Brain Naps
Thursday, February 12th, 2009
I watch documentaries to learn. I watch great action movies for entertainment and escapism. I watch a handful of very special movies and TV shows for a higher purpose, though: the elusive “brain nap”. A brain nap is the closest thing you can experience to actually turning off your brain. I may dream of PHP code and bad data structures, but put me in front of an old She Spies episode and I will think about absolutely nothing.
My best brain naps normally involve the aforementioned She Spies, Freakazoid!, UHF, or basically any Sci-Fi original movie. The key is it has to be stupid enough not to require your brain, but not so dumb that you start thinking about how bad it is. You’re not trying to start an internal Mystery Science Theater 3000 monologue about the dumb actors because that is what we call counter-productive. That movie may just seem stupid, but it has to be wily enough to get around all of your brain’s guards and attempts to “think things through”. It has to appear innocent while it lays it’s trap.
Mansquito (on Sci-Fi at 3am): “Hey, Jeremy’s brain, I know you’ve been spinning on all cycles to optimize those database queries for some obscure use case, but why don’t you just take a break. Let me take over an hour. Maybe two.”
Jeremy’s Brain: “No. I suppose I can try to relax a little, but I can’t just trust you to take over completely. I’m pretty important around here. There’s a lot of things I need to— Stop rubbing my shoulders, Mansquito. I have a lot to do and— okay, that’s the spot. Maybe five minutes.”
Mansquito: “Five minutes? That’s fine. I mean, I just want you to release that stress, brain. How’s that? Would you like a drink? I happen to have some merlot over here.”
Jeremy’s Brain: “No. I mean, I guess one glass wouldn’t hurt. Um, Mansquito? This wine tastes kind of funny. In fact, my head’s starting to—”
And that’s it. With it’s hypnotic, rohypnol-esque badness a Sci-Fi original movie takes over my higher functions and knocks my brain out for two hours. As the credits roll at the end, my brain starts to come around. After an awkward silence, I get up and my brain realizes it feels more energized. It’s recharged. It just woke up from the best nap it’s ever had. I run back to the computer, optimize those queries like nobody’s business, and get started on the next big thing. Eventually, my brain will start to remember a few fuzzy scenes of genetically altered mosquitoes, but we never really talk about it. The “brain naps” may be my only secret to sanity, and we both know they are uncomfortably necessary.
