What Our Brain Believes
Researchers discovered this year that our brains have an automatic reaction to believe that death happens to other people. We can consciously override that state––clearly, that is exactly what I’m doing now by considering my own demise by writing about this––but our natural tendency is to shield ourselves from really believing it.
The Guardian reported on the study, and one of the researchers explained: “We have this primal mechanism that means when the brain gets information that links self to death, something tells us it’s not reliable, so we shouldn’t believe it.”
The senior writer for the study took it a step further: “We shield ourselves from existential threats, or consciously thinking about the idea that we are going to die, by shutting down predictions about the self, or categorising the information as being about other people rather than ourselves.”
We’ve done ourselves a disservice as a society by tucking death into dark corners. We talk about that a lot when it comes to miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal death, but it applies to all death. We don’t really talk about death or encourage people to learn about death. Except, of course, in death cafes.
Is this macabre? Maybe a little. But I thought that it was fascinating that we can rationally believe something is true and talk ourselves out of it at the very same time.
4 comments
Maybe this is one of the reasons why so few patients who know they are at high risk of health problems don’t take affirmative action to change their habits? (My first thought was people who smoke or are inactive despite strong family history of heart disease, though it could also apply to other situations and health conditions.) Even though they may understand intellectually that what they are doing is increasing their risk of death, their brain tells them “nah, that isn’t going to happen.”
Sharon, that’s a brilliant thought! I had always thought it was habit or a form of addictive behavior, but to think the brain might be saying…”Oh, it won’t happen to YOU” makes a lot of sense.
It’s interesting that this requires a study, though, because we seems to know that bad stuff happens to “other people” which leads to the “Why me?” philosophy. It should have been obvious, I think.
Huh… I am constantly thinking I’m going to die, from envisioning a car crash on the way home to immediately thinking gastrointestinal distress must be something fast acting colon cancer. My brain must not work in the denial, Not-Me way! I have the opposite problem.
I do enjoy reading about death though, particularly memoirs of people willing to document their process of dying. I totally agree though that American culture is better head-in-the-sand about death, sitting away from important discussions and planning.
I would consider going to a death cafe, but not alone!
I would go to a death cafe, and I sometimes to think about (and write about) death, even my own death. But if I’m being honest, that thinking feels very theoretical. I cannot yet actually grasp that there is a death waiting for me. That some day, I will actually go through the death process. Your last sentence applies to me.