ŷ������

Terrific to see you read this, Caroline. I can understand why you directed us to another good review. I’m wondering about your final statement. How is your understanding of consciousness changed after reading this?

I agree that he writes accessibly. I believe I read this long ago and never documented it. Given your review and the one you linked us to, I can see why I may have lacked the energy to attempt summary and interpretation.

This definitely sounds interesting. I am wondering if he talks about sleep and dreams. This is like the brain is shutting down and doing what??

CanadianReader wrote: "Terrific to see you read this, Caroline. I can understand why you directed us to another good review. I’m wondering about your final statement. How is your understanding of consciousness changed af..."

Hi CR, and lovely to hear from you!

Re why my understanding of consciousness has changed.... There were several instances of the book where things that I would have attributed our higher thinking processes - to our intelligence, education and sensitivity - that were linked by Ramachandran directly to aspects of the brain in an almost mechanical fashion.

"For example, one patient I saw - a neurologist for New York - suddening at the age of sixty started experiencing epileptic seizures arising from his right temporal lobe. The seizures were alarming, of course, but to his amazement and delight he found himself becoming fascinated by poetry, for the first time in his life. In fact, he began thinking in verse, producing a voluminous outflow of rhyme...... Does it follow from this example that all of us are unfulfilled poets, as many new age gurus and mystics assert? Do we each have an untapped potential for beautiful verse and rhyme hidden in the recesses of our right hemisphere?"

To be continued in the next comment box...

He also talks about the right and left hemisphere of our brains as organising our thinking in completely different ways. The left hemisphere is like a general, in charge of our overall thinking, which it does to an extent by using things like denial and confabulation. The right hand hemisphere is like a scout, bring thousands of bits of different information to the attention of the gereral, who has to bring forth a fairly simple overall strategy, and to do this, much of the information brought by the scout is decided not worthy of inclusion in the overall picture, so is denied.

This is illustrated by patients with anosognosia (grossly exaggerated denial, eg saying they can move their immobilized limb when in fact it is immovable.)

Ramachandran was able to temporarily overcome this denial by copying an experiment done by an Italian neurologist - Eduardo Bisiach - in 1987. He filled a syringe with ice-cold water and squirted it into the ear of a patient who had been in denial that her left arm was paralized. The cold water acted as a "truth serum" and brought her repressed memories about her paralyzed arm into her consciousness.

This for me is another example of how the concrete effects of our brain structures, or damaged brain structures, affect our consciousness.

He also talks about savants "persons whose mental capacity or general intelligence is abysmally low, yet who have islands of astonishing talent." This applies to spheres in maths, music and drawing - and he was talking of people with IQs of 50 or 70. The things they sometimes achieve are things we associate with incredibly high levels of intelligence and creativity. The fact that they have been achieved with people with very limited intelligence suggests that some of these talents may reside in the recesses of the brain in a very concrete way (and that sentence is my own thoughts.)

I don't feel I've described this very well, but after reading the book, a lot of things that I have always ascribed to the finer nature of humankind, now seem likely to be the products of the brain in a more mechanical way that I ever imagined before....

Mikey B. wrote: "This definitely sounds interesting. I am wondering if he talks about sleep and dreams. This is like the brain is shutting down and doing what??"


Hi Michael, and good to hear from you!

He says that people spend 25 percent of their sleeping time in REM or dream sleep. During that time their eyes are moving as they experience vivid, emotional dreams - and during this time we are often confronted with unpleasant, disturbing facts about ourselves. Unpleasant, forbidden memories come to the surface, and this may not be a coincidence. Freud believed that in dreams we dredge up material that is ordinarily censored,.... Ramachandran also speculates about the roles of the different sides of our brains. As I described above..... "The left hemisphere is like a general, in charge of our overall thinking, which it does to an extent by using things like denial and confabulation. The right hand hemisphere is like a scout, bring thousands of bits of different information to the attention of the gereral, who has to bring forth a fairly simple overall strategy, and to do this, much of the information brought by the scout is decided not worthy of inclusion in the overall picture, so is denied."

He says that while dreaming, "it may be that the general now has time to engage in a leisurely inspection of the report given to him by the scout, and perhaps this mulling over and interpretation correspond to what we call dreaming. If the material makes sense, he may decide to incorporate it into his battle plan for the next day. If it doesn't make sense or if it is too disturbing for him, he will try and forget about it; that is probably why we cannot remember most of our dreams...."

He adds that this is highly speculative conjecture "and I would give it only a 10 percent chance of being correct."

In the overall discussions of the book, dreaming forms a very small snip of content, however if Ramachandran's theories about dreaming are true, they are important.

Caroline wrote: "I don't feel I've described this very well, but after reading the book, a lot of things that I have always ascribed to the finer nature of humankind, now seem likely to be the products of the brain in a more mechanical way that I ever imagined before....��
On the contrary, I think you’ve described it very well indeed. The ice water to the ear experiment is fascinating. It’s like the brain needs to be provoked with sensory input for the patient to overcome denial. Forget attempts to appeal to reason! And, yes, the matter of idiot-savants—also fascinating and compelling.

Reminds me . . . Years ago I worked in a group home for emotionally disturbed kids. One child had an extremely low IQ, yet she had a remarkable capacity (it appeared strategic and intelligent) to spark conflict between other kids in the home. She seemed preternaturally attuned to the vulnerabilities of the others and could manipulate them with expertise. The director of the home and I marvelled at it. How could this ability exist in someone so obviously intellectually limited?

CanadianReader wrote: "Caroline wrote: "I don't feel I've described this very well, but after reading the book, a lot of things that I have always ascribed to the finer nature of humankind, now seem likely to be the prod..."

Thank you you, I'm glad I made some sort of sense!

How fascinating to hear about the child at the home for emotionally disturbed children where you worked. I think that is exactly the sort of extraordinary behaviour It that we see with savants in other areas. These things are so much at odds with our expectations.

Great review, Caroline! ☺️ This sounds like a fascinating read. Always good when an author explains their ideas clearly!

Rowan wrote: "Great review, Caroline! ☺️ This sounds like a fascinating read. Always good when an author explains their ideas clearly!"

Thanks Rowan and yes, I agree. The clarity was especially appreciate given the complexity of the ground he was covering.