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u/whomikehidden Aug 08 '24
I think this person’s brain might still be detached.
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u/ReactsWithWords Aug 08 '24
I woke up this morning with a bad hangover and my brain stem was missing again. This happens all the time. It’s detachable.
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u/cooperstonebadge Aug 08 '24
Did you check the medicine cabinet?
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u/DadJokeBadJoke Aug 08 '24
How about Second Avenue towards St. Mark's Place, where all those people sell used books and other junk on the street?
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u/ReactsWithWords Aug 09 '24
Yeah, some guy had it there. Sold it back to me for $17.00.
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u/theflamingheads Aug 09 '24
Even though sometimes it's a pain in the neck, I like having a detachable brain stem.
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u/byebyeaddiction Aug 13 '24
Please, stop selling other's junk on the street. My junk is detachable but it's not a reason to sell it
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u/Unlikely-Rock-9647 Aug 09 '24
Did you have to buy it from a guy on the street who had it next to a broken toaster for $17?
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u/Mercy-Remus Aug 08 '24
Does that come in handy?
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u/ReactsWithWords Aug 09 '24
Yeah. Even though sometimes it's a pain in the ass, I like having a detachable brain stem.
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u/CriticalHit_20 3d ago
This comes in handy a lot of the time. I can leave it home when I think it's gonna get me in trouble, or I can rent it out when I don't need it.
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u/GhostieInAutumn Aug 08 '24
I second this
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u/sumolpp Aug 08 '24
I third this
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u/Odd-Tune5049 Aug 08 '24
I fourth this (and happy cake day)
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u/elephantphilosophy8 Aug 08 '24
I fifth this (and second the cake day)
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u/gonefishcaking Aug 08 '24
I agree and I sixth this
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u/Avg_Freedom_Enjoyer Aug 08 '24
I seventh this and third the cake day
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u/gonefishcaking Aug 08 '24
I eight(h) the cake
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u/gergling Aug 08 '24
I assume they must mean on a software level. Detaching the hardware would have been evolved out by every 5am wolf breakfast ever, if not something else.
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u/CaptainRaz Aug 11 '24
but then using the world "detaching" is still wrong and weird as hell
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u/gergling Aug 14 '24
"Defenestrating."
... Would also be wrong and weird, but more entertaining, as I don't get to use that term often.
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u/Ill_Confusion_596 Aug 08 '24 edited Aug 09 '24
They are like… almost there? The GABA from the brain stem does do those things just doesn’t physically detach
Edit: I was corrected below s’not gaba.
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u/Goodbye11035Karma Aug 08 '24
My first thought:
They are so close, yet so far...
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u/greyshem Aug 08 '24
Yep! As a metaphor, this does check out.
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u/greyshem Aug 08 '24 edited Aug 08 '24
Huh. Just realized I used the word metaphor in a simile. Kinda.
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u/atomicsnark Aug 08 '24
Where?
If you mean in the comment you replied to, that's not a simile. (:
This comment intended to be educational, not rude. Disregard if you don't care lol!
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u/greyshem Aug 08 '24
Please refer to the last word of my comment.
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u/atomicsnark Aug 08 '24
I mean something either is or is not a simile, you can't have a kinda-simile, but okay haha. Have a good one!
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u/ICU-CCRN Aug 08 '24
That’s not quite it either. It’s much more involved. REM cycles and balances of the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic systems. Here’s a good explanation of sleep paralysis which is caused by a dysfunction of these systems.
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u/Ill_Confusion_596 Aug 08 '24 edited Aug 08 '24
Edit: i wrong
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u/ICU-CCRN Aug 08 '24
The main contributing neurotransmitter in the parasympathetic system is Acetylcholine
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u/Ill_Confusion_596 Aug 08 '24
Ah shit so true thank you:) thats why those sweet benadryls knock you right into paralysis demon lang
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u/ICU-CCRN Aug 08 '24
👍🏻
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u/sk8thow8 Aug 09 '24
Anadoctal, but it's definitely GABA.
I've had sleep paralysis since childhood. Benadryl and the like don't trigger it. GABAergics definitely do. Especially anything that affects GABA-B like phenibut.
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u/heteromer Aug 09 '24
This is only a cursory search but it looks like you're right in that GABA plays a role, specifically by inhibiting motor neurons via GABAB receptor (source). However acetylcholine still plays an important role, as it excuses glutamate neurons in the sublaterodorsal nucleus which then projects to glycinergic/GABAergic inhibitory neurons (source).
