Perception

It struck me yesterday as I was waiting in line at Taco Time that maybe our reality isn't actually real. I just had a sudden terrified thought that maybe a $20 wouldn't suffice an $8 ticket, but that it is merely what we've been taught to believe. And why are the numbers like that? What if E came before C? What if it does and we're all wrong?
      What if my reality is different from the boy's who sat next to me on the plane. Obviously, our immediate realities - him living in Miami, and me in Seattle - are different. But what if it's entirely different? What if I'm the only person who experiences airplanes the way I do? What if what I think happens when I'm driving isn't actually what other people perceive. The bubbles in carbonated soda - maybe the sensation it gives my tongue is a complete fabrication a la my mind? The mind is a powerful thing, you know.
     When we get itches, what's really happening is a defensive mechanism. Our senses pick up a microscopic (and sometimes not so microscopic) foreign object brushing up against our skin. That sends a signal to our brain which tells us we need to scratch. Not because 'we're itchy' but because we need to ward off the epidermis invasion. It's actually pain; scratching is. The brain categorizes it as minor pain that distracts us from the fact that something is touching us that shouldn't be.
      Have you ever tried to not scratch an itch? To deliberately not scratch it? The urge seems to intensify to me. And that is all completely in my head.