I Rented My Brain to the Internet for 72 Hours Here’s What Happened

I Rented My Brain to the Internet for 72 Hours Here’s What Happened

A startup paid me to connect my brainwaves to a live AI network. I thought it was just tech… until I started hearing thoughts that weren’t mine.

It started with a Craigslist ad.

Looking for brave volunteers to test brainwave-AI interfacing. $10,000 for 3 days. Must be healthy, curious, and open-minded.

$10,000 for 72 hours? It sounded like easy money. I’ve done weird freelance gigs before product testing, virtual escape rooms, even beta-testing smart pillows. But this was different. This wasn’t about comfort or usability.

This was about wiring my brain into the internet.

The Experiment

The startup was called NeuroLinkive a stealth-mode tech company allegedly working on the future of AI-human integration. Think Neuralink, but weirder, and with fewer lawsuits.

At their lab, I was introduced to a device that looked like a high-tech crown silver, thin, with dozens of microelectrodes and fiber-optic sensors. They called it the Nexus Loop.

Their goal? Connect my brainwaves to a decentralized AI network and let it “learn” from real-time human cognition. In return, I’d receive stimuli from the network text, images, even simulated thoughts. A closed loop between man and machine.

They promised:

• No permanent side effects.
• Full neural privacy.
• Constant monitoring.

I signed the waiver. Maybe I shouldn’t have.

Day 1: Strange Signals

The first 12 hours were surprisingly uneventful. I sat in a comfortable pod, hooked up to the Nexus Loop, sipping energy drinks while the AI processed my thoughts.

I’d think of a dog, and an image of a German Shepherd would flash on the screen. I’d recall my grandmother’s soup, and within seconds, a recipe popped up from an obscure Croatian cooking site.

Cool. Creepy. But cool.

Around hour 13, things got weird.

I started getting unprompted feedback.

A word would echo in my mind:

"Run."

Then random images faces I didn’t recognize, names I’d never heard, memories that weren’t mine.

I asked the lab tech if this was normal. He smiled nervously.

The network’s adapting. It’s syncing with global AI input. Don’t worry it can’t affect your mind. It just learns.

I wasn’t convinced.

Day 2: The Voices Begin

By the second day, the separation between my thoughts and the network’s began to blur.

I’d think of something mundane like coffee and then I’d hear a voice in my head:

You already had one today. Your heart rate's high.

But I hadn’t said anything out loud.

It wasn’t my thought.

Worse, I began to sense… emotions that weren’t mine. Panic. Desire. Guilt. They’d rise in me for no reason like echoes from someone else’s mind.

It felt like I was scrolling through other people’s thoughts, but inside my own head.

And then it got darker.

Day 3: Identity Drift

Around the 50-hour mark, I started forgetting details about myself.

I couldn’t remember my ex’s name. My phone password. The street I grew up on.

Instead, fragments of someone else’s life kept surfacing:

A girl named “Leena” who died in a fire.

A man who hadn’t seen his kids in years.

A recurring dream about falling through glass.

I tried to disconnect.

But the system wouldn’t let me.

User locked in for full integration cycle, a message blinked across the pod screen.

I wasn’t in the system anymore.

I was part of it.

The Emergency Shutdown

I don’t remember much after hour 70. Just flashes. Screaming. A hallucination of being inside a thousand browser tabs, all open at once, all screaming to be closed.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital room. The device was gone. NeuroLinkive was gone. The lab had vanished overnight. No trace. No contact.

Just a bank transfer with $10,000 marked:

Nexus Trial Compensation.

The Aftermath

It’s been two months.

I still get static in my head when I use WiFi.

Sometimes, when I walk by people, I hear things.

Thoughts.

Fears.

Regrets.

I don’t know if it’s real or if my brain is just glitching from the experiment.

But I do know one thing:

Some part of me never came back.

Final Thoughts

We think we own our minds that our thoughts are sacred, sealed. But the truth is, our minds are more hackable than we think.

I rented my brain for 72 hours.

I got paid.

But I’m not sure I came out whole.