Common sense. GSH

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing." 

~ William James

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You might assume that a brain is necessary for remembering, but that’s

not so. Consider E. coli, the single-celled bacteria that live in our guts and

the guts of most other warm-blooded creatures, where they are usually

harmless but occasionally cause food-borne sickness. Incredibly, they have

a version of short-term memory. When they’re swimming around in your

intestines, looking for food, they will keep going in a more or less straight

line as long as they find nothing worth snacking on. But once they find

something nutritious, they will stop, eat, and then pirouette from that spot,

turning in a tight circle in hopes of finding more deliciousness close by.

Once they run out of treats in that localized area, they will then continue on

their way.#

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Marina’s bilingualism was actually a gift to her brain. People who

learn a second language gain significant benefits in cognitive health

that last a lifetime. That shouldn’t be surprising because, as brain-

mapping shows, different areas of the brain handle different

languages. Busy neurons are thriving neurons; those without any

assigned tasks tend to wither.

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With that said, what happens at the molecular level when you

“trip out” has an interesting effect on creativity. To “trip out,” you

have to trip up your frontal lobes. Although creativity arises from

the frontal lobes, it almost always takes a backseat to the dominant

responsibility of those same lobes: the executive and planning

function that aims to get through the day as efficiently as possible.

So with time, mental habits take hold that reinforce efficient

behavior by forming preferential electrical pathways and networks,

like freeways directing the major flow between major cities. What

psychedelics are thought to do is to disassemble the freeways

temporarily, leaving only a dense and evenly distributed network of

roads. This dissolution greatly expands the diversity of connections

and, as a result, allows unexpected and original thoughts.

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