•"hey, y’see the red thing at the top of the shelf, will you get it?“ “Sorry, what?” “On the sh-” “oh yeah sure, I’ll get it.”
•*doesn’t hear teacher because someone’s pen is making a scratchy sound at the back of the room*
•*replays video 10 ten times to figure out what they’re saying*
•teachers asking, “why do you always stop writing in the middle of a sentence, just write down whatever I’m saying,” followed by the response, “I’m just processing it,” rebuked by, “we’ll stop processing it and just write.”
•*gets really focused on staring out the window and goes through four songs without hearing a single on*
someone is whispering to their friends in the library, you don’t even know who this person is but you know their major, what state they grew up in, and their hobbies during high school. you just wanted to find a quiet spot to do your chemistry homework.
wanting to chime in on other people’s conversations all the time, but don’t, because you’re not suppose to be “listening” to them.
being the only person in the house that can hear that awful buzzing sound certain electronics make
hiding in your room because everything is too loud.
motorcycles were invented by satan
being told that you have dog-like hearing by friends and family
being yelled at for “not listening” by friends and family.
God. God. God. God.
This entire post is so fucking relatable it hurts
“You just need to learn to tune it out.”
Forgetting how to think because ambient noise is drowning out your internal monologue.
“No, I don’t need the volume up, I’d just really like to put on subtitles. No, I don’t need to move closer, I just…”
Leaving the room whenever someone starts talking on the phone.
Pausing your video whenever someone starts talking but trying really really hard not to seem passive aggressive about it.
Struggling to explain why this one sound is the most horrible thing in the world while other very similar sounds are fine.
the fact that placebos can work even when you know they’re placebos is so fucked up. what the hell is up with the brain
like some kind of fucked up wrinkled goblin that won’t unlock the chemical secrets if you just ask politely, you have to give it some kind of pill. you can tell it that the pill doesn’t do shit, but it doesn’t care, it just wants the pill
A few years ago I had the privilege of proof-reading a dissertation on drug addiction interventions which touched on the placebo effect (because it turns out successful addiction interventions share the basic elements of the placebo effect: a desire to get better, a change in one’s beliefs about one’s condition, and a positive relationship with a trusted authority figure).
How the placebo effect works, in terms of feedback between the brain and (presumably) the inflammatory system, is still unknown. But the logic of why the placebo effect should happen is not that mysterious. There are two basic principles.
One, pain is protective. A lot of the conditions we take medicines for are in fact interim defence mechanisms. Pain stops us doing things that damage our bodies. Fever kills pathogens. Vomiting gets rid of poisons. Fainting cuts the work-load on the heart.
Two, healing takes resources. Before the body commits to expending those resources fully it needs to be certain they’re not needed for something else, like fighting off a secondary bacterial infection. And of course the circumstances in which we get sick in the first place are the same circumstances in which we might want to hold resources in reserve for dealing with further assaults on the body.
This means that our healing systems will stay in the interim condition until they get a signal of some kind to let them know that our circumstances have changed and full healing is a good investment now. What part of our body processes that kind of complex information? The brain, that’s what.
The information basically needs to take the form: “Something external has changed and we have confirmation that as a result we are going to recover from this condition.” Apparently our healing systems can tell when we’re just making it up to jolly them along.
The logic is presumably the same in most species, but in humans, being language-users, that external change can take the form of someone whom we trust to know what they’re talking about saying “These pills will do the trick. Drop into the pharmacy on your way home and hand them this bit of paper.”
Most likely the signal from the brain takes the form of some kind of hormone, triggered by a new emotional state.
The word for the subjective experience of that emotional state? Hope.
just watched concrete try and fail to fit into this napkin holder for the past five minutes, now he’s just been standing with his front paws in it looking mad and tired
While I was looking for tape I found some prints I had intended to do a giveaway for back when me & @strawberrynoir released the fan deck.（ ´∀｀）
Since thats over I’m gonna choose a random person from the likes and reblogs of the pin post and mail these 9 x 5.5 inch glossy prints to them instead. Whether you’re following me or not you’re eligible so long as you have a mailing address and occupy three dimensional space.
Just a reminder before I pull a name this weekend. I’m also including extra mystery™
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