Your Mind Wanders Because Your Brain Whispers
a found poem
[You store] memories
in a new place when you daydream.
Electrical impulses encode
like different barcodes identify
a product in the stores.
This happens thousands of times
a day without us being aware.
We think we are not doing anything
useful, our brain is very busy storing
new memories.
One to two seconds before
the hippocampus whispers a memory,
large parts of the brain become silent
so other parts of the brain can hear
what the hippocampus is trying to say.
Daydreaming, we are less aware.
The brain is busy listening
to memories instead.
You might need
to be bored.
Derived from “Your Mind Wanders Because Your Brain Whispers” by University of Oslo press office, NeuroscienceNews.com, October 18, 2022
Another Piece Of Evidence Our Existence Is A Simulated Reality
A woman named Alfreda, now going
by Freda, was a senior CIA officer who
-ignored verified warnings of the 9/11 attacks
-tortured detainees
-falsely told Congress good intel rises from torture.
Now retired, Freda has rebranded herself
as a beauty consultant and life coach
to help clients “feel invincible in midlife.”
Some physicists claim the speed of light is a hardware
artifact indicating this planet is indeed a simulation,
meaning all of us are qualia-generating machines.
For what, I wonder, in my qualia-generating way?
Scientific American says “everything,
with the exception of nothing, is …a conspiracy
designed to fool our senses.” That’s not exactly
the way poets and philosophers have described it.
In 4th century BC, Master Zhuang wrote
he dreamed he was a butterfly flitting happily,
unaware he was Zhuang Zhou, only to wake
not knowing if he was Zhuang Zhou who dreamt
he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming
he was Zhuang Zhou. Between the two distinctions
one cannot discern wakefulness from dreaming.
And here we are.
Laura Grace Weldon lives on a small ramshackle farm where she works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops, and maxes out her library card each week. Laura served as Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books. Connect with her at lauragraceweldon.com.
The Disappointed Housewife 