Add another one to the list...

So I recently discovered that there are rare cases where people with Alzheimer's Disease misidentify regular objects as sentient beings. This was linked to a "right sided regional brain dysfunction" in which, the brain isn't receiving enough blood, or possibly irregular bloodflow. Why do I bring this up? Well basically I wondered if it was really Alzheimer's Disease that created the condition, or rather Alzheimer's Disease simply allowed it to happen.

Almost everyone has imaginary friends when they're younger. Some have blankets or stuffed toys that become an important part of their childhood. Other people (read: me) philosophize over whether food likes to be eaten or not. At some point, we realize that these things don't actually have any brain function, let alone higher brain function, so it's impossible for them to have any sort of thought patterns. Yet, throughout our lives we will occasionally talk to an inanimate object as if it is real. Most of the times it's sarcastic or at the very least placing the blame on something that isn't you, but there's some sort of calming effect when we are able to do that.

In addition to that, the majority of people believe that sentience comes from a soul rather than your brain. So that makes it even easier to believe that something could actually be sentient when it is clearly not. So when AD starts to kick in our brains might lose the part that tells us that these things aren't really sentient reverting us back to a state where we believed that anything could be sentient. So, for future reference, when I damn the things I stub my toes on, thank the things that make life easier, or miss the things that I'm not around, just remember I'm practicing for when my brain starts to go all screwy and have to do these things for real.