They say that soon we’ll be able to merge our brains with computers.
But what if there’s already a built in computer-like component? Like – a power switch that knocks consciousness on and off? Indeed, it may not be long before “… and how does that make you feel?” gets replaced with “Did you try turning it off and on again?”
A recent study done at GWU managed to access the clapper button for the light of our brain organs. Back in the day, the dude who discovered DNA (in between nomming psychadelics) was among the great minds who said our think factories MUST have a processing center – and hypothesized it was the “claustrum”. In fact, the GW study done on an epileptic woman may just support that little region is indeed our mind’s nucleus. And like a nucleus, it’s deep in there (which is good ‘cause it’d suck if you froze up into the blue screen of death every time you knocked your noggin on the kitchen cupboard).
Home girl was just reading a book, minding her bizz, when suddenly her whole thought train slow-mo’d to a stop and she morphed into the dormant version of a stepford wife, staring vacantly into mid distance.
Or… powered down, at least.
As always, my schizoid thought process does some derailing of its own – in two separate directions – like a childhood cartoon. So, natch – a part of me’s thinking about an evil scientist developing a Claustrum control to zap mofo’s on and off while he robs banks and sexes up hotties. (Obviously my evil villain will hafta wear special tinfoil gear like in “Signs” to avoid zapping himself.)
But the logical sciencey side of me is in the other corner, thinking about the helpful applications for this. Meditation is great, but I don’t always manage my think-noise so simply. (Plus I’m lazy and work is hard). So, could the claustrum switch be the key to helping people like me reset when swept away in a tsunami of self-induced psychological suffering we’re too torpid to sort out like normal people?
Good news made better: they’re still looking for subjects to study this thing.
What? Quiet my cognitive cacophony without sitting around like Siddhartha? Power toggle for the mental torture self-talk narrated by Regina George with a Hitler mustache? For free? And it’s right down the street from me so that when I emerge all “One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, I’ll have a short trip home?