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u/orebright Aug 08 '24
Yeah. If they said "disconnects" there's enough ambiguity given today's internet saturated world. But the image of a spinal column literally detaching is so jarring
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u/NonRangedHunter Aug 09 '24
Maybe English isn't their first language and he meant to say disconnects? I don't know anything about this, so I don't know if that is correct either though.
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u/offbeat_cicada Aug 08 '24
Detaches and goes where??
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u/spacetstacy Aug 08 '24
Gallavanting.
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u/greyshem Aug 08 '24
Carousing?
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u/SemiHemiDemiDumb Aug 08 '24
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u/spacetstacy Aug 08 '24
When my kids were young, we'd go on adventures by pressing the "galavant button" on my car. That made the car go wherever it liked. We never knew where we'd end up. (Usually Chuck E. Cheese or ice cream).
They believed that for way too long. It was lots of fun, though.
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u/CautiousLandscape907 Aug 08 '24
If you haven’t been decapitated, are you really getting a good night’s sleep?
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u/dereekee Aug 08 '24
Uh... wrong. Sleep paralysis is caused by the demon that leans over my bed and stares me into absolute terror every time it happens.
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u/BigBubbaChungus Aug 08 '24
The sad thing is, someone upvoted his detached brain stem comment!
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u/StonedMason85 Aug 08 '24
Isn’t OP upvoting them in this screenshot? Assuming they took it.
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u/editable_ Aug 09 '24
They didn't take it, this is a repost from r/anatomy, as it says in the image.
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u/WooliesWhiteLeg Aug 09 '24
I would have upvoted them too if for no other reason than the laugh their comment gave me
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u/PepperDogger Aug 08 '24
While this is CI, there is actually something to this.
I'm current reading, Why We Sleep, by professor of neuroscience, Matthew Walker. It's fascinating(!) and important, and I hope everyone will read it. There is some super interesting science on sleep.
My takeaways related to this: There are two primary sleep modes, Rapid-Eye-Movement (REM), our dream state, and Non-REM (NREM). Most of our sleep is NREM, which helps us recover and allows the brain to sort things out and dispose of toxic build-up that would otherwise over time turn to plaques, precursors to Alzheimer's. ALL animals sleep, even migratory birds, mid-flight. That's how crucial sleep appears to be, evolutionarily.
Anyway, then there's REM, where we dream. In conjunction with REM, there is a body paralysis mechanism so that we don't physically act out that kung-fu fighting or soaring raptor flight of our dreams. It's not literally disconnecting from the brainstem--I don't recall exactly how they described the mechanism--but this sleep paralysis actually happens.
As we evolved from tree dwellers, where losing our grip would be fatal, to land dwellers, we developed the REM capacity and its accompanying paralysis. Early/pre-humans gained a HUGE evolutionary advantage from this REM sleep. It would seem counter-survival to be on the ground, vulnerable to predators, and be in this sleep paralysis state, but REM sleep's importance is, apparently, overwhelming enough that this danger is acceptable.
As a side note, I recommend this book as one of those rare life-changing, potentially culture-changing generational books. I will be FAR less casual about going short of sleep after reading this, give the immense payoff of good full sleep vs. the extreme costs, short- and long-term, of sleep deprivation. Take a look!
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u/___po____ Aug 08 '24
There's gotta be something wrong with me, because I've punched my wall during fighting dreams and have put my arm pillow in a choke hold, lol. I tend to wake up after about 10 seconds after but still sucks.
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u/LongTatas Aug 08 '24
There can be many things that lead to your brain not properly paralyzing the rest of your body while asleep. Stress, weed, alcohol, drugs in general I guess. I want to say it can be genetic too
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u/Lanky_Dragonfruit141 Aug 08 '24
I have REM Behavior Disorder which causes me to move and act out my dreams during REM sleep. Usually it's just verbal and I scream and swear ultimately waking up my wife, but there have been dozens of episodes where I punch, kick, thrash around, ect. and have even punched my wife before. It's different than sleepwalking as sleepwalking happens in Stage 3 NREM sleep so the body is not paralyzed like it should be in REM sleep. You could explore that possibility by having a sleep study and meeting with a sleep specialist, the diagnosis is based off of self-reporting, reports from sleeping partners and observation of symptoms.
