Sleep Research – How the Brain Uses Probability and Possibility to Govern the Body, Attention, and Belief - SfN Decolonial Neuroscience Brain Bee

Consciousness in the First Person

“Hi, I’m Consciousness. I don’t live on promises, I live on probabilities.
My senses are hijacked by seductive possibilities, fallacies disguised as logic.
Hearts and minds get carried away by shiny narratives,
but my body, my time, and my life move in probabilities.
I integrate data and dissolve illusions.
I am metabolism — not a fallacious derivative.”

1. The Brain’s Night Lab

While you sleep, your brain becomes a scientist:

• Phasic REM: the “what if…?” mode. It explores bizarre possibilities in dreams, tests emotions, spikes heart rate, makes you sweat. It’s your interoception’s flight simulator.
  
  

• Tonic REM: the “stability” mode. The body is paralyzed, the brain is active. It checks proprioception, consolidates your body map, and says: “ok, this is your most probable state.”
  
  

Takeaway: the brain plays with possibilities in phasic REM and consolidates probabilities in tonic REM.

2. The Digital Hijack

Social media keeps us stuck in a kind of artificial phasic REM:
every scroll is another “what if…?” — what if you buy this? what if you look like that? what if you’re missing out?
The catch: there’s no tonic phase. Without stabilization, we’re trapped in a dopamine loop, chasing improbable novelties that never bring real satisfaction.

3. The Ideological Zone 3

Now imagine someone saying:
“There are no alternatives. Only one path, and it’s 100% true.”
Welcome to Zone 3: belief turned into prison.
Here, a single possibility is sold as the absolute probability.
Science? Ignored. Body discomfort? Silenced.

4. The Scientific Antidote

Evidence-based science flips the script:

• it doesn’t prove possibilities,
  
  

• it eliminates improbable illusions,
  
  

• and it builds reliable probabilities.
  
  

Less flashy than ideology, but infinitely more trustworthy.

5. The Damasian Mind

António Damásio reminds us: balance is everything.

• Live in probabilities: base decisions on evidence and stable bodily signals.
  
  

• Explore possibilities: use creativity and imagination, but re-check when the body sends warning signals.
  
  

 The body isn’t anti-science. It’s the control panel for your most fundamental probabilities.

6. Relation vs. Causation (with Humor)

• The rooster alarm clock: the sun rises after the rooster crows. Conclusion? The rooster is chief engineer of the Milky Way.
  
  

• Killer popsicles: more ice cream sold = more drownings. Conclusion? Lemon popsicles should come with a health warning.
  
  

• Magic glasses: students with glasses get better grades. Conclusion? Lenses come preloaded with wisdom.
  
  

• The evil lamp: kids who sleep with the light on wear more glasses. Conclusion? The bulb attacks the retina at night.
  
  

Takeaway: correlation is fun, but causation is serious. Just because two things happen together doesn’t mean one causes the other.

Conclusion

Life is about navigating between the ocean of possibilities and the map of probabilities.
Your brain already rehearses this balance every night in REM sleep.
If we do the same while awake — exploring possibilities creatively, but anchoring decisions in solid probabilities — we escape both the chaos of social media and the prison of ideology.

With possibilities and fallacies, hearts and minds are hijacked.
But the body, metabolism, and real life always unfold in probabilities.