When our brain gets confused, it rarely pauses to admit it doesn’t understand. Instead, its preference is to quickly reach back into memory, finds something sort of similar, then repeat thought patterns used in the past. Scientists call these little brain shortcuts “heuristics.”

Our brain tends to value EFFICIENCY over ACCURACY. It is perfectly okay if a decision is “sort of” right. Sure, that choice may not be dead on, but it’s probably good enough.

So you know these stairs are not real. You just saw them drawn on the flat pavement, but it doesn’t matter, you still see stairs. Your exhausted little brain doesn’t really want to invest the energy to figure out what’s really going on.