Listen to the reading by David Guzman:
The brain: it's the most complex organ in the human skull. This marvelous mass of fat is the command center of our hands, our fingers, our wrists, our knuckle, and the rest of our bodies. Now thanks to modern science and old-fashioned poking around, we are learning more about the body's smartest blob than ever before.
I spent nearly a year as one of the scientists mapping the human brain before I was removed from the project for lying about my qualifications and selling brain samples to the Bodies exhibit. But over the three weekends since then, I've completed my studies of the brain. And just as you might imagine, everything I've learned about the brain has scared the hell out of me. Here are my findings:
- Dreams are how the brain lies to us — According to my research, none of the things that happen in your dreams are reliable events or memories. Shocking, I know! The reason your brain wants you to think that your dreams are real is to make up for all the mistakes it makes you do when you are awake, like when it makes you sneak a brain out of a research lab you're being escorted from. (As a side note, the foot is the most trustworthy part of the human body.)
- We would be 50% smarter if the brain wasn't always trying to control wings that we don't have — Now we know why it's impossible, no matter how hard you study, to be smarter than you currently are: because the brain expends an enormous amount of effort trying to lift you into the air with nonexistent wings. Interestingly enough, if the human body did have wings, the brain would fly it into directly into power lines.
- Parts of the brain light up when you put Christmas lights in them — One of my most startling findings is that you do not need an fMRI to see areas of the brain light up. You can make that happen simply by wrapping the brain in Christmas lights from the garage where you are performing your brain studies. I recommend twinkle lights because they are particularly amusing.
- The brain can be easily misplaced — In the course of my studies, I found myself leaving brains under kitchen tables, on city buses, and in fabulous restaurants. It's the only thing that makes the brain so hard to study. (As a side note, the foot is the hardest to misplace part of the human body.)
- The universal urge to challenge a ram to a fight starts in the amygdala — The only human behavior common among all cultures, the desire to start a fight with a ram has its origins in the area of the brain called the amygdala. Now when I find myself throwing rocks at a ram's face in the mountains and think “Why am I doing this again?” I know it's the brain's amygdala that brought me there and not a conscious choice.
- There is only a left brain — The entire brain is a left brain. And that includes the right side of the brain. That's just what I see when I look at it.
- Thinking too hard about something will make it physically appear in the brain — For instance, the brain I was studying clearly at some point was intensely thinking about Christmas lights. I certainly can't think of any other way they got there, so I can only deduce that this brain was in deep thought about Christmas lights and manifested a set that matched the ones went missing from my garage two weeks ago.
- The brain's ability to recognize faces is limited to John Lithgow — Human faces: only computers can tell them apart. In fact, most people appear not to even have a face. The lone exception: 3rd Rock From The Sun star John Lithgow. The man who played the heroic father in Footloose is the one person whose face makes any sense to the brain. Everyone else's face has too many common elements (eyes, mouth, nose) to be truly distinct.
- The Bodies exhibit won't buy a brain wrapped in Christmas lights — This was my most recent finding, and it couldn't have come at a worse time since I needed extra cash for my trip to a wild ram sanctuary. (As a side note, they will buy a foot wrapped in Christmas lights, and will pay top dollar for a pair of human wings.)
Resources