How Your Brain Creates Your World Part 1

Our brains are incredible. They receive information, process it and try to make sense of it, then create an output based on that information. That output is your reality. 

Your reality isn’t the world around you, it’s how your brain processes the world around you.

The Creation of Your Reality

What happens when the input doesn’t match the output?

Sometimes, when your brain processes the information it receives, it doesn’t work out as smoothly as you’d like. Sometimes it seems your brain is almost confused! Here are a few examples:

Reality and Placebo

Placebo drugs are a great way to understand how your brain constructs your reality. Let’s take paracetamol for example. When you take paracetamol, an analgesic drug that acts on the central nervous system, you experience less pain. It really works!

If you’re in pain and take a placebo, thinking it’s paracetamol, your brain uses its own natural pathways to create your own inherent ‘heroine’ that also decreases your pain. You get the same result. 

1. The input: You take a pill you’re told is Paracetamol.

2. Your brain processes this information based on your past experiences with pain medicine, its effectiveness, plus your body’s own reactions to pain responses.

3. Your reality: You feel less pain. Hooray!

The input (a fake pill) doesn’t match the output! (no pain!) because of the way your brain processes the information it receives.

Think about the things that influence you most. People you spend the most time with, TV shows you watch, magazines your subscribe to. All these things shape your reality, and create your world. Are they creating the world you want them to?

Check back in for Part 2 where we look at reality and pain.