Why does it rain during cherry blossom viewing? The truth about 'rain-bringers' and the coincidental traps set by our brains

The time has come to stare intently at the weather forecast in preparation for our weekend 'hanami' cherry blossom viewing.

I check for the 'sunny' icon a week in advance and feel relieved, only to be shaken by the 'small cloud' icon that appears three days before.

Seeing the '60% chance of rain' figure the night before, I quietly despair.

When planning a cherry blossom viewing, I find myself searching for ominous numbers first thing.

Even though no one ordered me to, why does our brain's 'selfishness' make us check the precipitation probability and confirm our bad luck by saying, 'See, it's me again'?

It is as if a meddlesome filing clerk lives inside my brain, determined to make me believe I am a 'rain-bringer'.

We repeat this emotional rollercoaster, which no one asked us to go on, every year during this season.

And then, the day arrives.

As the rain starts to fall just as predicted, while folding up our wet picnic mats, we always mutter the same thing.

'I knew it. Whenever I make plans, it always ends up like this.'

This moment, when we become convinced of a 'slight malice from the world' directed only at us.

Actually, hidden within it is a 'statistical trick' set by our brains.

The culprit was not the power to summon rain clouds, but our own 'brain'.

In the world of psychology, there is a phenomenon with a rather grand name called 'illusory correlation'.

In short, it is a mechanism where 'the brain arbitrarily registers two completely unrelated events as a powerful set menu'.

For example, the special once-a-year event of 'cherry blossom viewing' and the negative, intense experience of 'rain'.

When these two happen at the same time, a rather diligent secretary in charge of memory in our brain places only that event at the top of the desk, saying, 'This is the news you need right now!'

On the other hand, 'days when we went cherry blossom viewing but it was normally sunny' or 'days when it rained normally but it wasn't cherry blossom viewing'.

These peaceful and boring facts are sent straight to the shredder along with 'unnecessary flyers' by that secretary.

As a result, our memory albums end up filled only with self-falsified statistical data that says 'cherry blossom viewing equals rain'.

The brain was simply trying to efficiently remember memorable events.

Yet, that 'well-intentioned' function leads us to believe in a curse without any scientific basis: that we are a 'rain-bringer'.

When you think about it that way, doesn't this 'diligent secretary' working busily inside our brains seem like a mysterious entity?

Our talent for rewriting coincidence as 'destiny'.

What's more, this collection of memories, which runs contrary to our intentions, accelerates the more we look forward to something.

The brain is constantly making predictions about what will happen tomorrow, and it uses a substance called dopamine to intensely etch the 'surprise' into our memory when those predictions are wrong.

The expectation that 'tomorrow will definitely be sunny!' is sublimated into a lifelong 'memory of misfortune' the moment you are struck by a single drop of rain.

In other words, it may not be that you are a 'rain-bringer,' but simply that your secretary read your passion for 'genuinely looking forward to that day' and archived it dramatically.

By the way, today, April 4th, is also known in Japan as 'Happiness Day.'

It's called 'happiness' because two '4s' (shi) come together.

Such positive wordplay is, in a sense, just another one of the brain's 'wonderful rationalizations'.

If that's the case, if you think of the rain on your cherry blossom viewing day as just a slightly excessive production by your brain, which went out of its way to choose this day to stimulate your memory, it's strange how even your wet hair starts to look charming.

Now, about this sound of rain tapping on the window.

It may have a fancy name like 'illusory correlation,' but in the end, our brains might just love us so much that they are trying too hard to make our boring daily lives a little more dramatic.

This sophisticated memory system that humanity has polished over tens of thousands of years.

How does God intend to explain the fact that this crystallization of evolution is currently being completely defeated by this 'cold drop' that is slowly soaking my socks?

The expansion of the universe and the mysteries of the brain are nothing but irrelevant noise in the face of this 'coldness in my toes' right now.

...Oh, come to think of it, I forgot to buy bread for tomorrow's breakfast.

I shouldn't be standing here staring at my damp shoes while listening to the sound of the night rain.

▼ For those who want to gaze at a little more 'wonder'

If you choose three lines, two will move faster than yours. That feeling of defeat the moment you join a queue. Actually, this is also the work of the same brain mechanism as the rain mentioned here.

Is the world watching you? The brain's little 'filtering' mechanism that makes the same logo on the sneakers you just bought seem to flood the streets.