The human brain is a pretty amazing thing when you think about it. In fact, thinking about it actually requires the human brain to do something, resulting in some weird Brain-ception where Edith Piaf sings in slow motion, spinning tops remain in perpetual motion and Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t win an Oscar.
My human brain woke me up the other day. Here’s the scoop. I stayed up far too late on Sunday night listening to podcasts and interacting with a games console. It was a nice way of ending a weekend in which I listened to podcasts and interacted with a games console. It was my way of wanting the weekend to continue in this vein and denying the reality of the incumbent Monday morning.
The alarm did get me up, but only just for long enough to turn the alarm off and go back to my state of blissful unawareness. Don’t worry, I do this stupid thing where I set my alarm for 5:45am, even though I don’t need to work until 9:00, don’t need to leave the house until 8:30, don’t need to actually get out of bed until around 7:30. But I’m a creature that lies in. It’s awful, I know. Normal people get up and go for a run or do sit-ups or do star jumps at first light. I spend my mornings slowly easing myself back into the realm of consciousness whilst still lying down. I’m not a very energetic person. Oh well.
Having reluctantly retired to bed around the point of the clock where Sunday meets Monday but it’s still really night time, it’s easy to see why my quarter-to-six wake-up call was met with utter disregard. I went back to sleep. What a fun story this is turning out to be.
Lying in a state of mild unconsciousness, a phenomenon produced by my mind caused me to wake again. Some might call this phenomenon “dreaming”, but I barely (if ever) dream at all. Maybe I just get too invested in the slumbering aspect of sleep that I can’t appreciate the magical imaginative side. The closest I can come to dreaming, however, is imagining that I’m standing in an empty, plain white room, hearing my mother’s voice shout my name from another room. I reply: ‘what?’ She shouts my name again. I reply: ‘what?’ She shouts my name again. I resolve to get up and track her down. I open my eyes, realise I’m still lying in bed and, as I try to recall what I was just hearing, I have no idea whose voice I heard, but it wasn’t my mother’s.
Suddenly alive in the reality of the Monday morning, a quick check of the phone tells me that it’s 7:30am. I’ve actually slept through my lie-in time and now have to suddenly get up, which may now also need to involve star jumps. That last bit’s a lie. I didn’t star jump. I didn’t anything jump.
It occurs to me that my human brain naturally screamed for itself (along with the rest of me attached to it) to get up, giving me just enough time that I wouldn’t be late for Monday’s session of reality. The bit that my human brain can’t quite grasp, though, is how my human brain actually knew it had to get me up.
Of course, it could’ve simply been a coincidence. But fuck that explanation. I’ve been made aware that our human biology runs according to natural cycles based on things like sunlight, rhythmic respiration and the need to go for a pee. Maybe it was something like that. I’m also not really one for the concept of Divine interference, but there’s no way I’m ruling it out here. It’s become very plausible to me that a higher power – greater than all of us put together – exists and that God has actually spoken to me, using the not-really-voice of my mum as a disguise.
My human brain helped me out this time around, in whatever capacity it managed to do that. But it’s gone against me at times as well, so I won’t start lumping praise on what was essentially a one-off phantom voice in my head. Not yet.
The year is still in its infancy. That is to say, it’s still January. The amount of newer musical experiences have been quite thin on the ground so far so I’ve concluded that it may be necessary to delve back into the 2015 “notable music things” I’m suddenly glad I have as backup. Alongside that head-bobby leg-flaily extravaganza of Future Islands appeared a wee Aussie dear that I made vague plans to see at a gig last December, but foolishly didn’t follow up with any commitment for reasons my amazing human brain can’t fathom.
Straddling the line between alternative rock and spoken word performance poetry, Courtney Barnett and her impressive barnet brought us a tune about dangerous driving. This came at a time when I’ve been learning to operate a car on actual public roads, unsettling me somewhat. However, I’ve become faintly amused at the idea of cars switching roles with sharks, simply for the chance to see a Vauxhall Astra trapped in an aquarium tank.
Courtney Barnett – Dead Fox
Jamie Walsh 
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