Interesting stuff bill and I quite agree that developing a thesis via posts on a bulletin board is not likely to be a good way! But from the brief post so far it sounds like you concentrated on where the variation comes from, which is a little different. These experiences appear to show that at some level the brain has decided on the choice but the concious mind then continues to 'decide' and several seconds later reports what the brain settled to. Which is, to use the formal.scientific term, damn peculiar.