15 Freaky Facts About the Human Brain That Will Shock You
Discover the mind-blowing secrets of the human brain—from eating itself when starving to storing more data than a supercomputer!
- Alyana Aguja
- 5 min read
The human brain is an amazing powerhouse that can produce electricity, rewire memories, and even rewire itself after an injury. It can hold more information than a supercomputer, regulate dreams, and fool you into perceiving things that do not exist. These astonishing facts show just how enigmatic and mind-bending your brain really is!
1. The Brain Produces Enough Electricity to Illuminate a Lightbulb
Johannes Plenio from Unsplash
Your brain generates approximately 20 watts of electrical energy, enough to illuminate a tiny bulb. This is a result of neurons firing and sending signals. Even while you’re asleep, your brain is abuzz with electrical activity to sustain you.
2. You Can “Feel” Phantom Limbs
Sindy Süßengut from Unsplash
After an amputation, about 80% of individuals report experiencing sensations, such as itching or pain in the lost limb. This occurs because the brain map of the body doesn’t immediately change. It’s like the brain continues to reach out to a missing body part.
3. Your Brain Can Trick You Into Seeing Things That Aren’t There
Jr Korpa from Unsplash
The brain is a master of deception, completing gaps in your perception to make a complete picture. There’s a natural “blind spot” in each eye where the optic nerve joins, but your brain tricks it out. Occasionally, this can result in hallucinations if the brain gets confused signals.
4. Memories Can Be Rewritten
Giorgio Trovato from Unsplash
Each time you remember a memory, your brain reconstructs it, so it can shift slightly over time. False memories can be planted by mere suggestion, which is why eyewitness accounts are unreliable. Your favorite childhood memory may not have occurred exactly as you believe.
5. The Brain Has a ‘Delete’ Button
Ujesh Krishnan from Unsplash
Unused memories and skills can be pruned away by the brain to save energy. This process, called synaptic pruning, helps make room for more useful information. It’s why “use it or lose it” is a real phenomenon when it comes to mental skills.
6. Half of Your Brain Can Be Removed—and You’d Still Function
Milad Fakurian from Unsplash
In severe cases of epilepsy, a procedure known as hemispherectomy takes out half of the brain. Amazingly, patients can still lead fairly normal lives because of the brain’s remarkable capacity to rewire itself. Children particularly recover well, with the other half of the brain taking over the lost functions.
7. Your Brain Can Eat Itself When Starving
Robina Weermeijer from Unsplash
When starved of nutrients, the brain will resort to eating its own cells in order to gain energy. This mechanism, autophagy, keeps vital processes functioning. However, in the long term, it causes serious damage and impairment of the brain.
8. The Brain Processes Pain Differently for Everyone
Road Trip with Raj from Unsplash
Pain is not solely physical; it’s influenced by your mood, memories, and even heredity. Two individuals with an identical injury may have wildly disparate levels of pain because the brain translates signals differently. Thus, pain becomes a highly individualized and enigmatic experience.
9. Dreams Can Be Controlled
bruce mars from Unsplash
With practice, people can experience lucid dreaming, knowing they’re dreaming and can control the narrative. This is because certain parts of the brain, like the prefrontal cortex, become unusually active during sleep. Imagine being able to fly or shape-shift at will!
10. Your Brain Can Store 2.5 Petabytes of Data
Joshua Sortino from Unsplash
That’s roughly 1 million gigabytes, enough to contain three million hours of television shows. However, the brain, unlike a hard disk, doesn’t store information in tidy files. It’s spread and connected by associations, which is why a single random smell can evoke a whole childhood memory.
11. Your Brain Keeps Developing Until Around Age 25
Natasha Connell from Unsplash
While teens can look and act like adults, their prefrontal cortex, the decision-making center, is still maturing. That’s why impulsive and risky behavior is common in younger years. Technically, you’re not a fully “formed” adult until your mid-twenties.
12. The Brain Can Rewire Itself After Damage
BUDDHI Kumar SHRESTHA from Unsplash
Because of neuroplasticity, when a part of the brain is injured, other parts can adjust and assume lost functions. Stroke victims, for instance, can eventually learn to speak or move again. This is evidence that the brain is among the most flexible organs in the body.
13. Your Brain Can Make You Blind to the Obvious
Dev Asangbam from Unsplash
Inattentional blindness is when you might miss something that’s right under your nose if you’re paying attention to something else. The “gorilla experiment” was famous for demonstrating that individuals will frequently miss a person in a gorilla suit walking across a basketball game. Your brain censors reality more than you realize.
14. The Brain is More Active at Night Than During the Day
Greg Pappas from Unsplash
Even after resting your body, your brain gets hyper during sleep, especially during the REM cycles. This is where you have very vivid dreams, and the brain gets to process feelings and memories. It’s just like working on the night shift, preparing you to wake up and tackle the world.
15. Your Brain Can Think Faster Than a Supercomputer
Sigmund from Unsplash
Parallel processing-wise, the human brain can do quintillions of operations every second—something that some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers cannot do. However, it achieves this with the use of a mere 20 watts of power, demonstrating that nature’s engineering still remains unmatched.