According
to Canadian scientist Michael Persinger, believing you have
been abducted by aliens or found God is the result of a
"temporary brain disturbance".
Persinger
has been tinkering with the heads of volunteers, disturbing
the electrical activity in the grey matter with magnetic
fields.
The
volunteers feel as if they have been poked and prodded by
alien probes, or they report intense emotional reactions
similar to religious ecstacy. Since this phenomena can obviously
occur without magnetic interference from mad Canadian scientists,
this could explain reports of such abductions. Of course,
the brain is mysterious territory. It fills a cavity in
our skulls and for the most part makes sure that we know
left from right, up from down, and fully comprehend gravity
so we don't fall off really tall buildings.
We
rely on our brains for a lot of stuff—for being able
to see and hear and move and talk and even for being alive.
Once the brain shuts down, even a fully functioning heart
and other offal is not regarded as evidence of life as we
know it.
Our
brains formed the word as well as the concept of paranoia.
Just because it isn't there, doesn't mean it isn't out to
get you. If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one
there to see it, can it still flatten your house? But Persinger
has taken paranoia to a whole new level. Forget the CIA,
the FBI and all those other initials, it's our damn brains
we can't trust. Our brains are stuffing us around all over
the place. They lie to us, convince us we have been probed
by grey guys with radar dish eyes, have spoken to God, met
Elvis in the frozen food aisle of the local supermarket,
or fallen in love.
That's
the dirtiest brain trick of all. If intense feelings are
the result of a temporary brain disturbance, then falling
in love is quite simply a psychotic disorder.
We
are already at the mercy of our hormones and our biological
clocks in the mating game as we are prodded into perpetuating
the species. But when the object of desire is not chosen
for breeding purposes, what then are our sneaky brains up
to?
The
line between being a "star crossed lover" and a psychotic
stalker is already pretty thin. Persinger's experiments
have placed the ardent pursuit of love into the category
of a short circuit.
Persinger's
experiments could undermine thousands of years of silly
love songs. How typical of a man to prove emotions are nothing
more than TBDs just as we are getting men to wake up to
their feminine sides.
It
is all very bad news for us sensitive, emotional, feeling
souls.
Yesterday
I cried, today I hugged someone and said "I love you" and
it is all the result of a TBD. I am a crazy mess with a
brain sparking like a live wire in a mud puddle.
I
haven't been abducted by aliens yet, but it's only a matter
of time before my brain convinces me I have.
Bring
it on, Brain, I'm ready for you.
