As Eric Vance describes in his book The Suggestible Brain, the brain is great at deceiving itself.

This mechanism is based on our expectations, which determine how we think. Our preferences and habits in food, clothing, music are based on our expectations.

It works like this. First, the brain forms expectations for decades in advance, and then tries with all its might to make them a reality. Since admitting our mistakes is not part of our brain’s plans, it easily breaks the rules or commits open deception.

Therefore, when our expectations conflict with reality, it is our brain that wins this conflict.

Back in 1996, Daniel Dennett, a philosopher who studies the problem of artificial intelligence, said that consciousness is the main generator of expectations. Our brain directs most of its efforts to processing the experience we have received in order to predict the future.

If this were not so, and the ability to predict the future was absent, you would be surprised by everything every minute like a baby. That is why a minibus stopping at a bus stop does not surprise you, nor does it surprise you that it closes its doors before moving off. You have already seen this many times and can predict this.

This is a useful skill that helps us understand what is happening without inhibited reactions. The brain, so to speak, fills in the missing gaps in reality; unfortunately, the way it filled them differs from the objective picture.  If this happens, then the distortion mechanism is activated and the brain adjusts observations so that they correspond to our expectations.

If you expect the worst, then your brain will help adjust the picture of the world to your pessimism, making it worse for you.  And if you expect the best, then your brain will adjust your picture of the world accordingly, so that you will see exclusively the positive sides of reality.

By managing expectations, we can control our perception of reality. The brain will helpfully help us with this. To do this, you need to become more suggestible in order to realign expectations in the right direction.

Beautiful fairy tales have been used for these purposes throughout human history. If you believe that positive thoughts heal, then your expectations will indeed be adjusted to health, and you will feel better, based on your belief in the mechanism of positive thought, which does not exist.

We all know about the placebo effect - which is associated with the biochemistry of the brain and the dopamine or opiates produced in it. Thus, a person can experience absence of pain, depression or other conditions.

Few people know that another trick of the brain is nocebo - when diseases are provoked out of nowhere, following the expectations of the brain. 

Another way to deceive the brain is trance, hypnotic states - when a false memory appears and we supposedly remember something that actually did not happen.

If you realized that your life is also dictated by the expectations of the brain and you want to gain more control over this mechanism and understand the possible consequences of your expectations - you need to understand your beliefs - that is that creates expectation.

Why is one person convinced that the glass is half empty, and the other that it is half full? Perhaps your beliefs are based on experiences or traumatic events that shaped this pattern of behavior and understanding and therapy of these experiences can help you change your beliefs to healthier ones.

I will be glad to help you with this as a psychologist - psychotherapist online and also in person in Kyiv. To register, click the button below.

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