I have a bit of an odd problem with my knees. Sometimes I get a sensation of intensity around my kneecaps. It’s a kind-of-sharp sensation, a bit like the uncomfortable feeling of a mild stomach cramp. It’s the kind of feeling that you can ignore if you try, but it’s always lurking in the background, waiting to snatch your attention.

Now the strange thing about this sensation is that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my knees, at least physically. Despite being in perfect working order, I can occasionally feel them aching in this odd way, and it’s very much a real part of my conscious experience.

I’ve had this affliction for a number of years now, and it’s only just occured to me that this is literally a bug in my consciousness (in the programming sense, i.e. a behavioural mistake). My brain is producing a conscious experience that misrepresents the underlying reality, and the strangest thing about all of this is that I’ve noticed the bug, I know there’s not actually anything wrong with my knees, and yet the feeling persists.

I’m not sure what started these passing feelings, although I can take a guess. There was a time in my university life when I got incredibly stoned on edibles, and while I was in that state I started to contemplate what a bad climbing fall would feel like, and I think my brain associated the feeling of being very relaxed with this imagined pain. Annoyingly, the more I pay it attention, the more persistent it gets.

This makes me think that it’s not that hard to acquire consciousness-related bugs, and that noticing them once you’ve acquired them is much harder.

What consciousness bugs do you have?