![[Everyday] Psychophilosophy](https://everydaypsychophilosophy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/cropped-10-21-16-unsquished-everydaypsychophilosophy-header.png)
Dreaming of Whom?
I dream my painting and I paint my dream. — Vincent van Gogh Dreams are mysterious; even science isn’t totally sure what they are. Well, we know what they are (electrical impulses in the brain that mirror the pulses we emit when we’re awake). It’s just unclear why our brains have dreams at all. Now, just as unsure as we are about the purpose behind dreaming, so, too, are we unsure about the cause behind the content of our...
The Paradox of Too Much Choice
The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action. — John Dewey On Netflix, I sometimes worry that I spend more time looking for movies than I actually spend watching them. Actually, I’m pretty sure I do. From movie selection to sock shopping to deciding which toe nail to clip first, I often can’t help agonizing over my choices. Of course, there are those jerks who look at their...
The Invisible Influence of Cell Phones
Cell phones are so convenient that they’re inconvenient. — Haruki Murakami If you were being mugged and had to give up either your wallet or your cell phone, which would you choose? In formulating your own answer, you probably tried to determine which of those two items was more replaceable (or rather, why the mugger was only asking for one of them…). For many people, their phone has become more indispensable than the...
Are You An Imposter?
It is because we are all imposters that we endure each other. — Emile M. Cioran It’s no fun feeling like a phony. In fact, for my first semester in graduate school, I was certain a mistake had been made. Everyone was extremely smarter than me; it took forever to get through my homework; reading scientific articles was like deciphering a cookbook (I’m not good at cooking). But after four years in the program—after getting my...
The Let-Down Effect
There is nothing so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness it is to be expecting evil before it arrives! — Lucius Annaeus Seneca With the final days of the 2016-2017 school year, I found myself in perilous straits: manuscripts to finish, final talks to give, papers and exams to grade, this whole “sleep” thing to do. But through those two weeks of high stress, my immune system and body were functioning at...