Has Your Brain Ever Betrayed You?

I started watching It a few days ago.

I’ve been intrigued by this movie ever since I started reading about it last year. I generally don’t enjoy being scared, so I didn’t see it in the theater, but I vowed to watch it at home.

I got the DVD from Netflix last week, and during lunch one day (plenty of sunlight), I started watching it using a technique discussed on this blog a while ago: almost no sound, just subtitle. This diminishes most of the jump scares, though there’s still plenty of spooky imagery.

That night, Biddy woke me up as he often does in the wee hours of the morning to inform me that he urgently needs food and/or pets. After appeasing him (he generally wins these battles), I climbed back into bed and thought, “What can I think about to help me fall back asleep right away?”

My brain replied, “You should think about It!”

No no no no. Why, brain, why? It was much harder to fall back asleep after that.

Have you ever had this happen? I have no logical explanation of it.

5 thoughts on “Has Your Brain Ever Betrayed You?”

  1. Unfortunately I do also suffer from brain betrayal every now and then, usually after my Thursday game night. We usually play two games between 6 and 10, but sometimes it runs a bit long and I don’t return home and get in bed until 11. I have to get up at 5 to get ready for work so, in those instances, I tell my brain that I need to go to sleep right away to get 6 hours of sleep before my alarm wakes me up. Of course, that’s when my brain starts to do everything in its power to keep me awake and I end up watching the minutes slowly go by… please share if you ever find a good solution!

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  2. My brain often does this to me when I’m stressed out or anxious about something. I’ve noticed the inability to sleep happening most often when I have a long day of driving ahead of me (such as the few times a year I drive across the state for work meetings), and instead of being able to get a restful night of sleep, my brain will come up with a million other things for me to think about that prevent me from actually falling asleep until about 3 or 4 am, knowing I need to be up around 6:30 at the latest for the drive. Sometimes reading helps to shut my brain down, or grabbing my iPad and turning on a movie I’ve seen many times will do the trick, but this has also backfired and left me staying up even later reading/watching the screen…I’ve found coffee or tea the next day help quite a bit to make it through the day after a restless night.

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  3. Often when I’m in the shower and I close my eyes, my brain starts thinking about me being in shark infested waters. Stupid brain! Also, I’ve read a lot of Stephen King books and IT is the only one that scared me while I was reading it.

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  4. Yes and it’s usually not good! Although I no longer read horror stories or watch anything like that.

    Sleep as well as being restorative is necessary to let your brain process things that have happened throughout the day. So, thats why we tend to wake up trying to resolve challenges or going over a meeting again, revisiting books, films and and other information we have taken in.

    I had a situation on Saturday though that has been playing on my mind and had me thinking could I have done something different? I was cycling through the Oxforshsire countryside and all of a sudden a guy was shouting for help in the back of a van. I called the police, but the van drove off and I don’t know what happened to the guy. I just can’t square it away though as i keep wondering, what if i could have done things differently. I have woken up a couple of times and tried not to think about it, but my brain is busy thinking through different scenarios. So, i may end up waking up and thinking on that one again!

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