My mind sometimes has trouble shutting down.
So naturally, one afternoon, it latched onto coconuts.

This happened in the Caribbean, where coconuts are everywhere, lounging under palm trees like they pay rent. Back home in Montreal, my usual habitat, coconuts are exotic celebrities you meet only in grocery aisles, wearing price stickers and an air of mystery. But here? They fall from the sky. Casually. Like it’s no big deal.

Every now and then, you even see one drop. No warning. No apology. Just gravity doing what gravity has done since the beginning of time.

And that’s when my brain said:
“Hey. How many people die from this?”

Now, to be fair, coconuts are not marshmallows. They are dense, armored, aerodynamic skull-seekers. A coconut falling from a tall palm tree reaches a velocity that physics textbooks describe using words like force and impact and that’s going to hurt.

So I did what any calm, regulated adult would do.
I looked it up.

Turns out, coconut-related injuries, and yes, even deaths, are more common than people realize. Not common in the “this will happen to you tomorrow” sense, but common in the “this is not entirely made up by an anxious brain” sense.

This led to a perfectly reasonable conclusion:
Sitting directly under a palm tree may not be the best life choice.

Walking near them? Fine, but maybe with some situational awareness. A cautious person might keep their distance. A very cautious person might avoid them altogether. A me, apparently, started wondering whether helmets should be standard beachwear.

And then my OCD clinician brain woke up, stretched, and said:
“Ah. Interesting.”

Is this OCD?

Short answer: no.
Longer answer: also no, but let’s talk about why.

Thinking, “Hey, coconuts fall and that could hurt” is not OCD. That’s called having a functioning brain with access to Google. It can be explained by temporary overstimulation, novelty, or overestimating likelihoods while on vacation, an environment where your brain is already slightly drunk on sun and rum.

A coconut falling on your head is unlikely. That uncertainty is either tolerated (shrug, beach life) or managed (I’ll sit five feet over there). Problem solved. No spirals required.

But here’s where it gets interesting.

When coconuts become an OCD problem

From an inference-based perspective, OCD is not about danger, probability, or intolerance of uncertainty. It’s about how the mind decides something is relevant when it isn’t.

ICBT would say this:
The actual likelihood of a coconut landing on your head is irrelevant.

What matters is when the mind bypasses the senses and starts telling a story anyway.

OCD begins when coconuts are no longer overhead, but mentally omnipresent.

You’re not under a palm tree.
There are no coconuts nearby.
You’re indoors. Possibly in Canada. Possibly in winter.

And yet…
What if?

Now the mind starts working overtime, not to assess reality, but to manufacture relevance.

This isn’t just “anything could happen.”
This is the mind constructing a narrative where falling coconuts must be taken seriously right now, despite zero sensory evidence.

That’s the crux of OCD.

The coconut multiverse (now playing in your head)

Once the imagination is in charge, the possibilities are endless.

For example:

• Fish have been known to fall from the sky. It’s in the Bible. Science explains it with storms and waterspouts. Totally real.
  So… why couldn’t coconuts be swept up by a freak tropical weather event and dropped somewhere unexpected? Montreal, perhaps. February.
• Palm trees are planted everywhere now. Airports. Hotels. Shopping malls.
  Do they bear fruit? You don’t know. Can you know? What if one does?
• Coconuts are sold in supermarkets. On shelves.
  High shelves.
  Above your head.

And just like that, coconuts are no longer vacation props. They are airborne threats. Potentially everywhere. Waiting.

They’ve gone from piña coladas to projectiles.

This is how OCD works

If this sounds far-fetched, congratulations. You now understand OCD perfectly.

Every OCD story is built exactly like this one. Not from evidence, not from the senses, but from inverse inference: starting with an imagined possibility and reasoning backward until it feels real.

It’s not:

“There is danger, therefore I’m worried.”

It’s:

“What if there were danger? Then I should worry.”

The mind stops checking reality and starts trusting the story instead. Once that happens, the theme doesn’t matter. Germs, harm, morality, identity, or coconuts. The structure is the same.

OCD isn’t a failure to tolerate uncertainty.
It’s a failure to notice when imagination quietly replaced perception.

Final thought (helmet optional)

Coconuts can fall. That’s true.

But when coconuts start haunting you in places where no coconuts exist, you’re no longer dealing with coconuts.

You’re dealing with a mind that’s excellent at spinning stories and has started treating them as relevant, even when nothing in front of you calls for one.

No mockery required. Just clarity. And maybe a nice spot on the beach, five feet away from the palm tree.

© Frederick Aardema, PhD.— The Doubt Illusion Blog (2025)