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Where it really gets weird . . .

But there is plenty of evidence that we’re really bad at remembering where our ideas come from. In 2002, the journal Psychological Science published an experiment in which scientists implanted a completely fabricated childhood memory in the minds of subjects. The researchers showed the subjects a doctored photograph that depicted them in the basket of a hot-air balloon. Even though the subjects had never been in a hot-air balloon, many of them constructed detailed memories to match the fake photograph.

So no matter how confident you are in the originality of an idea, it’s worth Googling around to make sure you didn’t inadvertently steal it. Also, no matter how unlikely it might seem, scientists will take the time to Photoshop you into a hot-air balloon, just to screw with your head.

1. SUBCONSCIOUS BEHAVIOR, A.K.A. BEST GUESSING

When you’re running down a flight of stairs at top speed, your brain doesn’t have time to think about each and every step you take. Your feet are on autopilot, reaching out for the next step faster than your conscious mind can tell them what to do. Well, it turns out that your brain is on autopilot more often than you think. Even when you’re making important choices throughout the course of your day, a part of your brain knows what you’re going to do well before it lets your conscious mind in on the decision. The technical term for this: precognition.

Um, what?

Your brain is constantly making guesses and predictions about what’s happening or about to happen around you, and once it has a good idea of what it thinks is about to go down, it acts on that prediction before you’ve made a conscious choice to act. In some cases, it will move parts of your body. Other times it will screw with your perception.

If it didn’t do this, we’d be the clumsiest creatures on the planet. Our brains have to make thousands of snap decisions throughout the day. Imagine if you needed to consciously decide to put one foot in front of the other while flying down those steps. Luckily, there’s a part of your brain that’s constantly making decisions you only find out about after they occur. The creepy part is that you don’t get to decide when it’s time to use autopilot.

Take the starburst illusion to the right. It takes advantage of the fact that your brain has lots of experience with converging lines. When we “see” the background starburst pattern in real life, we’re generally traveling toward a point of convergence, on a road or down a tunnel for instance. But no matter how much you try to convince your autopilot to shut the hell up, your brain adjusts your perception by enlarging and distorting the center, as though you were moving toward it. That’s why those perfectly vertical lines look like they’re bending outward in the middle.

Where it really gets weird . . .

In 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported on a series of experiments being conducted with brain scanners in Germany, Norway, and the United States. The scientists found that if they hook you up to a scanner and ask you to make a decision, part of your brain lights up to take action up to ten seconds before you consciously make the decision. So when you’re working out in your head whether or not to go to work tomorrow, a part of your brain has already decided to call in sick, several seconds before the voice in your head arrives at that same conclusion.

Think about what that means for free will, and prepare to have your mind blown (it should hit you in about ten seconds).

FIVE FIGHT MOVES THAT ONLY WORK IN MOVIES

MOVIEGOERS understand that most of what they’re seeing in action flicks is bullshit: Buses won’t jump a sixty-yard gap in the highway, a fire hose is not a bungee cord, and Steven Seagal is a bigger threat to a Sizzler buffet than a gang of criminals. Objectively, our brains know that, and yet most real-world bar fights feature at least one guy trying out a move he saw in a martial arts film—and being subsequently shocked to learn he would have been better off casting