Stoned

You know when you're stoned, your brain sort of goes into hyperdrive. Everything seems to work more efficiently, quicker. Of course this brain boost doesn't necessarily make the results any more correct. In reality your brain is firing on a lot more cylinders than usual, in particular your pattern-recognition system. That now notices everything, and tries to match it up with something familiar. Since it's got access to the whole of your memories, which are now also running on all cylinders, it can quickly match things up and make you think you're seeing/hearing something you're not. Odd repetetive noises, like the hum of a computer, the faint whirring of the fridge freezer, can be immediately (and inaccurately) attributed to something familiar. Like distant music on the edge of hearing, or the sounds of people talking, but you just can't make out the words.

Why does it do this? Does it make matches at random, because it's not...working properly? Or does it know what it's doing, and simply chooses to do it? Like your pattern-recognition system is actually liking what it's doing, deliberately feeding you inappropriate information...but it's a gas, right? Such a massive dose on the old CBD receptors..it's like Party Time!

Of course not all patterns are aural. The old pattern-recognition system can make you interpret what you see differently, what you feel, shit, even what you think! It can affect your social system too. For example, making you interpret a friend's conversation as something altogether more sinister. Has Steve got an ulterior motive? What did he really mean when he said that?

Something about Steve's look or voice reminds you of an actor in a certain movie, and immediately that character overlays on top of your view of your friend. Thus paranoia starts. Add to that the fact that you sometimes hear people talking who aren't there, and you start to look like textbook paranoid-schizophrenic!

Makes you wonder if there's a sort of moderator system in the brain, something that keeps the other systems in line. You know, stops this process overriding that process. Like you want to have a normal conversation with your friend Steve, but you keep treating him as if he's a sort of bad alter-ego of himself. That's a pattern-recognition system intruding forcefully on the rest of the brain.

Perhaps the Moderator system is himself stoned, and joining in the party? Yeah guys, go ahead, you do what you want. Make him think Steve's actually Gary Oldman, and he wants to kill him. What the hell...it's Party Time!

Hmmm...my skin feels like velvet, no, more like felt, fuzzy felt. And my mouth feels like...like my teeth are huge! They're like Stonehenge, man.