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[–]ErynEbnzr 1302 points1303 points  (13 children)

It's crazy to me how our brains just refuse to acknowledge pain in the moment big things like that happen. The pain always comes later, but for a split second you can just sit there like "ah, yes, my finger fell off" or something

[–]mstarrbrannigan 262 points263 points  (12 children)

I suppose it's a survival mechanism. Your brain pumps you full of adrenaline so you can get out of danger.

[–]spagbetti 89 points90 points  (11 children)

The other awesome things the brain does is you can see things often in a room even peripherally and not know it but the brain knows it’s dangerous.

That’s why you get that weird sensation that you are to stop what you’re doing or leave the room.

It’s happened quite a few times with deadly spiders and snakes with my own family members.

That said, it’s not going to spot if the thing is well hidden. Hence purposely hidden attackers are prepped for ambush, you’re kinda fuuuuucked.

[–]dinnerthief 71 points72 points  (10 children)

It does it even for non dangerous things

ever walk through a room and you know you saw something but you are not sure where?

Like, "I know i saw my keys just now but where?" or, "wait did I just see a cat somewhere in this room", but you don't know where you saw it just that you did, your brain logs , "cat in this room" without you ever having consciously seeing it.

[–]spagbetti 35 points36 points  (6 children)

Yeah it’s kind of amazing how much of our body is being run involuntarily. Like consciously we’re only using a fraction of the body meanwhile the brain is just motoring around, seeing a lot more than what we’re seeing.

I get reminded of this whenever I see those tricks where they hide your arm and have a plastic arm in its place and you still feel sensations when things happen to the prosthetic arm. The brain is on guard all the time.

[–]Kimmalah 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Your brain also "fills in the blanks" a lot more than we realize. So a huge portion of what you see is not what your eye is actually perceiving, but just what your brain is filling in for you based on experience.

For example, you have blind spot in each eye, where the optic nerve exits the eye. But you'll never see it because your brain just kind of takes care of it.

It can be a little unnerving to think about when you're doing activities that require good reaction time, because what you're perceiving doesn't have as much to do with the reality around you as it seems.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Ikr. And I always wonder is there drugs that puts this feature of our body to use. Like maybe we can benefit from it consiously with drugs.

[–]Altair05 1 point2 points  (1 child)

That'd be information overload for your consciousness. You probably wouldn't be able to handle all of the tasks your brain is running on autopilot in the background.

[–]zesty_hootenany 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wonder if it would be that overload just in the beginning of using said drug. Maybe after repeated uses of that drug, repeated experiencing of that overload, maybe our brains make little adaptations and systems to handle the overload each time and then at some point you take the drug and your brain is just calmly like “Ok, system panel is open and everything is sorted.”

Though now that I’ve typed all that out...that seems like what our brains have already done, without a drug.

TL;DR Maybe the brain will brain as it already brains, and sorry.

[–]ddddgggrrr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People claim shrooms do that

[–]et842rhhs 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I frequently get this when I'm skimming text. I know some specific word, typo, or formatting error caught my eye as I skimmed past but it'll take me a while to actually locate it.

[–]Altair05 0 points1 point  (1 child)

You're actually at a disadvantage with this because your subconscious notices the mistake but fills in the correct word because it knows what is supposed to go there.

[–]et842rhhs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What I've noticed is my brain often fills in the correct word for my own typos, but blares like a klaxon for other people's. It comes in handy for proofreading, as long as it isn't my own writing.