the previous post regarding sight and dreams.  I was lead to think about the images I see in my dreams and the emotions I feel.  Are those emotions true?  Are they a reflection of the emotions we experience while awake?  Are they a reflection of the emotions that we know exist on one level but seek to avoid?  As for the images, I was lead to think about what is real.  There are times that I dream up images that I've never seen before, and I wonder how my brain can create a picture if it has never 'existed' or is it that it has existed?  Does seeing an image in a dream make it a reality, make it so the image has existed?  What type of powers do our brains really have?  Do our neurons have to be in a certain state for different brain functions to come out?  What is the difference between being awake and seeing images versus seeing an image in a dream?

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