Your Brain is Making Reality Up | NOVA | PBS
Your memories, identity, even your sense of self may be constructions your brain creates to navigate the world — not perfect recordings of reality.
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@sixxvee
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Why vocal fry? It stinks
@ElementZeroGuildVids
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Fascinating!
However, I can not agree with some of this information as it would directly put all "facts" into question.
The life you lead and decisions you make are not an illusion. When your past memories can be corroborated by others, I have to question some of these experts opinions.
The most interesting aspect of this video is the fact that we still have so much to learn about the human brain.
@closedpsychicfield
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
You can measure for consciousness as to how much knowledge a person is aware of.
Most people are only receiving information relative to street view and are unable at this time to hold abstract vision.
The physical brain does not hold consciousness. The physical brain "processes" the information you receive through the senses.
If the brain fails to process information correctly, the information remains on the mental plane as a thought form until it is processed correctly, at which point the thought forms dissipates.
If the brain processes the information that it is receiving, correctly? Then if the Information is processed correctly it is no longer information but has " become" a thing known!
What we " know" is "accessed" through the mind!
What we think is " processed" by the physical brain.
Consciousness is the " result/knowledge" of processing information correctly.
@renaudkener4082
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Wonderful ! Some answers about something I searched for 30 years ( since I discovered that I had false memories ).
@colbystensland2508
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
It is funny to think the scripted timelines and wars have been to control human energy
The humans are source and bring life to inanimate objects
The energy is harnessed only through the present moment
The scripted events keep them from realizing their true potential
@mariadaluzmoutinho5701
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
O cérebro…a nossa própria vida e com vida própria!! A consciência vai muito além da existência!! O cérebro …o interior do nosso Universo infinito?! O cérebro está consciente da sua existência
…todos os dias nos conectamos com outros cérebros porque desde sempre vivemos em sociedade com agentes externos e internos que moldam a nossa individualidade!! O cérebro faz-nos conscientes e felizes quando descobrimos …mas ainda há muito para explorar e descobrir para ficarmos mais felizes de memórias?!!
@NaturalBornHeel
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
So perception really is reality. Interesting.
@jaymacpherson8167
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
“Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow”
Hunter and Garcia
@DM-wp9vq
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
It is NOT generally true that when someone accesses a memory, that it muddies the waters through an exchange from long to short to long memory. You can train your mind to use a road, a highway, and the memories are entering from side streets. Also, it's not hard to create a well established pathway to keep a memory fresh while keeping it clean and reliable. I have absolutely never "remembered" something that did not happen. Not once. If it has to do with my life experiences. I can't retain conversations very well, but when I do they're accurate to the word. I have a semi-photographic memory. I see the stored data, but I don't have absolutely every detail surrounding that data locked in. Just the parts that are relevant to the reason it was remembered in the first place. I always kicked ass at spelling tests because of this memory style. I "saw" the words. Others can have idetic memories (my lacking spelling skills showing off, and I'm not cheating by looking things up to correct myself) and they remember everything. The Mind Palace for instance, which is a genuine technique. It may not be a palace per say, and for me I use grade levels, real world locations, smells, other people, objects, age levels, and emotions to organize my memories. I leave most of them planted in a memory garden that grows around the real world locations that are mirrored in my mind and the other factors I mentioned are the shovels/gloves/keys to accessing them. Plucking and replanting, but doing so without harming the roots. Best way I know how to put it. So Joe Dirt is right in my case. "Life's a garden, dig it!"
@kori1701
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
This sets all kinds of things in motion. Myself, for instance, I had a brain injury (illness which is called a brain insult) that damaged my short-term memory. I have great difficulty recalling recent events if I do not employ 'tricks,' or exercises to try and cement them). The memories do not stick or get implanted into long-term memory; so this forces me to wonder how much of my brain is recalling my past, because I was certain that many PAST memories are intact.
This "consciousness tool" has MANY potential uses: from patients with 'lock-in syndrome,' (conscious but unable to talk or move, giving others the impression of coma) as well as those who have remained conscious during surgery (a terrifyingly real situation with people totally awake and aware while they suffer unimaginable pain from having surgeons perform surgery while they are awake and FEELING EVERY SLICE OF THE SCALPEL)
The result of this study could help so many!
@davidespinosa1910
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Who is the woman talking at the beginning (red dress, leaf necklace) ?
PBS — don't show us someone without saying who they are.
@scotchhollow
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
If the brain is making reality up, then the brain itself is made up. You cannot claim reality is constructed by something that is itself part of the reality being constructed. It’s like claiming Mario World is just a representation created by a Koopa Trooper — the Koopa Trooper is part of the representation.
@JeffreyNColeman
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Interesting but unconvincing, when one considers the presumed selective pressure for accurate retrieval of memories. The ancient hominid who accurately remembered exactly where he saw the tiger hiding was more likely to survive—and bear offspring who shared his accurate-memory genes—than his contemporary who instead remembered where he 𝙬𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙 the tiger was hiding, until the tiger ate him and his faulty-memory genes, before he reproduced.
@camp44mag
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
First of all, the title to this video states what should be obvious to everyone. Second, according to the people presenting in this video, everything they asserted and the video itself are merely illusions.
@thomaswentt1047
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.
