Do you know who I am?

 

There was a time — I was around ten — when I lived in this absurdly huge mansion. Three floors. White walls. Gold-colored taps. The lawn out front was so long, you couldn’t walk to the gate without getting tired.

But that wasn’t the highlight of life back then.

We had maids. A lot of them. Most wore short skirts and tight tops. They were always bending over, helping me with things. I remember sneaking glances, not even knowing what I was looking for — just that I wanted to see under their clothes, and I couldn’t stop trying.

I didn’t know back then why my body reacted the way it did. I was embarrassed they might notice — but they never did. Lucky me.

I stopped caring about toys. I just wanted to be in the hallway, near them. My mind was full of them. I knew it was weird. I didn’t care.

There were other women, some of them looked familiar, like I’d known them before, like they weren’t supposed to look the way they did.

One day, I climbed into my white limo. The driver turned around to ask where we were going — but it was a woman. Sharp eyes, red lips, sharp facial features, Black tuxedo.

I’d never seen a female limo driver before.
And then I woke up.

It was a dream. I was back in my regular home — middle-income, no mansion, no women, no gold taps. Just my room, my life, my reality.

But here's what I’ve come to understand — not something I invented, just something science has laid out clearly. Anil Seth explained it better than I ever could: the brain is sealed inside the skull. It has no direct access to the outside world. It doesn’t see light, smell flowers, or touch skin. It only receives signals — electrical pulses from our senses — and uses memory, instinct, and experience to build a model of what’s probably out there.

And sometimes, the model takes over.

You think you saw someone move behind the curtain — but nothing was there. Just your brain filling in the gap. Like an optical illusion, where the eyes lie and the brain says, close enough.

Dreams work the same way. No input, just prediction. A full sensory world, built from fragments. And when I was ten, I lived in that mansion. I really did — for as long as the model held together. It wasn’t fake. It just didn’t happen outside my head.

The only difference between that and what we call “real life” is this: when we’re awake, the brain has to keep us alive. That’s the pressure that makes the model stable.

So who am I?

I’m not this body. I’m not this past. I’m just a ripple in a simulation my brain built to survive.

I am the electrical pattern my brain generates to identify itself in the model it created to survive in the world.

But what does all this really mean? Can it be used to heal? 

It means nothing. I have learnt it all intellectually but hasn't internalized or experienced it yet.

Meditation and neuroplasticity, using thoughts to influence these brain activities to change who I am is the only actionable step I have. This is easier said than done.