Pinky and the Brain, Brain Brain Brain!

Well the brain training is over, so I’m back being dull again. What am I talking about? Well two months ago a friend of mine told me about this test you could do in a hospital and get paid for it. What? I’m not getting drugged, no way, and for G’s sake they sterilize you as ‘this comes with it for free’.



No, no, you are getting it all wrong! It’s fun, it really is. I did not have to take any pills, you have to do some exercises for six weeks long. Your exercises and results will be measured and put next to a group of people who didn’t exercise (and if you want to know; yes they get less money of course).

So what do you do ? Well it is training like hell, for a maximum of around an hour per week, for six weeks long and take one MRI Scan at the beginning watching Finding Nemo and at the end, watching some old cartoon about some stupid cat running after a highly intelligent mouse (you know! But I lost the name, you may hit me for that).



So you get paid by watching? Yep, and doing some of these tests, and you will be escorted by three naked nearly graduated nurses, or well almost naked… or maybe I’d imagined that. Well it’s okay we all know we are thinking every five minutes of… I’m drifting away; back to the subject. They were pretty though.


For me it was the first time doing this MRI Scan, and I have to confess; it is frightening at the beginning. I felt the first hour quite uncomfortable in this huge toilet paper holder making sounds like one of those old cassette decks you’d dropped for over a hundred times, mixed with Autechre and Aphex Twin in reverse.

The most frightening part is when it is all dark. The lights are off, you can’t see a thing and you are stuck in this machine. Your head is stuck in a barred bucket, you feel trapped in a small sewer. You have elastic bands all over you to hold you from moving. If necessary you can press the emergency button wired on your side. You are seconds away to be send out to space. Then the sounds starts. Lift off.


The whole machine, as so it feels, starts to move, like a theme park attraction. You hear multiple sounds, from the cluttering sound of a jamming cd, to the high voltage beep sound of an old television. Simultaneously, and sometimes differing in speed and wave length. Amazing. You start to focus on this ultra dolby digital surround sound. As in you are in the seat of a machine where Jodie Foster should be. You are to be send out to another world. Then somebody asked through your headphone if you are still awake.