@tasteapiana
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
BS. What I am perceiving right now, visually, is just a representation of things around me that photons either bounce off of or are emitted from. My memories are no less real than that. I am 52, my memories from when I was 5 and 6 years old have not changed at all, in content, since they were made. Some have grown dull, almost fuzzy, but the stories remain the same. I'm beyond sick of groups desperate for funding who STILL present whack theories as fact – even as they tell you plainly that their machines are THOUGHT to be ALMOST working as they WISH them to be. Stop. Just fking stop it. Stop the lying. It's not sensational, no one is liking you more, it's just educating people that you are just as corrupt as the Elon Musks and Donald Trumps of this world.
@oldschoolman1444
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
That's why childhood nutrition is so important.
@robertdecrock4038
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
good sense
@deeplearningpartnership
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Nonsense.
@ONEYEDPiRAT
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Dude your title sucks The brain doesn't do it your imagination does it and the brain accepts it. Your brain doesn't know the difference between reality and your imagination everything goes through your imagination The more detail you put into your imagination the more the brain accepts it as real and respond accordingly there have been studies where people have worked out and another group didn't work out but they imagined it in their minds and they had more of an effect on the people imagined it compared to the ones who actually did it your thoughts create the world around you be the viewer of your thoughts you are not the thoughts in the brain
@Nastalgic13
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Reality Hell Dreams Illusion
@wwolfdogs
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
My brain can't stand the annoying music on this video.
@Q2WE45TY62
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
STUPIDITY IS SO RAMPANT, CANNOT BELIEVE THEY ACTUALLY AIR THIS GARBAGE NONSENSE
UTTER MASS IGNORANCE
@lewebusl
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
"thrust the illusion" is what being sure of something means.
@chesterpoindexter7594
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Okay, first – I'm only speaking for m'self, I'm a patient expert with an odd brain an' I could still be wrong… but hear me out. First, I kinda hate how scientists insist on describing neurological processes as "your brain is making reality up" or "your brain 'hallucinates' your reality". If it were a hallucination our cameras wouldn't be all that reliable. I also don't care for the idea that your memories form your identity, as well as the idea that your brain "creates" your consciousness – I feel they have it backwards: your memories are not who you are, but what you've done and what you've chosen, what you've experienced. Your brain Facilitates your consciousness (like a radio – and I'm 106.5, the End). My memory connections aren't reshaped by recall – it's more like I'm operating on a VHS, the memories are still exactly as they were, just buried under more memories. I have more grey matter than I'm supposed to – some of it takes up space where my white matter should be, so I'm probably not typical in my opinions, certainly not in my experiences; but reality exists whether we witness it or not, and your consciousness isn't something biology evolved to express – consciousness evolved biological expression as a way to experience reality.
@KalkiAvatar7
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Very cool!
@Azupiru
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
My brain is a story destroying machine, and I've definitely destroyed a lot of what's not there, in ways many people resent. The dominant illusion is fascist and capitalist. There are more rational ways of relating to the world, and until everyone receives a new instruction, I'm with the Situationists Seated as Chief Chaos Magician.
@Hermitthecog
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
If everyone's thinking the same, no one's really evolving. 😉
@melissanichole8184
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
What is this an excerpt from? I'd like to watch the full thing
@ThaliaPeebles-eu7gn
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Is it just with a toddler brain?
@paulcooper8818
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
The person you think you are — is a story you tell yourself
@Azupiru
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
As someone who hasn't believed in free will since it was presented as an ontological structure through Melkite indoctrination that preceded my baptism and confirmation at 8 years old, I've held the terrible reality of rape and the logical opposition to Catholicism in two separate readings for my entire life. I do agree that people who believe in free will move all over the place in their memory recall. But justice is justice and bs is bs. I asked so many questions that they told me that if I just agreed that all things are things are possible with God, we could leave my faith at that. But I pressed on, "Why can't Jesus quantum leap through a portal or something to prove this 2,000 year waiting game is true." … "If all things are possible with God, Fr. Haddad, is it possible that I'm Jesus?" It was a test question. I remained an atheist for two decades, but they forced me through their schools, so I had to read their books and realize the importance of actually subverting it… which I've done, believe it or not. The scriptures aren't so dense and novel that a proper indexing of key terms doesn't eventually root out the secrets. It's just crazy how accepting people are of their own cultural ignorance. Weird.
@kuukeli
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Very interesting video
@user-dz3ie5me2t
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
It is really scary to wonder how many innocent people have been condemned by wrong, or even manipulated memories.
@Bob-The-Guy
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Analogous to the topic of consciousness is lucid dreaming. How is consciousness different when we are lucid dreaming? 🧠
@DSAK55
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_as_Will_and_Representation
@JahyMoonwalker
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Wait so we are in a simulation just not the one we thought
@TobiasReaper0047
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
I wonder what would happen if worldwide we sound a horn into the air? Would it be loud enough or resonant enough to grab the attention of the construct?
@_CryptoBits
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
The CIA knows all of this. .
@aroundandround
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
Cheap clickbait title.
@theresjer
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
So, don't trust my eyes or ears or memory. Got it.
@GoBatman98
June 2, 2026 at 5:08 pm
I love it: just an illusion….
Comments are closed.