11 Reasons Why Your Brain Is A Total Dick

Do you sometimes drive all the way to work, and get there to find that you don't actually remember any of the journey? What about running up and down the stairs? That's a pretty complex action, and yet you hit every step completely accurately without thinking about it

This is because your brain has a very effective autopilot function, allowing it to switch off when doing familiar or habitual tasks so that it can put its energy elsewhere. The problem is that this function also means that you often end up doing mind-blowingly stupid things on a regular basis.

This is the kind of thing that makes people absentmindedly take the wrong turnings or bump into their own furniture. If you try to do two autopilot tasks at once, you could also find that you end up pouring yourself a bowl of cat food and leaving Tibbles with a nice helping of cornflakes.

A fine example of this phenomenon could be seen in a video of a New York subway staircase that went viral. The video shows that a huge number of people were tripping up on one particular step, sending bags, bystanders and babies flying. 

The reason for this is that the step in question was just a fraction taller than the others (and we're talking millimetres here). Unfortunately, their brains had already gone "Stairs, yeah sure, I can do those" and was ill-prepared for the sudden change in height.

You can achieve the same effect in the comfort of your own home by moving all of your furniture just a couple of inches to the left. Incidentally, this is a hilarious thing to do in the houses of your friends and loved ones. You can always argue that it was a science experiment if they get mad.