Neuroscientists say reality is mostly a prediction.
The brain builds a model. A simulation.

An internal map updated by incoming data.
How funny that the eyes do not actually see

the world. They negotiate with it. Every moment
a controlled hallucination checked against evidence.

The brain provides six times more data
than what the eyes are converting into

electrical impulses. This is why grief
can remain visible for years.

Why a song can transport us across decades
faster than light.

I was thinking about this while watching
Questlove’s Earth, Wind & Fire doc.

How every wedding eventually becomes
an argument for simulation theory.

A room full of adults begins shouting
a date. A month. A memory. A shared

hallucination. For four minutes everyone agrees
on where they are. Not physically.

Neurologically. The map aligns. Hundreds
of separate simulations briefly rendering

the same world.

The strange thing is that the brain
is never trying to tell us the truth.

Only what it thinks is useful. A chair.
A face. A threat. A kiss. Compressed

files. Efficient approximations.
Like a video game reducing the resolution

of distant mountains. Meanwhile the universe
is busy being far stranger. Photons. Probability waves.

Dark matter. Whatever is happening inside
another person when they look at you

and smile. This is when you can
see the map laid gently over the territory.

Someone sings “Do you remember” and suddenly
everyone does. Not the same memory. Not the same

September. Just the same desire to believe
our private simulations might overlap.

For a moment.

Long enough to share a dance floor.
Long enough to call it reality.