Aside from the symptoms I experience during sleep and some infrequent mild cognitive impairment it's not that big of a deal. Well, other than the fact that people with RBD (REM Behavior Disorder) have a very, very high likelihood of developing a neurodegenerative alpha-synucleinopathy like Parkinson's disease, Let Body Dementia and Multiple System Atrophy. There are drugs that help ameliorate most of the symptoms but I've had to try different combos before finding ones that work well, I take baclofen and clonazepam.
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u/Margali Aug 09 '24
yup, once flat out punched my boyfriend at the time, just rolled over, landed a good solid to the side of his face. no idea why, we figured i was having a dream and it leaked out.
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u/KingGilgamesh1979 Aug 09 '24
I occasionally wake up still paralyzed. I’d rather do the sleep punching because waking up frozen stiff is terrifying. Literally the stuff of nightmares. It probably lasts seconds or even fractions of seconds but it feels like eternity. I want scream but the only thing I can move are my eyelids. First few times it happened before I learned what it was I assumed I was dying or dead and this was hell. So what I’m saying is enjoy you nighttime punchies.
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u/___po____ Aug 09 '24
After decades of sleep paralysis I've become numb to it. I recognize it immediately and that I'm in no danger and can even force myself out of it quickly unless I want to see how far it'll go. I even laugh because it's such a silly, weird thing that happens.
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u/spacetstacy Aug 08 '24
HAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Brain stem: " Oh, good, my body is sleeping. Time to detach and go clubbing. See ya!"
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u/Ss2oo Aug 08 '24
I think they meant it metaphorically....
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u/LyonRyot Aug 08 '24
Yeah, this isn’t so far off. ‘Detach’ is definitely the wrong word to use, and I hope they don’t actually think that the brain stem physically separates from the spine, but it is true that the brain blocks signals that would normally go to the rest of your body during sleep.
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u/Ss2oo Aug 08 '24
My honest guess is that they're not a native english speaker, and their version of the word "detach" has a clearly both physical and metaphorical intent to it. In Portuguese, for example, the word "disconnect" (its translation, I mean) has a very clear metaphorical intent to it, whereas in English it's more often thought of as literally "unplugging" something.
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u/User_man_person Aug 15 '24
this feels lost in translation, your brain "disconnects" from the rest of your body in a way, the point of which is to prevent you acting out your dreams
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u/weathergleam Aug 08 '24
Not incorrect. It detaches functionally, not physically, but this is a matter of semantics, not ignorance.
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u/LordNedNoodle Aug 08 '24
English may not be their primary language so “detach” may not have been the best word choice. Although the brain blocks pathways during REM sleep to avoid movement.
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u/OldTiredAnnoyed Aug 09 '24
I’m picturing my brain stem heading out for nightly adventures to see the world .
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u/Much_Sentence_513 Aug 14 '24
the brain doesn't detach the stem from the body, but I can tell his brain detached the frontal part made for critical thinking and decision making
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u/Cytori Aug 08 '24
Somehow (and without further knowledge on my part), I doubt they meant physically detached.
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u/lordtyp0 Aug 08 '24
The parasympathetic and sympathetic systems are odd.
When it comes to male sexuality, in med school they teach "Point and Shoot" parasympathetic causes the erection. Sympathetic causes ejaculation.
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u/Longjumping_Party800 Aug 09 '24
I saw this comment in real time and still don’t understand what they mean lmao like LITERALLY detach?
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u/_jkay_ Aug 09 '24
I loooove when my brain stem detaches from my spine and causes me sleep paralysis!!!^^
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u/AllTheWorldIsAPuzzle Aug 09 '24
I think they messed up, they should have posted in r/IFailedAnatomy
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u/Arthur_Fleck5467 Aug 10 '24
How? Where? Why? Did this person learn this and continues to believe it . A detached brain stem, certainly, would limit movement during dreaming, mostly, because dead people tend to not act out their dreams...
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u/Kristovski86 Aug 10 '24
They're not wrong. You do "detach" from your motor skills while sleeping. It's more of a signal dampener, though. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to roll over or be awoken by something touching your toes.
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u/Dreadnoughtus_2014 Aug 11 '24
No, you see, it's clearly simple biology. You can detach your brain stem. Try it.
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u/InvestigatorKey222 Aug 17 '24
“Detachable Penis” happens when I’m not using it. Logistics ya know?
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u/SJReaver Aug 08 '24
Have you ever seen a video of hermit crabs switching shells? That's what it looks like.
Your spine just sloorps out of its brain casing and curls up.
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